Sincere remorse must of necessity be followed by sincere forgiveness

Apr 03, 2014 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
“As an intending witness, I make no comment on the composition and the Terms of Reference of the (Rodney) commission. That is for “stakeholders.” I say only that in relation to the appointment of the commission the record will show that all parties had their negative moments. There is wisdom in not entrusting defense of human rights only to political parties,” Mr. Eusi Kwayana notably reminds, and counsels in the SN of 30-3-14 titled “PPP cited Mrs. Rodney’s letter for propaganda purposes”.
Has Mr. Kwayana now validated the astuteness of the extended Rodney family which wanted to avoid “entrusting defense of human rights only to political parties” so specified to the PPP/C government’s formation of the Rodney Commission of Inquiry (RCOI)? That faceless WPA statement which subsequently authorized WPA “members” to also testify later came only after Mr. Kwayana’s letter was published. Does it mean its unsure leaders will abstain?
As members, they may, or may not, giving them the space and time to later select which hat to wear presently hung in the PNC’s main bedroom, cosmetics and all. For sure the rhythm of the drums will beckon, enchant and influence those who are with enough spirit to attend all bedecked in their best flounce-off dress. Bet ambition’s sunshine from UG is with deft teflon sheen at the RCOI.
Now that it’s each man for himself to avoid any blame and complicity in their leader’s death, what can be expected?  Should Dr Rodney’s family take comfort that the WPA has relieved itself on them before the big event?
The magnificence of Dr Walter Rodney’s springs from the fact that his excellence was not motivated by race but rather the resolve to reunite all, unlike some with partisan interests surrounding him. His secret agreement with Dr Cheddi Jagan intended to eventually merge the WPA with the PPP.
Since it was an open secret that Dr Rodney did not trust some in the WPA, the merger was apparently only known within his very tight inner circle!  Who were they?  The task of merging the WPA with the PPP would have crushed those who found it repugnant and unacceptable. How they resolved this problem was destined to become historic. Since by his own race he was automatically and officially prejudged guilty, he became both the threat and prime target by the same reason for his elimination from within the WPA and “outsider PNC”.
A Rodney dead was better off serving both the WPA and PNC which motivated their collusion.  With him out of the way, the WPA residue expected, the ongoing WPA momentum, not pointing to them, to still easily cruise them into political power, regardless.  That they were all wrong was only due to their own miscalculations.
How accurate or not was the keen historian’s analysis not to trust everyone in the WPA when he picked his beloved brother Donald for the fatal ride?  Did later events prove his suspicions valid? Three strikes and you are out by the rules of the game in baseball.
First strike was open collusion in changing the original PPP/C government parliamentary motion to investigate Dr Rodney’s acknowledged brutal “assassination”, watering it down to his “death”. Did he die in his sleep? The unbending PPP/C instead abstained from its own motion authorizing the RCOI’s formation.
Again, and behold, second strike came just before the 2011 election when the WPA, just a skeleton, awoke in stride to reveal they had stockpiled  weapons…for what purpose and why  was this information  being revealed at that  time?  No answers came.
Third and final strike culminated three decades later in 2011 when the WPA again misfired by its shocking WPA-PNC unholy alliance, subsuming itself under APNU. Some believe it was skillfully engineered to reunite all Afro-Guyanese contesting the 2011 elections. What it accomplished was an awakening of all those latent suspicions in relation to Dr Rodney’s demise.
Nevertheless the majority of those voters who had followed Mr. Raphael Trotman into the AFC in 2006 were recovered into the PNC in 2011 when Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan became leader. The very sick Mr. Trotman, unable to campaign in the 2011 elections, miraculously recuperated to become APNU’s preferred Speaker.
Questions arose geometrically about the open WPA-PNC ties concerning the assassination? Could either risk going into government alone without surety of silence when they both were due “equality” of future spoils?  During what time period was the WPA required to become mutually and publicly acceptable to the PNC by necessary cleansing? Was the WPA’s skeletal resurrection another step towards the future APNU alliance?  Was the WPA’s public admission about its arms buildup to become its baptismal sacrament for mutual paybacks in an APNU government? Did the hidden relationships require public accommodation and consolidation with the weakened negligent PPP/C government on the brink?
“Equality” of closure (or lack of it) in their separate decisions and testimonies contributing to the RCOI findings will almost certainly define both the PNC and WPA. An automatic pardon is guaranteed for full confession and expires after the RCOI. Never in doubt were Dr Rodney’s noble motives and decisions for all Guyanese, regardless of race.
It is indeed interesting that a once extremely tolerant Mr. Kwayana, can now get so very upset that the President, at an Old Year’s frolic, allowed himself to get into public “back balling” trouble, all without any relevance to the RCOI, but noteworthy, still recorded in his SN letter.
Such fuming and fretting in Mr. Kwayana’s letter about some unknown poem by a Kwame Apata, touting some obscure engagement record with a long dead Sir Eustace Woolford, a British Guiana governor, and chiding all those in cahoots with “cowards at Freedom House (who) fell back on a supposed letter from the widowed (RCOI) petitioner….(whom he mocks in mimicry)….  “The woman gave us the apple to eat,” as in the story of the Garden of Eden, one of whose five rivers “circled the whole land of Ethiopia” may only be frustrations boiling over for all he is going through, with no recognition for what he feels is personally owed.
When Mr. Kwayana’s broom sweeps so widely beginning from creation with Adam (Rodney?) and Eve
(Patricia with her tempting apple so like Janet Jagan?), those despicable bygone British and  especially all those present day Freedom House PPP cowards, only fit for garbage, it may indicate an iceberg of  mysteries underneath. For the lone Mr. Apata’s poem to give him soothing comfort should be appreciated.
To his credit Mr. Kwayana did concede that “Those who dismiss ethics as an element of politics and call themselves pragmatist will say that the PPP and any other party has every right to turn anything into an election campaign in order to ‘win”.
Who can still be in doubt to wonder if karma and the creator still decide everything?
Sincere remorse must of necessity be followed by sincere forgiveness where necessary, with the complete truth established during the Rodney Commission of Inquiry.
Sultan Mohamed

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