Latest update January 30th, 2025 6:10 AM
Jun 13, 2016 Letters
Dear Editor;
Today, June 13, marks 36 years since Walter Rodney was killed. For us who knew him, and who were part of his struggles, Walter’s untimely death was a loss of an opportunity to share a fresh vision of what Guyana ought to have been – a truly free, prosperous and united state.
After 36 years, that vision remains a hope that lives and must, in his name and memory, be kept alive.
There have been attempts to explain the circumstances that led to and resulted in Walter’s death. This would continue to be a matter for contentious debates, as no definitive answer has been provided, so far.
An earlier Inquest concluded that his death was due to mis-adventure, which was saying that he had committed suicide. Of course, that conclusion was a cover-up of a more complex, but tragic narrative. The recent Inquiry attempted to situate his death within that narrative, and much of the circumstantial evidence, spoke to an abuse of state power. The outcome could hardly be considered conclusive.
There could have been a different outcome had Gregory Smith, the person who had planted on Walter Rodney the rigged electronic equipment that ignited by remote control, been extradited by the French authorities from Cayenne to answer charges in Guyana.
The French had demanded assurance that should Smith be sent back to Guyana, he would not face a charge that carried the death penalty, upon conviction. The then Director of Public Prosecutions Ian Chang had advised that a charge of manslaughter be brought against Smith.
I was a member of Cabinet then and, like several others, we wanted Smith to face charges in Guyana.
But the officials assigned responsibility for negotiating the extradition dragged their feet, resulting in Smith not only escaping trial in Guyana, but taking with him, when he died, that definitive narrative about what really transpired on that fateful night of June 16, 1980.
I blame the government of which I was a part then, for that inaction. I also deem the invocation of powers of inquiry in 2014 to find out how that death occurred and who was responsible, highly suspect.
It was motivated by sheer political opportunism to use the revelations from the inquiry principally against opponents, not to establish any truth or to bring closure.
The “evidence” was to be massaged in the period leading up to the 2015 elections as a Public Relations, propaganda stunt which was executed crudely and in unimaginative ways.
But the Inquiry did offer a platform for several of the witnesses who situated Walter’s death within the context of a period that was characterized by authoritarian excesses, in which para-state groups of goons wielded deadly powers, It was a period of oppression of which I was among the victims.
I have previously commented that, much more than I could ever say, Walter’s death was personal to me. We had embraced as comrades-in-struggle, He influenced and motivated me, not in a casual way but in a sense that clothed me with an impenetrable, multi-ethnic, international, conviction. He was the steel in my political armor.
His vision was well defined. As a revolutionary intellectual he articulated a historic mission, not of his own, but of the working classes.
For that, he had believed that martydom, as he was to say, was not in his will.
In his proletarian commitment Walter Rodney had become highly partisan. Rodney’s class approach to issues was always distinct. Even when he turned to an analysis of the race issue, there was always a class side to it.
That was how he saw the Arnold Rampersaud trials: one section of the poor and dispossessed fighting a racist battle against another section of the poor and dispossessed. The division of the working class was what Rodney agonised about most.
Walter is telling us today that we have much work to do in Guyana. He is telling us: “Don’t mourn; organize!” Organise for a free, multi-ethnic, diverse and united Guyana. I hope that the Walter Rodney Chair at the University would continue to spread his words, his vision, his hope.
On January 7, 1993, when I made my maiden speech as a Member of Parliament, I described Walter Rodney as an irresistible character who “in a very personal way has touched me as he would have touched many Guyanese in this era in Guyana”.
I want on this death anniversary to repeat what I said then:
“When we weep for our dead, when we can honour our heroes, when we can make castles of memories of things great and exceptional, we are doing this not for Walter Rodney but we are ourselves putting a healing touch to the nation’s wounded soul. His death was a blemish to us all, that tiny Guyana was capable of such gigantic barbarity. Walter’s was a soul of greatness, and I believe his Chair would be an intellectual lodestar for Guyana for now and for a very long time to come.”
Again, hail up, Brother,
Moses Nagamootoo
Jan 30, 2025
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