Almost four decades after the death of historian, Dr Walter Rodney, the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry (CoI) – which was set up to probe the circumstances surrounding his death – has finally handed over the report to Parliament. The CoI has found that the then Government, the People’s National Congress (PNC) under the control of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham (later President), conspired to assassinate the renowned scholar on June 13, 1980, on a Friday night. To be clear, Walter Rodney was not the only political activist to be assassinated at the hands of the Burnhamite state. Many members of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) were continuously harassed by House of Israel thugs, run by an American refugee, Rabbi Washington. There were the killing of Ohene Koama, Edward Dublin and the stabbing, in broad daylight, of a Catholic priest, Fr Bernard Darke, to name a few.
Walter Rodney was a renowned Pan-Africanist, a Marxist, an intellectual and a revolutionary who learned Spanish, Portuguese, French and Swahili in order to undertake research for his doctoral thesis which he earned at the young age of 24. The Commission of Inquiry, formed 34 years after Rodney’s death, noted that it could not hear from all the witnesses scheduled to testify because the Government brought the Inquiry to a pre-mature end, but the Commission had “enough evidence to make significant findings of fact”. This conclusion was based on testimony presented during 66 sessions and oral evidence from 31 witnesses. The most damning part of the report is found on page 143, which stated that “there is prima facie evidence that he [Laurie Lewis, Head of Special Branch], along with Major General, Norman McLean (Ret’d), then Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force and Mr Cecil “Skip” Roberts, the Deputy Commissioner of Police and Crime Chief, had significant roles to play in the conspiracy to kill Dr Walter Rodney and the subsequent attempt to conceal the circumstances surrounding his death.” It further concluded that “Prime Minister Burnham knew of the plan and was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Dr Rodney”. Those words are written in plain language for all Guyanese to read.
As I noted before, there is one aspect of the Walter Rodney CoI that remains troubling. The CoI made reference to Granger’s 2005 book on the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) National Defence: A Brief History of the Guyana Defence Force (1965-2005) regarding the politicisation of Guyanese society following Burnham’s pronunciation at the December 1974 Declaration at Plantation Sophia that “the Party” would “assume unapologetically its paramountcy over the government which is merely one of its executive arms”. Citing Granger’s words, the CoI noted that this action was “a marked departure from the apparent non-partisan stance”, which “raised public concern about the direction being taken by civil-military relations” (page 111). To forge his paramountcy plan, Burnham appointed a PNC loyalist, Colonel David Granger to commander of the GDF. Granger was made Commandant of the GDF in late 1979, just before the assassination, when it was clear that Rodney was infiltrating the officer corps. This historical revelation alone should cause Granger to confront and denounce his party’s killing of the Guyanese scholar.
It is ironic that two very close friends of Rodney; Dr Rupert Roopnaraine (Education Minister) and Dr Clive Thomas (State Assets Recovery Unit) remain “junior partners” in the coalition Government, and have remained silent so far. Both of them are leading members of the WPA. How do these two prominent citizens feel about the findings of the CoI?
Perhaps what is more significant is not the findings, but the recommendations made by the three-member Commission. The Commission, led by Chairman, Sir Richard Cheltenham, made the following recommendations (my summary): 1) Guyana needs a well-trained and highly professional Police Force not easily swayed by ethnicity or party affiliation; 2) The Army must be professionalised; and, 3) The Government has a responsibility to promote ethnic harmony and a strengthen national unity. As we approach our 50th anniversary, it is clear that we are far from achieving these goals even though all of them will impact the future political and economic development of this country. There is a deafening silence among political activists regarding the need to ensure balance in the Disciplined Forces.
As a student of history, with intimate knowledge of the Disciplined Forces, and as a leader presiding over a divided nation, is President Granger willing to become the transformational leader who can confront these issues and deliver us to the promise land? Until then, Guyana remains at the crossroads.
