THE PARTY OF AGING WARRIORS MAY BE ABOUT TO WITNESS ITS FINAL SUNSET

Sep 23, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The WPA faces an implosion. The recent comment by one of its co leaders is either a reflection of internal divisions or it can create a rift that would be the final nail for an ailing party.
The WPA has been in poor shape for some time, having seen its mass popularity evaporate in the years following the assassination of its charismatic co-leader, Dr. Walter Rodney.  The party never recovered from that blow.
Rodney excited the working class of Guyana and led a campaign aimed at discrediting, undermining and unseating the Forbes Burnham regime. He enjoyed massive popular support across class and race lines in Guyana, and forced the regime to declare a campaign of terror on the party and the Guyanese working class. His death was the culmination of that onslaught which also took other lives.
A few years later, following the invasion of Grenada, the Working People’s Alliance concluded that the Americans would never allow a leftist government in Guyana and took a decision to retreat from socialism, adopting an amorphous concept called Rodneyism. This was the second blow to a party struggling to keep itself alive following the devastating loss of its most prominent leader.
The 1992 elections created further problems for the party and ensured that it would never become a major political force in a democratic Guyana.
Those elections not only saw Guyanese reverting en masse towards the traditional ethnic camps but also left the party in dire financial straits.  Participation in those elections were costly and in the end, the party was burdened with a huge debt, forcing it to sell off its headquarters.
Having lost the support that it enjoyed during the days of the “civil rebellion”, it has since 1992, struggled to maintain itself as a significant political force.
Its original leaders have aged; some have become ill; others have migrated; the middle class from which it drew large support went its own way; and the party has been unable to attract an injection of new blood.
From the stage where it once believed that it could win an election in Guyana on its own, it was forced to align with other smaller parties just to have a seat in the National Assembly.
Yet despite the progressive decline in its political health, and perhaps relevance, the Working People’s Alliance remained alive and kicking. In recent times it has been trying to exercise its limbs and take a more aggressive stance against the government.
It still however remained primarily a party of aging warriors, hanging on to a memory, a glorious chapter whose pages it constantly wished to be kept open  as a reminder of its contributions to a free and democratic Guyana.
That chapter it now seems is going to be rewritten with the astounding admission by one of the most prominent leaders of the WPA that the party was accumulating weapons prior to Rodney’s demise, an issue that the party had always skillfully avoided for the past thirty years.
During the 25th anniversary of the death of Dr. Rodney, there was a panel discussion on a local television channel discussing the life of Rodney. Involved were some of the party’s activists and overseas supporters.
The host of the discussion surprised the entire panel when he directly put it to them that Rodney was engaged in armed struggle. The panel was caught off-guard by this line of questioning, assuming all the time that the host was sympathetic to their cause. They tried to deflect answering the question with one person having to claim that he was not there to discuss that issue.
Five years later, this issue has returned not to haunt but, as it now seems, to divide the party.
Following the screening of a documentary in which controversial comments were made, we are told that the Rodney family and the Walter Rodney Foundation, issued disclaimers about what was said in the film.
But there is no way that present leaders of the WPA can avoid the storms that this issue will create both within and outside of the party. It will cause an internal upheaval and exacerbate developing tensions over the direction that the party is presently taking.
We may be witnessing the imminent retirement of Dr. Roopnaraine from active involvement in the WPA. There is bound to be criticism and anger at the comments he made because from all accounts the party was ill prepared and uncomfortable with this soul- bearing.
If Dr.  Roopnaraine is sanctioned for his comments, then it will be another blow for the party. If he is forced into retirement or asked to take a back seat within the party, then the forces that are rocking the cradle will move the WPA in a certain direction that will lead to the total disintegration of the WPA.

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