Forbes Burnham had nothing to do with Walter Rodney’s death

Mar 16, 2016 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
From day one, the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Dr Walter Rodney’s demise was a farce. The intention of those who convened the commission, as well as those who constituted it was not about getting to the truth of this matter. It was about many other things, including the continued demonization of Forbes Burnham; the embarrassment and discrediting of the PNCR prior to the May 15th General Elections; attempting to fracture the unity that had been achieved amongst APNU members, namely the PNCR and the WPA.  I do not have to read the COI’s final report, which has not yet been made available to the public, to know that it is discredited. Since the beginning of 2014 we have been bombarded with reports from the hearings which cost Guyanese taxpayers 400 million GYD, and very early on it was crystal clear that this was a commission with a firm agenda: to convict Forbes Burnham for the murder of Dr Walter Rodney and to discredit the opposition prior to the 2015 General Elections. I have never heard such a litany of untruths and half –truths as that which passed as evidence before this Commission. It was farcical and its findings could never be counted as reliable.
A long list of people appeared before the commission, each of them offering mere opinions and hearsay, because they had nothing more to offer, while important witnesses, such as Assistant Commissioner of Police under Burnham, Cecil ‘Skip’ Roberts, who now resides in the US and travelled to Guyana to give evidence, was accommodated at a hotel in Georgetown for 10 days, all expenses paid by the Commission, but was not called upon to give evidence. At the time of the events supposedly being examined by the COI, Mr. Roberts was the chief investigator into the circumstances surrounding Dr Walter Rodney’s death – so surely an important witness. If we do not go on record as questioning this COI and its findings, then their report will go unchallenged and be legitimized as fact. Already this has occurred as once again, all around the world, the
It is not possible to fully understand the events that led up to Dr Walter Rodney’s death if the context is removed. Walter Rodney who was then, and remains an esteemed intellectual warrior, decided to oppose Burnham at a time when the CIA was waging a very real and threatening campaign to destabilize Burnham’s government and roll back the revolution. It is imperative for us to note that the half of the story that has been left out over the years, as people from both sides rehash and reshape these events, is the role played by the US  and it’s Central Intelligence Agency, in the historic events that we continue to ponder in 2016.
To fully understand what was, in my opinion the erroneous attempt by the WPA, under Dr Walter Rodney’s leadership, to attempt to destabilize and overthrow the revolutionary and anti-imperialist regime of Forbes Burnham, the question that should be asked is this: At the time, who would have benefitted most from disunity and warfare between two anti-imperialist formations in Guyana, namely the PNC and the WPA?  Who would have tried to ratchet up the disunity rather than facilitating unity? Of course, the answer is the imperialists. Back then, as now, the CIA knew how to recruit people from all sides. Some of those who were recruited were recruited knowingly, while others were not even aware that they were working directly with, or in tandem with the CIA. A number of senior figures in the political and security apparatus of both the PNC and the WPA were, without doubt, utilized by hostile external forces.
There are a few well established facts that have emerged over the years, facts that can no longer be denied. Among them are (1) Gregory Smith was not a PNC agent, but rather had close and what seem to be genuine ties to the Rodney brothers; (2) the WPA was amassing weapons in an attempt to overthrow Forbes Burnham’s government, which was also facing a very real threat of destabilization and overthrow from the CIA. There are people right here in Guyana who stored those weapons in their homes. Of course, they will never come forward, because such activity is, under any circumstances, treated as treason. (3) The US government and its agencies were actively involved in a plot to destabilize Burnham’s regime and definitely had a hand in what happened. After all, it was a wonderful opportunity for them, discredit Burnham both at home and internationally and get rid of Dr Walter Rodney all in one operation.
In 1980, the year Dr Walter Rodney was killed, Burnham was mostly pre-occupied with the larger threat of US destabilization of Guyana. A seasoned and astute leader, Burnham knew that the homegrown opposition was being fuelled by the imperialists. He knew that the WPA, whose leadership comprised mainly of middle-class academics, would be an easy target for CIA operatives. Being nothing short of a brilliant strategist, he would have certainly known that given the circumstances he found himself in, and the threats he faced from external forces, the very worst thing he could have done, akin to shooting himself in the foot, would have been to order the assassination of a world renowned academic such as Dr Walter Rodney.  It is clear that this would have been political suicide.
As a political analyst, having studied Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and CLR James, Burnham understood the middle-class character and contradictions of the WPA and what he described as their hollow, revolutionary rhetoric, borne out of their immersion in theoretical analysis and the culture of critique without any revolutionary praxis. This led him to call the WPA the “Worst Possible Alternative” and their leaders “Champagne Socialists”. Many writers, including myself have pointed to the fact that the Black Middle Class, with few exceptions, has consistently been a major obstacle to the progress of African people in the Caribbean.  They were the same ones who sat on the sidelines and criticized Burnham’s every attempt, under enormous pressure, to house, feed and clothe the masses of impoverished people of this nation -– African, Indian and Amerindian. They were the very ones who fell prey to the “divide and ruin” psych-ops of the enemy. When mayhem was finally unleashed, and the people poured onto the streets following Dr Walter Rodney’s death, the Worst Possible Alternative (WPA) simply did not then know what to do and the entire exercise fizzled out into the nightmare that it has now become.
Gerald A. Perreira
Chair
Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP)

---

---