The Rodney Commission was born with a political sarcoma

Jun 04, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The Walter Rodney Commission was a con game by the PPP from the beginning. It started with invidious and insidious intentions and by the time it was two-thirds on the way of its journey, the pathways were covered with cancerous bushes. The Commission serves no useful purpose as presently constituted and should be aborted.
In September 2013, at a function in New York, Guyanese were surprised by the announcement by then President, Donald Ramotar that after consultation with Patricia Rodney, wife of Walter, and the Rodney Foundation in Atlanta, USA, the commission to probe Rodney’s death had been set up. He told his audience that right at the very moment, he was speaking, the Commission’s staff was doing logistical work in Georgetown.
What is the Walter Rodney Foundation? I Googled it and can find not one name associated with its administration. Under the section, “Who We Are” it states that the entity was started by Walter’s family. It would mean then, that the people in charge are his wife and three children. If Ramotar said he consulted the foundation, then he negotiated with Walter’s children too.
After Ramotar’s announcement, Guyanese got another surprise. The Working People’s Alliance said it only knew of the birth of the Commission after three current and past members were approached for documents. In other words, the people who could make the Commission function properly were never consulted. This explains why the Commission has never functioned properly.
When Mrs. Rodney gave her approval to Ramotar (and no doubt to other PPP leaders) did she do so out of political support for the PPP? Rumours have it that Mrs. Rodney was sympathetic to the PPP Government. Two of Walter’s brothers, Eddie and Hubert have been long-standing officials of the PPP.
If Mrs. Rodney did give unqualified support to the PPP in implementing the Commission, then she blocked out of mind two germane questions. Why was the PPP pursuing this thing after twenty one years in power and at a time when it was a minority government? Secondly, how can the inquiry achieve competence if the WPA was not involved in the terms of reference? But most importantly, did Mrs. Rodney trust the PPP to enact a professional judicial probe into her husband’s death?
If the answer is yes to the third question then, what did Mrs. Rodney learn from the practice of power by the PPP for twenty-one years prior to her discussion with President Ramotar? After twenty-one years of unbridled power in which excesses were taken that President Burnham would not have contemplated, was Mrs. Rodney happy with the PPP leadership of Guyana?
As the Commission wended its way up the stairway of evidence, the Rodney Commission’s real purpose began to unfold. This enquiry was birthed to prop up a minority government and dirty the APNU opposition. The mistake Mrs. Rodney made when she ostracized the WPA was to leave the terms of reference (TOR) and Commission members up to the government. It turned out to be the fatal flaw of Patricia Rodney.
Part of the TOR was to examine the political environment of the seventies and eighties. This was the chance the PPP was waiting for. Rodney’s death was secondary. The PPP wanted to show Guyanese that APNU was associated with violence in the past.
This was morbid double standards from a government that was accused of being involved in the murder of one of its Ministers (“Sash” Sawh’s brother-in-law has made that accusation); extra-judicial killings of hundreds of young men during the crime spree 2000-2005; the murder of famous anti-government activists Ronald Waddell and Courtney Crum-Ewing; shooting of innocent protestors in Linden, not to mention my own case.
From the time Clement Rohee and Charles Ramson Senior took the stand and made themselves heroes in front the Commission without evidence, Mrs. Rodney should have seen that her baby was dying. Her baby was in fact the PPP’s baby. Mrs. Rodney’s last chance to save her credibility and stop the manipulation of her husband’s legacy, was the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing. After his death, the Walter Rodney Commission collapsed in the sand castle into which it was born.
The Rodney family has remained a wall of silence since the Commission morphed into a game of charade. Here are some of the words from Henry Mancini’s famous love song titled “Charade”.
“Sad little serenade
Song of my heart’s composing
I hear it still, I always will
Best on the bill
Charade”
I hear the song of Walter Rodney as I write this column. I hear it still. I always will. But I never would know who pressed the trigger to kill.

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