THE KILLING OF DR RODNEY IN ‘BURNHAM ERA’ POLITICS

AT LAST, more than three decades after being killed in a bomb blast on the night of June 13, 1980 at the height of widespread anti-government political disturbances in his homeland, an official enquiry got underway in Guyana last Monday to determine the circumstances of the death of the internationally renowned historian and political activist, Dr. Walter Rodney.

Linden Forbes Burnham

The much celebrated author of the seminal work, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” was then 38 years old. As a co-leader of the militant Working People’s Alliance (WPA), the popular charismatic Rodney was in the frontline of mass protests against the highly controversial long-serving government of the People’s National Congress (PNC) led by Executive President, Forbes Burnham.

A sergeant of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), known as Gregory Smith, was allegedly involved in the delivery of a walkie-talkie in which was concealed a remote-controlled bomb. It exploded in Rodney’s lap while he was being driven through the city of Georgetown by one of his brothers, Donald Rodney. Smith was subsequently exposed as an “agent” of the PNC government.

As Guyanese were learning of the very shocking tragedy that night, subsequent reports were to reveal how an ex-sergeant, an electronic expert of the local army, Gregory Smith, was allegedly facilitated by President Burnham’s administration to be flown out of Guyana and taken to nearby French Guiana. There he was to remain, marry and die of natural cause after a period of illness.

Subsequent efforts by a People’s Progressive Party government of then President Dr. Cheddi Jagan (now deceased) had failed to secure Smith’s extradition to participate in an inquiry into the circumstances of Rodney’s death.

Dr Walter Rodney

The government in Paris had explained that consistent with its opposition to the death penalty it was guided by a policy against the extradition of any French national who was likely to face execution on a trial for murder.
When, as a regional correspondent of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA)—I managed to locate Gregory Smith in Cayenne for a telephone conversation, the ex-GDF sergeant was most reluctant to discuss the tragedy of Rodney’s death. He, however, finally claimed that what occurred “was an accident” and he was sorry, but preferred to be left alone. He subsequently died.
“Accident”?

“Accident”? He would go no further. Donald Rodney’s testimony should be quite helpful. He had been given the parcel in which Smith had placed the “walkie-talkie” for Rodney to test as a communication device in the WPA’s ongoing campaign against what was openly branded as the “Burnham dictatorship.”

A subsequent Coroner’s inquest, initiated largely as a consequence of vigorous efforts by Kwayana, was to conclude that death may have resulted from “accident or misadventure” although it had failed to pursue established norms of scientific and other inquiries.

For its part, even after the passing of President Burnham back in 1985 while in office, his party, the PNC, never showed any serious interest in demands for an independent inquiry into the circumstances of Rodney’s death.

Now a new chapter is being written into Guyana’s turbulent pre-and post- independence political history with the independent probe currently underway by three well recognised Caribbean legal luminaries. Under the chairmanship of Barbados’s Queen’s Counsel, Sir Richard Cheltenham the two others are Jamaica’s Q.C Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, and Guyana-born Senior Counsel, Seenauth Jairam, who resides and works in Trinidad and Tobago.

But for those, at home and abroad, familiar with the politics of the PNC-which had acquired a unique record in the Caribbean Region for electoral rigging over a quarter century to maintain political power- they may not be surprised to know that this party has decided to boycott participation in the public inquiry into Rodney’s death.

Currently led by David Granger, a retired brigadier of the GDF, the PNC has given no reason(s) for boycotting the Commission of Enquiry. While there have been expressed reservations over the terms of reference of the Commission, the WPA, currently chaired by Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, is participating.

PNC’s posturings

Among its chosen representatives for this mission would be perhaps one of the most unique cultural/political personalities in Guyana and within CARICOM-Eusi Kwayana. A founding co-leader of the WPA, Kwayana has been quite instrumental in campaigning for an independent probe into what he openly addresses as “Rodney’s assassination”.

Ironically, following the 2011 general elections, and now 38 years after the death of Rodney from the exploded bomb that ripped his body apart, the WPA is functioning as a parliamentary ally of the PNC in a coalition arrangement under the name of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), with Granger as chairman and Roopnarine his deputy.

Despite their own domestic political bacchanal even Trinidadians could wryly remark: “Yuh think politics easy in Guyana! For its part, the PNC under Granger’s leadership, seems to lack the stomach to participate in the current public inquiry and have settled to make self-serving muted noise via the media.

What pathetic behaviour by the PNC for an independent public inquiry into the single most notorious, unprecedented act of political murder of a son of Guyana whose admirable scholarship and commitment to human rights and social justice had earned him worldwide recognition!.

However, the brothers of the late historian, including Donald Rodney-who was with him in the car at the time of his death-are among those to lead evidence. For her part, a once leading activist of the WPA, Karen De Souza, currently a militant human rights advocate, lost no time in telling the Commission of Inquiry that there were sufficient evidence to establish that the Burnham-led ruling PNC’s was directly involved in Rodney’s death via a remote-control bomb which was secretly concealed in a walkie-talkie delivered in a bag by ex-GDF sergeant, Gregory Smith.

From President Burnham, to his successor, the also late President Desmond Hoyte and subsequent PNC leadership of Robert Corbin and currently David Granger, there seems to be NO ONE in this party sufficiently committed and equipped intellectually, morally and spiritually to appear before the three-member Commission of Inquiry.

Not even, apparently, to help weaken doubts about Dr. Rodney as an assassination victim of the party that held political power for almost a quarter century based on DOCUMENTED fraudulent national elections until 1992!
Last week’s feeble, pathetic attempt to, instead, cast doubts on the independence of the Commission’s chairman, would be seen by impartial observers as pure mischief, and in the context of an earlier attempt to do just that against another member of the inquiry.

We must await the Commission’s verdict.