The WPA is awaiting the Walter Rodney Report

Apr 16, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The only victory we think the entire country may posture now is that a determined struggle yielded the setting up of an inquiry into the circumstances of the death of Walter Rodney, the completion and tendering of the report to the President and the imminent official release to the public of the Report.
The Head of State, Hon David Grainger who had the benefit of possession of the report has registered the Presidential disaffirmation of the report, it appears without prior consultation with his coalition partners. It remains to be seen whether on further consideration he will modify his severely critical position or even it remains immutable, he may help to create an environment accommodating differences so that we can rescue something positive out of it.
When we read the report and see the evidence we too can try to arrive at our own commonsense conclusion. We would also have to see if the Commissioners did it the right way and were consistent in applying the tools to the consideration of the evidence.
We also should not ignore the performance of the lawyers appearing before the Commissioners. They in particular bore the responsibility in examination and cross- examination of witnesses to help the Commissioners to determine the veracity and credibility of witnesses, bearing in mind that a witness who is not challenged or weakly challenged, or the failure to advance evidence refuting statements and evidence given by witnesses or supporting their interpretation of the events, could have telling consequences. There is no evidence that during the hearings that the lawyers’ rights were in any way abridged.
We refrain now from commenting on the findings until we have had the opportunity and time not only to read but to digest the report.
The public should be wary of political opportunism that will flow unrestricted in the reaction to this report and the agenda of spin doctors. The Inquiry could not gather all the facts and could not include all the first hand experiences of those of us who lived through the period under review. The Inquiry is also vitiated to the extent that the protracted delay from the period and events under review to the first day of hearing would make recollection of important events dim and many witnesses could for any number of reasons not have been available for the hearings. We will have to consider too that the Commission barely survived a persistent effort to abort the hearings and in the end important witnesses were not heard or did not complete their evidence. The Commissioners bear no responsibility for this.
Associates of the WPA have all witnessed at least some if not all the events to which they can swear or affirm. Victims can be found among all sections, classes and races of Guyana. And the degradation permeated all facets of our culture and society.
For us, centrally located in the circumstances of pervasive repression we experienced in that period, have been repeated violations of the right to human life culminating in the assassination of Walter Rodney.  The failure to take action to bring those responsible to justice in a court of law by the agencies of law led to this Inquiry.  And to the lasting ignominy of the powers that be an attempt was made to blame the killing of Walter Rodney on his brother, Donald Rodney, while the principal suspect, Gregory Smith, against whom there was direct evidence of involvement, was afforded state resources to flee the jurisdiction, protection and immunity.
For a new administration that could bear no responsibility for the state terror of that period nor for the unexplained and under-investigated killing spree allegedly masterminded by elements of the security forces and in the ruling political directorate in the last two decades, the inquiry fortifies the moral base for intensified investigations and/or another inquiry.
Our focus too is to aim at constructively bringing powers and authorities and political organisations and civil society into a positive intervention to help guide the nation to peace, safety, security and stability, reconciliation and strengthen and safeguard the institutions of justice and the observance of human rights guaranteed under the constitution.
Apart from the intrinsic merit of the process, the Commission would have accomplished something valuable for us as a nation if that is where the report leads us. In any event the Commissioners Sir Richard Cheltenham, Queens Consul of Barbados, Senior Consul Seenauth Jairam of Trinidad and Tobago and Queens Consul Jacqueline Samuels-Browne of Jamaica and all those who contributed to the Inquiry deserve our gratitude
Desmond Trotman

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