Who will prosecute Rodney’s murderers?

June 14, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

It does not require a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to determine who was culpable and complicit in the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney. The late historian was assassinated by the Forbes Burnham administration.

A commission of inquiry is not necessary to assign culpability. The hands of the PNC are indelibly stained by the murder of the former co- leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA). But Rodney’s was consistently betrayed after his death.

At his funeral, the nail of political retreat was driven into Rodney’s coffin when the party backpedaled in the face of Burnham’s murderous reign.

The second betrayal took place when the party succumbed to geopolitical fatalism after the Grenada invasion. The WPA , fearful of the Americans, opted to abandon the Marxist outlook of Rodney and paradoxically changed the party’s ideology to Rodneyite.

The third betrayal took place just after the 25th anniversary of Rodney’s murder. It was at that event that the wife of Walter Rodney called for closure to be brought to her husband’s death. The then Jagdeo administration decided to bring closure through a commission of inquiry.

The government, conscious that the WPA had long assumed a monopoly on the issues of Walter Rodney, and wishing to avoid a controversy over the Terms of Reference (TOR), asked the party to assist in preparing the TOR for the proposed commission of inquiry.

That decision immediately placed the WPA in a quandary, because at the time they were seeking a Big Tent coalition with the PNCR. To therefore avoid embarrassing the PNCR and threatening the Big Tent, the party procrastinated in developing the TOR. That was the third betrayal.

One year after, the WPA seemed to have forgotten the anniversary of Rodney and last-minute arrangements had to be made for a commemorative event. That was the fourth betrayal.

But nothing of course could match what would follow. In order to get into the political bed with the PNCR, certain confessions were made by the WPA without asking the PNCR to admit to its culpability in the death of Rodney. This was the unkindest cut of all, and the fifth betrayal of Rodney.

But now those confessions have been called into question following the most amazing disclosures in a recent book about Rodney where it was claimed that just before his death he was depressed because he was not given any assistance in Africa where he had gone just before his death.

The ultimate responsibility for bringing closure to the death of Rodney resided with the Jagdeo administration. That administration did not honour its promise of the COI in the face of the machinations within the WPA which would have been placed in a most difficult position of having to prosecute the very party with which it has entering into an alliance.

Donald Ramotar has now decided to bring closure to the issue. But he has an unenviable reputation of appointing committees that do not seem to get going. It is hoped that this promise of an International COI does not suffer the same fate as the tax reform committee and the many other committees which were to be established following the incidents in Linden, one year ago.

The PPP has of recent been blamed for not establishing a COI into the death of Rodney. And it acted strangely in not investigating how the police files on Rodney could not be found, and then later reappeared when the ICJ team came to Guyana just after the PPP’s electoral victory of 1992.

Afterwards, the son of Walter Rodney went on a hunger strike to demand an inquiry into the death of his father. The Jagan administration was placed in a difficult situation because the man believed responsible for the murder, Gregory Smith, resided in French Guiana, a country whose laws would not permit the extradition of any prisoner to a country where the death penalty still existed. As such, there was little chance of having Smith extradited to Guyana for an inquiry or even a murder charge.

The PPP did, however, file charges against Smith, a fact that is underplayed in the revisionist attempt to place failure to have a COI at the feet of the PPP. An arrest warrant was issued for Smith, but could never be served on Smith because of the extradition laws of French Guiana.

Having filed murder charges, the Cheddi Jagan administration could not have then turned around and asked for a COI to determine who was culpable. That would have been in contradiction to the murder charge which assumed that Smith was responsible for the death of Rodney.

The matter thus remained comatose until the request at the 25th anniversary celebrations for closure to be brought to Rodney’s death.

There are many who feel that having the COI now would be unproductive. In fact even the WPA is expressing some concerns as to what can be achieved after 33 years. It is to be seen how loyal the WPA is to Rodney’s memory and this will be determined by the degree of resoluteness with which they will prosecute, in the COI, those whom they believe are responsible for Rodney’s murder.