COI hears…Dr. Rodney asked Gregory Smith to build handmade bombs – Anne Wagner

Mar 25, 2015 News

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By Sunita Samaroo
Dr. Walter Rodney and Former Sergeant of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Gregory Smith were friends who met often and were working against regression in the country that existed under the government of the day.

Though the politician wanted handmade bombs to further his cause, Smith wanted no part in violence.
More than 34 years since Smith has been labeled ‘murdered’ and ‘betrayer,’ his sister and confidante, Anne Rita Wagner came before the Commission of Inquiry yesterday to “clear” her brother’s name.
Wagner told commissioners that despite many accusations those days, her brother was not responsible for the death of the late Dr. Rodney. She said that the politician and his brother, Donald Rodney were the ones who inserted a bomb in the device, since her brother had only created a triggering device at the late politician’s behest.
Wagner said that Smith was a card-carrying member of the Working People’s Alliance and it was the said party that wasted no time in smuggling him to Cayenne, French Guiana, after the bomb-blast that killed their leader on Friday, June 13, 1980.
As Wagner offered her evidence, the inquiry heard that prior to his death, Dr. Rodney had tried persuading the qualified electrician to build handmade bombs to fight against the regression in the country, but Smith refused to do so.
Dr. Rodney’s death, the writer was sure, was an accident; a result of the politician’s own doing.
Wagner, who wrote ‘Assassination Cry of a Failed Revolution: The Truth about Dr. Walter

Rodney’s Death’ with Smith, recently returned from her New York, United States of America residence to offer her version of events.
She testified that she shared a close relationship with her brother and Smith had known and respected Rodney for the man and charismatic politician he was.
FASCINATION WITH ELECTRONICS
Being led by United States-based Guyanese Attorney, Edward Meertins-George, Wagner described her brother as an exemplary student whose “ability to listen and to process information was superb.”
Wagner said he showed an early affinity for electronics and she described him, at age 11,  as having designed and made his own devices to aid around the home.
She told Commissioners that her brother was one of the many Guyanese who in his adult life experienced the hardship during the time the People’s National Congress ruled the county.
The witness explained that because of the political situations prevailing in the country, her brother found it difficult to land a job and it was against that backdrop that he entered the Guyana Defence Force.
Wagner said that in the first two weeks Smith had successfully repaired radars that the British had condemned. She said after he repaired them the Commanding Officer selected him for further studies in electronics.
In 1976, she said he attended the Naval School in England and returned in 1977. Wagner told Commissioners that the said officer challenged him to design and build a mobile communication unit, a project he accepted with the understanding that he would be promoted upon completion.
“He worked constantly and unassisted to complete the unit. On the day of the opening of the exhibition he stood and watched the dignitaries congratulate his commanding officer on a job well done. Time for promotion never came. He got none,” she said.
Her brother, she said, became upset with the hand he was dealt and was certain that it was because he was not a member of the PNC. This, she said, was the reason Smith resigned from the defence force.
PARTY ALLIANCE AND JUNE 13, 1980
The Commission heard that Smith had neither considered himself a member of the then ruling party nor a member or sympathizer of the House of Israel. In fact, she told Commissioners, Smith considered himself a member of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA).
This revelation caused quite a stir among members of the WPA who were seated and listening attentively in the gallery of the High Court Law Library where the sessions are being held. Many of them had long since made it their duty to attend the public hearings daily.
She said that he went to a WPA meeting and he was given a membership card which he signed.
Wagner said that her brother had already fathered five children who were forced to leave the night of June 13, 1980 when Dr. Rodney met his demise.
She said Smith and the politician were introduced by Robert Yardan, a friend of Smith’s girlfriend at the time. The introduction she said took place at Smith’s home.
Wagner told the Commission that the two met frequently and had many conversations, most of which were “about regression of the country and how to reverse that regression.” She said that Dr. Rodney impressed her brother with his simplicity, mannerism and charisma as a politician.
“Gregory thought Dr. Rodney was an extraordinary son of Guyana,” she said.
“They were alone together for long hours and during that time there were many conversations on many topics,” she said. She told the commissioners that her brother was asked by Dr. Rodney to build handmade bombs, but her brother refused.
“He refused that request. He (Smith) wanted no part of such violence…My brother was never a violent person,” she stressed.
She said after speaking to the politician, however, and seeing the dilemma in the country, Smith decided to do the triggering device, but would not handle the “explosive aspect of it.”
The Commission was told that Smith agreed because he wanted to help to change the direction of the country and “the way Dr. Walter spoke to him, he was very convincing. He showed him this is where we are, this is where we would go, and as a result of that he agreed to do the triggering device, but he wanted no part of taking anyone’s life.”
She recalled being told by her brother that he, Dr. Rodney and his brother, Donald Rodney had gone down to Water Street with a team of persons who had a tracking sheet. She said the three were in the car with the device, driving around and testing it.
“They went down to Water Street and the slightest thing the bulbs were flashing and flashing. Gregory said to them ‘This is dangerous, if this was a bomb we would be dead.’ He warned them, and I know they did not heed that warning.”
She was of the view that the walkie-talkie equipment they brought to do the triggering device was of a poor quality.
Speaking on the fateful night, Wagner said that her brother handed over a triggering device to Donald Rodney.
“Well, this walkie-talkie stuff. I hate to even use the word walkie-talkie, because I’ve never seen a walkie-talkie in a big box yet. Walkie-talkie goes to your ears and your mouth. So I had a problem with using the word walkie-talkie; the triggering device. They came and they picked it up.”
She told the Commission that the boxes were built by a man in Robb Street. The person, she said, made three boxes which were brought to her brother’s house by Rodney.
“The triggering device was there and the space for the triggers and explosives were there. They had to do that, he would not touch that,” she said. “They had to put in the explosives and then trigger it. They picked up the triggering device. It wasn’t activated. There was no explosive in there, none whatsoever.”
It was that night that the “walkie-talkie” exploded killing the politician and Smith was blamed for his death.
POST-DR. RODNEY’S DEATH
Asked how her brother described what happened on June 13, 1980, Wagner’s voice dropped and her fingers started to shake. “After the incident, Gregory’s life was changed forever…Three men picked him up in front of his house and told him to come,” she said.
According to Wagner, her brother was shaken and could not believe that his friend had died. “He wanted to go to the station. He was shaking and crying. They gave him a pill and told him that it would calm him and they drugged him. When he woke up he was in Kwakwani.”
She said a few days later, they took Smith to Georgetown and boarded him on a ship for Trinidad where he was left for about two weeks.
“They told him when he goes to Trinidad, the WPA would give him some documents and some money. He never heard from them. My brother was in Trinidad with no documents, no money and no clothes, and all the news was flashing that he was a murderer,” she said.
After about a week in Trinidad, Smith worked and acquired some cash which he used to make his way back to Guyana with intentions of clearing his name and then ventured to a house in Alberttown. “When they saw him, they rushed and gathered him because he was going to the police.”
“My brother was a member of the WPA, he was close to Rodney only, so he didn’t know anybody,” she said when asked to clarify who else he knew in the party. She said that he wasn’t a part of the groups that were “planning.”
It was there that Smith reportedly received a birth certificate and passport, in favour of Cyril Milton Johnson, by one Mr. Fowler, along with directives to leave the country for Cayenne, French Guiana.
She insisted that her brother was never allowed to speak to the police, though he wanted to. He eventually made it to the French colony and settled there.
LIVING IN FEAR
She said Smith was aware of efforts to extradite him and was never reluctant to return to these shores. The witness said that she has a tape of the conversation her brother had with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), where he stated his willingness to return to Guyana to testify.
She told the Commission that there were many attempts on her brother’s life and she had even attempted to have him stay with her in the United States when he visited her for their mother’s funeral in 1987.
She said he rejected the idea of political asylum as well. He feared the danger he would put the family in if he stayed.
The Commission heard too that Wagner met Jomo Yearwood while she visited her brother in Cayenne in 2002. She said it was then that she learnt that Jomo, a member of the WPA, had brought detonators from Mackenzie to Dr. Rodney.
She said Smith even told her of the time four men barged in and opened fire on him at his house.
“Gregory was always living on the edge….My brother said ‘If I was to ever die as an unnatural death, the WPA killed me. Please follow through with that’”. Wagner said her brother had adopted a style of going to work and returning home at different times every day.
The life her brother had adopted in Cayenne was described as a favourable one. She said through over the years he had become frail. She said prior to his death, she visited him and they spoke for hours.
“The incident on June 13, 1980; it wasn’t only Walter Rodney alone that died, my brother died that night too,” she said.
Smith died from lung cancer on November 21, 2002.
BOOK PUBLISHING
Wagner told the Commission that at the time of the incident she was in the US and they co-authored the book. She decided to publish the book because it was her brother’s dying wish to publish and reveal the truth.
She explained the book’s purpose as being two-fold. Firstly, to document in permanent form and reveal the truth about Dr. Rodney’s death and resulting worldwide portrayal of Smith as his killer.
“Secondly, to rectify the grave and deliberate distortion of Guyana’s history for 34 years during which the media used to sanctify Walter Rodney and demonize my brother. This is a great injustice to my brother who was a friend and confidant of Dr. Walter Rodney, a political activist,” an emotional Wagner said.
The book was previously submitted to the Commission as evidence, but during the hearing it had been a source of contention for witnesses, particularly Donald Rodney, the lone eyewitness to the moment his brother lost his life.
She explained that it is based on why her brother joined the army, why he resigned, how Smith met Dr. Rodney, what was requested by Rodney, that Rodney was Smith’s friend and as Smith called it “the torture at the hands of the WPA.”
It was based on his manuscript and daily conversations as well as the month she spent with him in Cayenne going over the contents.
Wagner defended yesterday that the contents of the book were true. In fact she said that for those who claimed it was a fabrication, her request was for Donald Rodney to take a lie detector test. She said she has a tape with her brother asking for himself and Donald Rodney to take a lie detector test based on the same questions.
Her brother, she said, believed in the lie detector test.
Asked about Donald Rodney’s role, she said his role is clearly documented.
“His assumption of posture that he operated on a need-to-know basis or alternatively was duped makes no sense. He had actual or current knowledge of what his brother was engaged in, and Donald shared a common purpose in those acts,” the witness asserted.
“He was a knowing, willing and active participant in the activities detailed in the book,” she said as she quoted the parts that were written by her brother in the book.
This became a source of contention when she was cross examined by Donald Rodney’s lawyer, Keith Scotland. Donald Rodney was made to stand before Wagner as Scotland grilled her about the surviving Rodney.
The cross examination will continue today.

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