June 13, 2021 marks forty-one years since the assassination of Walter Rodney. That murder still reverberates in our society.
The Guyanese people always knew that that dastardly act was committed by the PNC regime. That general feeling was confirmed by the Commission of Inquiry which was set up in 2014 and had done quite a lot of work – enough to conclude that it was an act by the Burnham-led PNC regime.
At the time of his brutal killing, Guyana and the Caribbean was witnessing a massive upsurge of the people in the region.
Walter Rodney (centre) in Guyana in 1970 (Photo credit: Wikimedia commons)
In Jamaica, the Michael Manley Government was charting an anti-imperialist course and had moved to improve relations with Cuba.
In Dominica, the semi-dictatorship of Patrick John was overthrown. In St Lucia, the people’s movement removed the Government of John Compton.
The crowning success was undoubtedly the victory of the Maurice Bishop New Jewel Movement in Grenada. In Guyana on the lips of the masses was the chant “Gary gone! Patrick John gone! Who next? Burnham next!”
At that time Guyana was in constant turmoil.
The 1973 elections saw how unpopular the PNC had become. The PNC had to do massive rigging to try to stay in power. The party had become so unpopular that they were nervous that the rigging was not enough to ensure their “victory”. They restored to naked force. The army was unleashed to seize the ballot boxes and change the people’s votes.
In the process, scores of PPP supporters were arrested and two were murdered at No 64 village on the Corentyne. Cheddi Jagan himself was arrested on the Corentyne.
Many of his comrades had to go into hiding. One of whom, Rishi Ram Motie, recently passed away.
It was in this atmosphere that Rodney returned to Guyana in 1974. He was already well known in the country long before he arrived. That was because of his expulsion from Jamaica in 1969 for his activism among the working and oppressed masses there.
The PNC’s efforts to prevent him from returning also gave him great popularity. The regime, using their party’s control of the Board of Governors, overturned the decision of the Academic Board to appoint Rodney as Head of the History Department at the University of Guyana.
Shortly after his arrival, the sugar workers led by the GAWU had called a strike to enforce its decades long demand to be recognised by the sugar producers as the bargaining agents for the workers.
The PNC regime answered by using the army and Police to harass workers and actively recruited scabs to break the strike.
That brought the PPP into the strike to support the workers. The strike had now been transformed to one for industrial democracy.
Walter Rodney and many of his colleagues came out in strong support and assisted in solidarity with the workers. That too, endeared him to the working people.
It also inspired many to see Jagan and the PPP fighting together with Rodney and the WPA. It was realising a dream of Jagan to unite the working people of the country, going back the spirit of 1953.
The strike was “adjourned” in the words of Cheddi Jagan, and was resumed in the second crop. That led to the recognition of the GAWU. That brought to a conclusion a struggle which began in the 1940s.
There was another very important strike by the sugar workers in 1977 that lasted for one hundred and thirty-five days. That strike was called to defend workers’ conditions. It was to force the Government to adhere to agreements reached between the Union and GuySuCo.
In this strike too, Walter Rodney joined with the GAWU and PPP in giving solidarity to the workers and their Unions.
Here again the whole State apparatus was thrown against the workers and the progressive forces in the country. This struggle was taking place at the same time when the PPP was fighting to save one of its members from the hangman’s noose. He was on the trumped-up charge of having shot a policeman at the toll gate on the Corentyne. The joint activities continued with the joint boycott of the referendum in which Burnham was going to impose a Constitution on the Guyanese people.
All of those actions began uniting people and posing a threat to the existence of the PNC in Government.
After all it must be recalled that the PNC was created by the colonial powers to stop independence under the leaderships of the PPP. To accomplish its mission, the British facilitated the PNC terroristic activities and its work to divide the working people. Racism was always at the heart of the PNC actions. It is that philosophy that guides its actions even today.
The hatred for Rodney stemmed from the fact that the African Guyanese masses were responding positively to his politics. The PNC’s propaganda had reached a brick wall and the strategies it used previously were not having any impact on Rodney.
Recall the vicious attacks on African Guyanese PPP members and supporters. They were attacked in two ways – violence and dismissals from jobs and other loss of livelihood. Some enticements and bribery were also employed. The idea of the British, later the Americans and the PNC was to try force the African Guyanese out of the PPP to push their division strategy. Those African leaders of the PPP that refused to bow to that pressure were slandered as being “collie stooges”.
That mentality and tactics is still being used by the PNC, now APNU/AFC.
That could not be done against Rodney. He was conscious of the PNC tactics. Moreover, he had acquired a lot of experience in other political and revolutionary movements. By the time be arrived here he was already known as a strong fighter for racial equality and an end to racial discrimination. He was also known as a Marxist who saw class as very vital.
He did not join the PPP specifically to deny the PNC that racist tool of calling him a “coolie stooge”.
The PNC regime then turned most of their fire on him and his comrades. The dictatorship murdered many of his close comrades, including Oheni Koama.
They were desperate to hold on to their racist tool which had served them so well, even up to this day.
Therefore, they murdered Rodney in order to hold on to African Guyanese support.
This was a racist assassination and designed to keep our people divided.
In honouring Rodney’s life, we should all reject PNC racist politics which is so evident in these times!
