As we remember Walter Rodney on the anniversary of the assassination, how unfortunate that his disciples are now inseparable from the riggers.
Dr. Walter Anthony Rodney was murdered by the PNC apparatchiks in violent and controversial circumstances in John’s Street, near the Georgetown Prison, Guyana, in the early night of the 13th day of June 1980.
Today is the 40th Anniversary of that murder of one of Guyana's most talented sons.
There is enough evidence to prove that the bomb expert and Sergeant of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) the late of Gregory Smith, played a critical role in the death of Dr. Rodney.
Walter Rodney was born in Georgetown, Guyana, on March 23rd, 1942. He came from a working-class family of five (5) sons. His father Edward was a tailor and his mother Pauline was a seamstress.
Dr. Rodney got a scholarship to Queen’s College, the most elite of high school in the country at the time. There, he excelled academically and earned a reputation as an outstanding debater. Walter also had an interest in sports and was a good athlete.
In 1960, Walter graduated first in his class and won an open scholarship to the University College of the West Indies, as it was then known at Mona, Jamaica. He entered the History Department and graduated with First Class Honours in 1963.
Rodney then won another scholarship to attended the School of Oriental and African Studies, a constituent college of the University of London, where at age 24, he received his Ph.D. with Honours in African History.
In 1974 Dr. Rodney returned to Guyana to take up an appointment as a professor of history at the University of Guyana. The academic board had appointed him, but the political University Council, following the instructions of Forbes Burnham, rescinded that appointment.
He was invited to give lectures at the University of Guyana at the request of the University of Guyana Workers’ Union. He later extended those classes to bauxite workers in the communities of McKenzie, Kwakwani, and Everton.
Additionally, he held history classes as his home.
Dr. Cheddi Jagan also invited him to extend his educational reach to the rural sugar workers in the early days of his return.
Dr. Rodney took the lead in establishing why he was in the struggle. His mission was to:
1) De-emphasize race and emphasize class;
2) Help the people understand that when it came to the dictatorial PNC in office, political power would not be achieved by electoral means only;
3) Cause the people to recognize that the party organization had to be both overt and covert;
4) Mobilize the people to mount a direct challenge to the self-created image of the dictator Burnham; and
5) Ensure that the masses are involved in their self-emancipation.
Dr. Rodney was married to Dr. Patricia Rodney and had three children namely, Shaka, his son, and Kanini, and Asha, his daughters.
He was a rounded man, according to his wife Patricia, who was good with his hands and built all the bookshelves in his house and repair bicycles. He was very involved, too, in the life of his children and took them to school most mornings and alternated with his wife in picking them up in the evenings. He even insisted on combing the girls’ hair which, according to his wife, “he could not do.”
On the morning of June 13th, 1980, he took the children to school and returned home where he and his wife discussed a recent invitation for him to work at the university in Zimbabwe. He had in the past ignored many such invitations from other universities. On this occasion, he was particularly keen and decided to go to Zimbabwe. Later in the evening, he was dead.
GUYANA HAS LOST A GOLDEN SOUL IN DR. WALTER RODNEY. MAY HIS SOUL REST ETERNALLY IN PEACE AND WE LIVE TODAY BECAUSE HE DIED IN 1980.
(Parts of the above were sourced from the Rodney COI Report). Sasenarine Singh.
Click on the link to listen to a BBC documentary.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/p...ARDsXQv9ipjXShjrAJVo