Citizen Recounts Horrors Passing Through Protestors

7th of September, 2020. Guyana, South America

Recounting my experience getting past the protestors…

It is 4 p.m. and my coworker and I are on our way home in a taxi. We learn that there is a protest and we wouldn’t be able to get by. The collective decision was to brave it by walking. We are greeted by a kind black guy on a motorcycle who urged us to not proceed on our own as we are likely to be targeted. He offers to take me through and vows to ensure my safety.

He goes through a street and back to the public road where protestors run to us with pieces of wood in their hands. One of them hit the motorcycle from the front and urged the motorcycle guy, “Put she down let we deal…” As the fear builds up in my throat—anxiety I have fought so hard to control, he responds, “Is meh gyul, Is meh gyul.”

Nudging me to hold on tight, he accelerates and get past the protestors who were now laughing and making fun of how scared I appeared and warning him that the “other one” wouldn’t get past that easily.

My coworker was robbed of his cash as the protestors pushed their hands into his pocket and relieved him of his cash. Others after us were relieved of their cash and valuables and chased back to the direction they came from. These boys died in the most gruesome way and I understand the emotions boiling at this point. I feel them. I am angry and hurt and pained playing over their tragic demise in my head. Most of us are with you. We sympathize. We are enraged. We want justice to be served but using their death as an excuse to traumatize innocent passersby and rob them is an insult to the message.