The Clive Thomas/Walter Rodney family mystery

Dec 03, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I had Mr. Aubrey Retemyer, CEO of the now defunct State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) as the guest of the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show. He made an interesting revelation.

He told me that his preference for housing SARA was the renovation of an unused section of the doctors’ quarters on Quamina and Waterloo Streets. He thought that was a better option than paying millions to the Muneshwar family for their building at Main and New Market Streets.

He said that the refurbished building was state property so it was better to go that route. But his suggestion was rejected. Mr. Hetemyer did not name the person(s) that denied his request.

Off the record, I asked him if it was Minister Winston Jordan who was the subject minister or Minister Joe Harmon who would have had to endorse the idea or Dr. Clive Thomas who was at the time the head of SARA. Mr. Hetemyer declined to provide a name.

On the programme, I did enquire from Mr. Hetemyer why Clive Thomas has not written about these decisions in his weekly Stabroek News column but he did not answer. There has to be a reason why Thomas avoids putting pen on paper on his experience in government.

It is a mystery in Guyana but it is no mystery in the world. If you have a former Cabinet minister or a former huge power-wielder writing a weekly column in one of the country’s leading newspapers, it is expected that outside of not divulging security issues, that columnist would produce broad generalizations of his/her experience in office.

Thomas has not penned even one line on his time in the APNU+AFC regime in which he was Director-General of SARA and Chairman of GuySuCo. Looked at from any angle, that was extensive state power.

How do you explain this? I have been asked by several former WPA sympathizers including a famous former UG lecturer now resident in New York. Here is my take. The answer is one-dimensional. Thomas feels the ensuing embarrassment will raise questions of individual moral judgement.

So far only Tacuma Ogunseye has elaborated on his own moral position. He told his interviewer on television that countless things were going wrong with policies in the APNU+AFC regime but the WPA stayed quiet for a strategic reason.

He explained that WPA had long battles with PNC governments and did not want the WPA to be accused of weakening another PNC government by quarrelling and bickering. I can’t remember his exact words but that was the sense conveyed.

At least Ogunseye has offered his reasoning. Thomas, Dr. Roopnaraine and Dr. Maurice Odle, the three big wigs from the WPA, have remained eerily silent about their time in government. Roopnaraine told journalist, Neil Marks when he was interviewed about his role in government: “Well, we served.” Serve whom and what and accomplished what in serving?

I believe Thomas is afraid that he will face volcanic questions if he should write about his tenure. If he says he did not support closing down sugar estates, he will be probed on moral obligation to leave office if he felt that policies were not in keeping with WPA’s political culture and ideological structure and likely to be disastrous.

If he was asked if he was consulted on the closures and he said no, then the embarrassment would be humiliating. I think that it is- Thomas is not going to write on that subject matter.

We come now to the Rodney family. Since 1980, the Rodney family has not commented on anything on Guyana outside of the assassination of Walter Rodney and the need for a judicial commission of inquiry.

From the time the family left, there have been tsunamic events in Guyana. They include the 1985 rigged elections; the nearly about aborted 1992 election results; the 1997 post election mayhem; the Lusignan massacre; the assassination of Minister Sash Sawh; the Buxton mayhem from 2002 to 2007; Roger Khan scandal; the WPA’s merger with the PNC; the WPA in power from 2015-2020; the mass retrenchment of 7000 sugar workers; the no-confidence vote; President Granger’s rejection of the Carter formula; the five months of election rigging in 2020 etc.

There has been no spoken or printed word by the Rodney family on anything, absolutely no comment on anything from 1980. Then the Rodney family did a strange thing. Mrs. Patricia Rodney and her son Shaka, signed a letter in the Stabroek News about President Bolsonaro’s visit to Guyana, complaining about its impropriety because African-Brazilians are mistreated by the Bolsonaro.

So that complaint was more exigent than all the events listed above? One hopes sincerely that race was not the reason for the signatures. I dearly hope not.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)