Open Letter to the Rodney Commission of Inquiry

Apr 28, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
We take note, and draw your attention to calls from the public carried in the Guyana press for more information on the proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry as it unfolds. Walter Rodney lives in the memory of most Guyanese and in non-Guyanese in every part of the world who were touched by his scholarship, and humanism. It is in this connection that we urge you to make arrangements for the public to access the proceedings through timely information flow.
For justice to be done in this matter the public must be involved. This is why in our original letter sent to the Commission of April 14, we made it clear that in order that the public and those intending to appear is able to plan – we urged the Commission to establish a firm, but reasonable hearing timeline that gives those intending to appear adequate time to plan. In this regard we proposed that hearings should be scheduled in each county of Guyana, including in the mining town of Linden, and in the interior districts of the country.
We also feel that the Commission must consider the difficulty of movement within Guyana, especially for people in the outlying districts. Furthermore, we requested that the Commission consider the cost of internal transport, especially for low income Guyanese. And because most of the people involved in that period now reside overseas – we requested that the Commission consider holding hearings in the Caribbean, North America, the United Kingdom, Suriname, and Venezuela.
Our proposals are intended to ensure that the process is transparent. Transparency of this inquiry is key to the public’s participation and later acceptance of its findings, if and when they are given. To this end we bring the Commission’s attention to a letter we received from a member of the public in London. In a letter sent to the Justice for Walter Rodney Committee, a member of the public in London has asked us to point the Commission “towards recent British judicial inquiries like Lord Justice Leveson on the Press in 2012 or Lord Hutton on the BBC in 2004 where the witnesses were streamed live and all documents made available on the internet.
It made for transparency and much informed debate.” While we are cognizant of your recently announced decision to permit live streaming of the proceedings on the National Communication Network (NCN) – may we remind you that the Commission of Inquiry and its proceedings are nonpartisan; hence we ask whether other communication networks have also been invited and given the privilege to stream the proceedings live as well. We see no reason why streaming should only be consigned to the government’s network.
It is in this context that we call your attention to another letter we received from a Guyanese living in London, where it was suggested that we encourage the Commission to establish a website, as a means of sharing the proceedings with the public. Further, we also seek information from you on whether or not Witness Protection has been arranged and is going to be applied as it was in the Gajraj Commission at that Commission’s request.
Letters such as these should give the Commission pause. We call on the Commission to take justified queries from the public into consideration in its plan to move the process forward. As the Inquiry moves forward and picks up steam, the public must be reassured by the manner the Commission organizes to conduct the people’s business that it should be taken seriously.
The public must be involved and kept informed at every step of the process. We live in a digital age, and we expect the Commission to use available technology to research, retrieve and share relevant documents they intend to use to inform their findings. We also expect the Commission to organize its work in a manner that allows for timely information flows to the public in Guyana and across the world who have an interest in this inquiry. We expect nothing less.
Wazir Mohamed
Associate Professor
Indiana University East

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Open Letter to the Rodney Commission of Inquiry

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