The Rodney Commission and Burnham’s fatal flaw

May 07, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I repeat what I wrote in a column weeks ago – that I will not participate in the Rodney Commission of Inquiry. If the inquiry was not set in a political context and in a timeframe where political motives dominate, I would have fervently taken the stand and told what I know, especially the role of two security officials at the time of Walter’s death.
The PPP, like the police in Northern Ireland, think people are stupid and moronic. The police hauled in Gerry Adams to question him about his role in the murder of a woman by the IRA in 1972. That was forty-one years ago. And they did it just three weeks before an election. Any fool would know that the timing of Adams’s arrest was tied to the election.
The identical situation exists in Guyana. On the horizon is the inevitability of the local government poll. If postponed, then a general election will be the replacement. Looked at from all angles, the commission was set up in a context of electoral conspiracy by the PPP. Make the PNC look bad, broadcast all the dirty things the Burnham Government did in the period when Walter Rodney was active; tell East Indians that these are the people the AFC is in bed with and bingo! You will win a majority in the national elections.
Why would anyone bastardize the legacy of Rodney in such a nasty way by playing into the hands of the PPP? There is, however, a positive spin-off from the Commission that will have tremendous value for those who are concerned about the legacy of Forbes Burnham, his historical role, and how strong was his greatness.
Many things will come out of the Rodney Commission that hold tremendous importance for the worshippers and admirers of Burnham in understanding the personality of Burnham. One fact about Burnham will not emerge from the hearing as a specific fact, but will have to be discovered through meticulous analysis of the proceedings. It is the brutal reality that Burnham’s shortsightedness or lack of brilliant strategizing helped to create an international popularity for his enemy, the PPP, and helped to make the PPP a phenomenally strong organization in Guyana.
Today, with the destructive instincts of the PPP set to devastate the future of this country, one man, and one man only is responsible for that tragedy. It is Forbes Burnham. The sooner the worshippers and admirers of Burnham accept this fact, the better it will be for their psyche. If Burnham did not create the fertile bed from which the PPP was able to germinate, Guyana would not be in the mess it is today. Maybe a future would have been there for the countless who are now strewn all over the world.
Forbes Burnham was a very brilliant political thinker. Maybe it came from his love of chess. Burnham knew who was who in the world of politics in Guyana and the Caribbean. The only Guyanese from the fifties onwards who understood the nature of Jagan and his wife was Forbes Burnham.
Burnham knew Jagan was a prisoner of Mrs. Jagan; that Jagan was more emotional than intellectual in understanding Guyanese sociological nuances; that the Jagans gave no recognition to and had no respect for traditional democratic forms of government with accompanying concepts like the neutrality of the civil service; that the Jagans were not interested in any form of democratic inside the PPP itself; that the Jagans rigged their own congressional election; that the Jagans and the PPP were not interested in winning over broad African support but were content to be an Indian party; that the Jagans in power will not run a fair and democratic government.
All these things Burnham knew about the PPP, but Burnham spent his time in power carrying out one tyrannical act after another and within each act lay the expansion of the PPP popularity. How can you expect to weaken your opponent when one morning Guyanese parents wake up and find out that their daughters in the final year of their university studies have to do compulsory national service?
It happened and Cheddi Jagan and his party became the overnight saviour of the nation.
Why would you want to ban one of the most learned historians in the world from working at the country’s only university? Burnham banned Rodney, the PPP took up Rodney’s cause and Cheddi Jagan and the PPP became the overnight saviour of the nation. Why would you want to ban flour and split peas? Burnham did that and Jagan and the PPP became the overnight saviour of the nation. The rest is familiar history.

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The Rodney Commission and Burnham’s fatal flaw

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