5 Policemen in Lethem Town were shot at point blank range and killed - by 1 Makushi man whom the five Policemen had been torturing for the previous three days, after taking him into custody for 'routine questioning' (a code word for 'senseless beating') based on a wealthy rancher's allegation of cattle rustling. The five Policemen had handcuffed him to the bars of a cell for the previous three days - while they all had taken turns beating him all over his body. He was also denied food for the entire three days, after satisfying them that he was indeed innocent - he was released on the morning of December 31st and told to "walk home"; some fifty miles away. As it happenned he saw a truck full of gun-toting Amerindian men heading south on the single road that connects LethemTown to the coastal settlements of Guyana, and he flagged the vehicle down; upon being informed that a rebellion was underway the man who had just been beaten by the non-Amerindian Police of Lethem town for the last three days - begged to join so he could "get revenge on those bitches" to use his own words. He was hoisted aboard the truck and given a semi-automatic rifle with a full magazine. Upon reaching Lethem the vehicle headed straight for the Police Station where the 'brave' officers hid in fear, their innocent victim of the last three days recounts how he "shot the first one in the head as soon as he entered the door - killing him instantly, then stood over the other four one by one as they begged for their lives before he shot them too". It must be noted here that this man claims that the same Policemen raped one of his sisters in the same Police Station several months before his own savage beating.

1 non-Amerindian civillian who was illegally squatting on Makushi territory was shot and killed when he opened fire on a a group of Makushi men who ordered himto "get off their land and go back to Georgetown".

6 non-European Rupununi cattle ranchers (who did not support the rebellion) were shot and wounded in reprisal attacks by Makushi and Wapishana men who had been brutalised by the police as a result of unproven cattle rustling allegations.

The Venezuelan Army (without the knowledge of the then Venezuelan President) ALLEGEDLY assured the Amerindian rebels that if they held the Rupununi for a certain number of days - that they would move their troops into the Rupununi to protect the Amerindians and safeguard their liberation. The Brazillian Army ALLEGEDLY moved 20,000 troops to near the Guyana border to advance a secret desire of the time to incorporate the Rupununi Region into the Federal Republic of Brazil.

On January 2nd 1969, the Guyana Defence Force arrived in the Rupununi with orders to put down the rebellion, but before the GDF troops landed the Venezuelan Armed Forces (who have always considered Amerindians west of the Essequibo river in Guyana to be 'Venezuelan citizens'), fearing that 'their citizens' would be massacred; covertly airlifted all the rebels and their families to Bolivar State in southern Venezuela where an entire settlement in Santa Helena was subsequently constructed for them.

Finding their intended victims beyond reach, the GDF commanding officers and soldiers vented their rage on the innocent Makushi and Wapishana tribesmen and women left behind.

53 Amerindian homes were burned to the ground.

81 Amerindian girls and women were raped, one of them was a 12 year old Makushi virgin at the time who was merely a cousin of one of the rebels - she was raped with a Coca-Cola bottle by Guyanese soldiers so that she would be better abled to 'accommodate' them; she was then gang-raped by the entire 30 man platoon who left her bleeding and unconscious.

147 Makushi and Wapishana men and boys were arrested and sentenced to between 1 and 3 years of imprisonment in Georgetown.

326 Makushi and Wapishana men and boys between the ages of 14 - 61 were severely beaten, some into unconsciousness. 7 Makushi men who were suspected of being of the group that fired a Bazooka (unsuccessfuly) at the GDF aircraft as it landed at the Lethem airstrip - were confined for 2 days in the Lethem Abbatoire with the roting corpses of the 5 dead policemen.

An estimated 500 head of Amerindian owned cattle were slaughtered.

An Estimated 70-100 Amerindian males (mostly Makushi) were shot and killed by soldiers of the Guyana Defence Force who roamed the north Rupununi Savannas exacting a heavy retribution on the Makushi tribe for being the principal tribal participants in the failed rebellion.

None of the Makushi and Wapishana victims of the atrocities of January 1970 were rebels. Their only 'crime' was being members of Tribal Nations that dared to retaliate against intolerable conditions in their own territories - a right that is enshrined in the third paragraph of the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These atrocities have never been reported in the media in any detail, merely alluded to in vague references to the 'Rupununi Rebellion' ; and they remain the darkest secret in the history of the Republic of Guyana - who's mythical motto is ' one nation, one people, one destiny'. Additionally, the rape of Amerindian females by GDF soldiers, Police brutality, illegal occupation of Amerindian territories,illegal arrest and detention Amerindians by non-Amerindian Police in Amerindian territories and rampant anti-Amerindian prejudice by non-Amerindian Guyanese continue to be serious problems in Guyana ; where it seems as though virtually every international law applicable to indigenous peoples is violated on a daily basis with seeming impunity.

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