July........a month of the destabilizers

• On 1st July, 1963, incendiary bomb set fire to the Housing and Planning building at Waterloo & New Market Streets.

• On 21st July, 1963, at about 9.45 a.m. charges of dynamite were set at the Rice Marketing Board exploded. The explosion caused damage to the premises. No one was injured. Clement Thompson had later confessed to his sister, Margaret that he and Malcolm Williams, known as Joe Younge had done the act. He was offered $300:- for the job but he was only being paid $25:- per week by Richard Ishmael. The gang of sabateurs of which he was a member was organised by Richard Ishmael. Peter D'Aguiar and L.F.S. Burnham and included one King of 237 Alexander Street, Lacytown and about six Policemen.

• On 25th June, 1963, between 2.30 p.m. and 3.00 p.m. there was a crowd of people on the street in the vicinity of the Education Department Building at High & Cowan Sts. At the time some of the employees were at work in the building including Rita Singh. At 3.00 p.m. there was a loud explosion under the building which damaged it and some of the furniture to the extent of $627:- Rita Singh who was immediately above where the explosion occurred was injured.

• On the morning of July 11, 1979, the building housing the Ministry of National Development and the Office of the General Secretary of the PNC and the GUYSUCO building next to it were destroyed by fire.

• On 14 July 1979,Father Bernard Darke, a Roman Catholic priest, who also took photos for the weekly Catholic Standard, and was also a high school teacher at the St. Stanislaus College located just across the street from the Magistrate Court was killed after he was among a group of people attacked by the House of Israel thugs as he took photographs of what was happening. He was beaten with staves and s he ran towards the street corner, one of them then stabbed him with a bayonet in the back.
  

• On July 17, 1964 Michael Forde’s life ended violently while he was removing a parcel which detonated in his hands. The parcel, which turned out to be a time-bomb was placed in the bookshop under Freedom House by elements that wanted to destabilize the PPP, then in Government and wrecked the chances of it leading Guyana into Independence. It was due to his quick action and brave act that the lives of some 40 persons, many senior PPP leaders, were saved.

• Jagan Ramessar, age 17, a youth just beginning his life and Bholanauth Parmanand a 43-year-old cattle farmer were slain when the security forces indiscriminately opened fire on a large crowd gathered outside the polling station at No 63 Village, Corentyne.The crowd had gathered to peacefully prevail upon the security forces not to subvert the electoral process, under orders from the then government. Because of fears that the ballot boxes would be tampered with in the 1973 general elections, an agreement was worked out between the elections officials and the contesting political parties that one polling agent representing all the opposition parties would accompany the ballot boxes from each polling station and be in position to watch the ballot boxes from the time of closing to the time of opening of the boxes for the official count.

• Now today we have the burning of the main building at the Ministry of Health's Brickdam location which is suspected to be work of arsonists. Reports received so far indicate that the building was set ablaze by 3 persons wearing dark clothing during the wee hours of this morning, who subsequently escaped via a waiting car. This came after a promise by Mark Benschop, Lincon Lewis and Norris Witter to destabilize the country.