Did Mrs. Patricia Rodney get conned by the PPP? Did she?

Mar 23, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Walter Rodney Commission recommences today. All eyes will be on it because PPP personnel have testified about the terror of the time when Walter got killed. But what about the terror of the time which claimed Courtney Crum-Ewing?
Let’s take a look at Walter’s wife, Patricia, in the light of the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing. In the December 16 issue of the Kaieteur News, there was a letter captioned, “Freddie Kissoon has stumbled,” by Dennis Wiggins.
Mr. Wiggins’s piece was a response to my column of three days earlier (“Mrs. Patricia Rodney Stumbles,” Dec 14) in which I looked at the role the wife of Walter Rodney, Patricia, played in the implementation of the Rodney Commission.
I will admit that my analysis was not in praise of that role. Since then I planned to reply to Dennis. I now reassert my position – Patricia Rodney stumbled and badly. I am contending that Mrs. Rodney got conned by the PPP but she was not an unwilling partner. She got outmanoeuvred.
Interesting to note is that Mrs. Rodney came, testified, and left immediately. It was a pity she didn’t stay around to answer some questions. I would not have interviewed her but by way of my column or a letter I would have asked two questions. And I think Mrs. Rodney owes the Guyanese people the answers to those questions and she should be pressed to speak on the two curiosities.
First, why did she choose all by herself to negotiate with the PPP leadership to have the inquiry as late as 2014, thirty four years after Walter’s death without even the slightest input from the WPA? I have foolproof evidence that the WPA was not contacted by Mrs. Rodney. My stated position was that she stumbled in going it alone.
Secondly, who were the PPP leaders and/or state officials with whom she negotiated to have the commission implemented? And did she trust them to shape the Commission without any politicking or realpolitik intention by the PPP, given that they agreed after twenty two years in power to have the inquiry? And after they had become a minority government desperately to cling to power that was not in jeopardy.
If Mrs. Rodney answered the second question in the affirmative, then I believe she got conned. And I am not sure that Mrs. Rodney deserves deep sympathy for the predicament she has found herself in. Surely at her age and after twenty-two years of insane power by the PPP, did Mrs. Rodney trust the PPP to hold a proper and professional commission?
The direction of the Rodney Commission has become overgrown with mountains of weeds and wild vines that obfuscate truths and facts that are relevant to understanding the political conspiracy that led to Walter’s death. This Commission has taken the shape of a condemnation of the era of the PNC in power with the testimony of Clement Rohee and Charles Ramson adding absolutely nothing except to accuse the PNC of doing what the PPP is currently doing.
The character of this Commission has been tainted. This inquiry is a platform for realpolitik and nasty politics with Walter’s death long faded in the background. As the days stretch on, the comedy of errors and the theatre of the absurd will continue. The little and big sins of the Burnham Government will hang on the clothes line so large and so conspicuously that it is hoped by the people who conned Mrs. Rodney that it will bring them political capital.
This was what the Commission was all about – to remind Guyana that a President named Forbes Burnham did bad things to Guyana and the PPP saved the day. This is what Rohee and Ramson literally told the Commission. The Commission itself is part of the comedy act. The Chairman should have long recused himself after he made certain statements at the time of Walter’s death. He should have done the right thing and leave.
The impartiality of another member of the Commission was also called into question and that should have engendered advocacy of his removal. The Commission itself cannot withstand criticism of being biased. In my opinion, there are big bouts of partiality in those hearings.
I believe Patricia Rodney is entitled to know what happened to her husband but there is a big but. She can only know what took place given the right circumstances. Can you have a genuine cricket match when one of the umpires is the father of one of the captains? The nagging question about the Walter Rodney Commission is why the PNC remains in it. Doesn’t it have better things to do with its time?

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