Walter Rodney CoI… PNC Govt. set the stage for killing – Eusi Kwayana

May 28, 2014 News

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By Abena Rockcliffe
The political party which governed Guyana at the time of the death of Dr. Walter Rodney had

created the political atmosphere and set the scene, both literally and figuratively, for his assassination. This is the view of Co-founder of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Eusi Kwayana.
The 89-year-old Kwayana appeared as a witness yesterday at the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the bomb-blast killing of Dr. Rodney.
As the CoI reconvened yesterday morning, Rodney’s younger brother, Edward Rodney, completed his testimony.
He was asked by Commissioner Seenath Jairam whether his brother had, at anytime, articulated violent means to get the then government out, to which he replied that his brother may have said that on more than one occasion. He explained that 1979 was dubbed the year of the overturn. He said this was because African dictators were overturned in that year and it was the deceased Rodney’s hope that the then Guyanese Leader, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham would have been too.
Rodney told the commission that 1979 was supposed to be the year of change and good transformation. He said his brother had explained what violence meant in relation to change but advocated more the use of labour strikes than violence to topple the Burnham administration.
After Edward Rodney summed up, Kwayana took the stand.
Kwayana, a close friend of the late Dr. Rodney and one of the founders of the WPA, was led through his evidence by Attorney at Law Glenn Hanoman.
Kwayana was first asked to describe the political atmosphere at the time of Rodney’s assassination. The US-based Guyanese had a unique way of testifying. Ninety per cent of the time he did not give a straight answer. Instead the veteran political activist gave what some would refer to as “history lessons” and left the commissioners to make their own assessments.
To the question of the political atmosphere, Kwayana answered that the population was under severe restraint to the extent that one had to apply to the government for a quota of newsprint. He said that those who wanted to print newsletters couldn’t, “…and it was into that atmosphere that Rodney returned.”
According to Kwayana, Dr. Rodney returned at a time when a great percentage of the country’s population was looking forward to him doing so.
The political activist said that upon his return to Guyana, Dr. Rodney was appointed by the academic board to “a position” in the history department of the University of Guyana. But the University’s Council “which was, and I believe still is, political, overturned that appointment.”
He said that as a result, the WPA began to mobilize all who had children, political parties, and other groups because, “we felt that it was everybody’s business that this scholar couldn’t be of an asset to the university.”
Kwayana recalled that the WPA hosted protest demonstrations and public meetings which were subjected to attacks and people were assaulted. A public meeting held at Cummings and Middle Streets was victim of such an attack, said Kwayana. He noted that at the very beginning of an address by the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan the meeting was disturbed.
Kwayana explained that there was a “legitimacy war”  between the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the People’s National Congress (PNC) about who was the “rightful ruler of Guyana…So they (the PNC) felt like it was a challenge and that “we had no right to give the microphone to the their rival.”
He said that “freedom was closing down” and hostility prevailed.

SCENE BEING SET
Kwayana said that there was “no way under the sun” that a state newspaper would have requested an interview from Dr. Rodney unless there was a political purpose. He said it was strange when an interview with Dr. Rodney was requested by the Chronicle. But not surprisingly, the first question posed to Dr. Rodney during the interview was, “you do know that it was because you were a trouble maker in Tanzania and Jamaica you didn’t get the job (the University appointment)?”
Kwayana said that this interview was in February 1980 and Dr. Rodney was assassinated in June of the same year. “The scene was being set; here is a troublemaker, if anything happens to him it’s no one’s fault.”
At this point Kwayana diverted to say “There is no particular recognition of the right to life…There has been a change of government not a change of culture…from Vincent Teekah to Ronald Waddell”.
Kwayana, going back on track, recounted that he last saw Rodney on the day of his death as he was about to go to his daughter’s school. He said the next he heard of Rodney was when Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine woke him up with the “terrible news.”
Kwayana said that quite some time before Rodney was assassinated, “I don’t know why, but four armed guards were placed at the four corners of the (Camp Street) prison block”.
He said however that after Rodney’s death, he and a few others spoke to people in the area who revealed that the guards had been removed a day or two before the fatal incident.
Kwayana opined that the guards were removed to encourage “this proposed bombing… the state was instructed to make the scene more inviting.”
Kwayana said that this tied the state into the crime.

WPA NOT LINKED TO BLOODSHED
It was alleged that Rodney was at the time of his death collecting arms and ammunition to aid in his quest to oust the then PNC government.
Kwayana, who wrote a book which reflects his close working relationship with Rodney, admitted that Rodney said the PNC must go and “by any means necessary.” He said, however, that while Rodney threatened violence, it was political rhetoric. “No one from the WPA has ever been accused of bloodshed or wounding, we weren’t violent, and we don’t have such a record or have ever been accused of that,” he added.
Kwayana said that Rodney told the gathering at a public meeting that violence is always regrettable, even as he explained the role of violence during a fight for change.
Kwayana told the commission that “Rodney endured a mysterious kind of hostility from the State even before he called the country’s leader King Kong.”
Kwayana is slated to continue his testimony today.
Dr. Walter Rodney was a politician/historian who was killed on June 13, 1980, near the Camp Street prison. He was 38 years old at the time. After his assassination, he received several honours posthumously, among them, in 1993, the Government of Dr. Cheddi Jagan conferred on him the country’s highest National Award, the Order of Excellence, and the Walter Rodney Chair in History was created at the University of Guyana.

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