Government is not without blame in the failure to follow through with an inquiry into the death of Dr Walter Rodney, but others are responsible too, Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon said yesterday.
Speaking at his weekly press briefing at the Office of the President, the Head of the Presidential Secretariat said the motion was treated in the “Guyanese style,” as it was not followed through.
Prime Minister Sam Hinds had said in the National Assembly that the resolution was dropped because the Rodney family had not wanted the investigation to go forward.
However, Dr Patricia Rodney, widow of Dr Walter Rodney, said in a letter to the press that no member of the Rodney family had ever communicated to anyone that the family did not want a probe into the death of Walter Rodney.
She also asked that Prime Minister retract his statement. This is also the position of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) of which Dr Rodney was leader. According to the WPA, the Rodneys did not want to have the inquiry during the time of the elections since they were concerned that it would be used for political purposes.
The National Assembly had passed a Resolution on June 29, 2005 calling for a full and impartial investigation into the death of Dr Rodney, killed by a bomb blast in Georgetown on June 13, 1980.
Dr Luncheon said he and Dr Rupert Roopnaraine of the WPA were engaged on the steps to be taken to take the resolution forward.
He said Roopnaraine was in direct contact with the Rodney family and served as liaison between the family and the administration.
“This is where the process became derailed,” said Dr Luncheon. He said that the family’s reservations about having the inquiry near to the time of the 2006 General Elections did resonate with government and as a result, government didn’t pursue the inquiry.
Dr Luncheon said that the matter should have been picked up after the elections. “We cannot abandon any trace of blame but I would concede that the administration was only one of three parties involved,” he said.
He added that the delay to hold the inquiry was not the administration’s decision and government was only facilitating the feelings of the family after which the matter “fell off the screen.”
