Rohee joins the conversation

Sep 10, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

I will focus on just one aspect of the exchange of letters between Sultan Mohamed and Tacuma Ogunseye published between late August to early September 2024, in sections of the media.

For his part, Mohamed stated categorically, ‘Dr. Rodney was in agreement with Dr. Jagan to merge the WPA with the PPP’… he elaborates further stating … ‘I am on record that it was Mr. Hubert Rodney, younger brother of Dr. Rodney who enlightened me about the merger agreement! See https: www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2021/06/13/rodney-would-have-merged-wpa-into-the-ppp-in-the-long-term‘ On checking the said online reference, I found the following, ‘It was Hubert who told me that Walter’s long-term aim was to merge the WPA with the PPP.’

They say ‘dead men tell no tales’ ie; people who are dead cannot tell secrets; but to me, who is alive and well there is no secret on this matter. And while Hubert Rodney’s disclosure about a PPP/WPA merger is news to me, as a long-standing member of the PPP’s central and executive committee, its then secretariat, as its then Executive Secretary, and importantly, as close a confidante of Janet and Cheddi Jagan, I would have known. On family matters yes, but political rarely.

Following Walter Rodney’s return to Guyana (1974) up to the time of his assassination (1980), PPP/WPA relationship was under constant review at the leadership levels of the Party. (See pps: 203-204 ‘My Story My Song’; Clement J. Rohee). Even in the context of the PPP’s call for the establishment of a National Patriotic Front (NPF) and National Front Government (NFG) (August 1977), the WPA was unsupportive, it was opposed to the PPP’s position that the PNC be included in the NPF and NFG. It put forward a similar arrangement with the exception that the PNC should be excluded. (For A Revolutionary Democratic Alliance, 1985 pp: 16).

The only window of a limited form of cooperation between the PPP and the WPA I know about was on the eve of the 1992 election when, on the basis of an electoral alliance, a Joint Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD) Electoral Programmatic Platform was formulated. However, publication of the document was jettisoned by the WPA and Paul Tennasee’s Democratic Labour Movement (DLM) because they disagreed with the PPP’s recommendation that with its completion, the programme be published for public scrutiny. Since then, and to this day, the PPP/C and the WPA have gone their separate ways while the DLM faded into oblivion.

Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee

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Cheddi Jagan, Paul Tennasee’s Democratic Labour, programme

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