Satyadeow was to be Future President

[Guest guest]

`Many people saw Satyadeow as a future president of the

country.'(Perhaps thats why he was shot.)

 

Guyanese mourn minister, family

600 attend prayer services for Canadians killed abroad

Local community wants Ottawa's help to get answers to crime

Apr. 24, 2006. 04:48 AM

LESLIE SCRIVENER

STAFF REPORTER

 

Toronto's Guyanese community wants Canada to intervene in Guyana after

the brazen murder of the country's agriculture minister and his

brother and sister who were all Canadian citizens.

 

"If a minister of the government cannot be protected, how can ordinary

citizens be protected?" asked Dr. Budhendra Doobay, head of the Vishnu

Mandir Hindu temple in Richmond Hill, after morning services in which

prayers were said on behalf of the minister, Satyadeow Sawh, his

sister, Phulmattie Persaud of Mississauga, and his brother, Rajpat Rai

Sawh of Scarborough.

 

He said representatives of the local Guyanese community — some 130,000

— should meet with federal officials to find a way of resolving the

growing crime problem in Guyana.

 

# Guyana seeks U.S., Canadian help

"This was wanton killing," he said, adding that even three security

guards could not protect Sawh and his family. One of the guards, a

father of five, was also killed in the attack early Saturday morning.

 

About five armed men, masked and bearing rifles, scaled the fence of

Sawh's East Coast Demerara home first shooting the family's dog and

the guards, then wounding the minister.

 

According to reports, the attackers demanded cash and jewellery from

his brothers; although they complied, they were told to lie on the

floor and both were shot. Persaud was dragged out from under a bed,

where she had fled and was shot in the face. Sawh's wife, Satti, hid

in a cupboard until the last shot was fired.

 

That shot, she believes, was directed at her husband's head as the

killers left the house.

 

`Many people saw Satyadeow as a future president of the country.'

 

Joe Jaglall, of the Vedic Cultural Centre

 

"Many people saw Satyadeow as a future president of the country," said

Joe Jaglall, a member of the Vedic Cultural Centre in Toronto, who

worked closely with Sawh here and in Guyana. More than 600 attended

prayer services for Sawh, who attended York University and was for 10

years president of the Association of Concerned Guyanese, and his

family at the Markham temple on Saturday night.

 

"People were asking, `what are we going to do as Canadians?'" Jaglall

said. "Just like our government stepped in for the people who were

murdered in Mexico, people are asking what can our government do to

see that justice is done after these murders."

 

Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo said in a statement on the weekend

that the murders were an attempt to destabilize the country's

democratic government. He also said that the government would seek

"external assistance in tracking down these murderers."

 

Danny Doobay, Guyanese honorary consul in Toronto, agreed Sawh was

well regarded in Guyana. "After the president, he would be Number 2."

 

While the attacks have been presented as a robbery, he also believe

the intention was to create fear and uncertainty in the months leading

up to an Aug. 4 election. "We are now getting into uncharted waters.

If the government can't meet the Aug. 4 deadline, it is at the end of

its legal term. The president can stay in power, but the president

can't rule the country by himself. This puts us into very grey territory."

 

Canada has a history of helping Guyana in the early days of its

democracy, said Doobay, with former federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent

and former Ontario Liberal premier David Peterson leading delegations

to observe the country's elections in 1992.

 

Officers from the Canadian High Commission in Guyana have visited

Sawh's family, said Foreign Affairs spokesman Rodney Moore in Ottawa.

He could not comment on the community's plea for assistance.

 

The Sawh's elder son, Roger, 19, is a student at the University of

Toronto; their younger son, David 16, lived with his parents but was

out with his Canadian cousins at a club at the time of the attacks.

The Toronto contingent, who were visiting to mark the anniversary of

Sawh's mother's death, were to return to Canada yesterday.

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