Dear Editor,
Dr Rupert Roopnaraine says that “ Mr Troy Small’s misfortune is that he came under suspicion of having committed the crime of arson not in the dark night of dictatorship but in the bright noon of democracy” in the last paragraph of his letter in the Sunday Stabroek of July 26, captioned ‘Arson then and now.’
I would like to remind Dr Roopnaraine that in the broad daylight of Saturday July 14, 1979 Fr Bernard Darke SJ taking photographs for the Catholic Standard was murdered by a bayonet-wielding thug of the House of Israel, one of the paramilitary groups of the PNC, while assistant editor Mike James and many others were beaten on the very day that he and his comrades were released on bail.
In his second paragraph, Dr Roopnaraine recounted “In the early hours of July11, 1979, I, along with a number of other WPA leaders and associates, including Walter Rodney, Omowale and Kwame Apata , were arrested on suspicion of burning down the Office of the General Secretary of the PNC and Ministry of National Development.” He points out he and his comrades “experienced no physical abuse.”
Also in November,1979, WPA activist Ohene Koama was allegedly shot by police when he allegedly pulled an SLR rifle from his car, something contradicted by eyewitnesses who said he had no gun. Another activist was also allegedly shot by police in an armed confrontation, but again eyewitnesses said he had no gun.
Dr Roopnaraine himself had to escape when a WPA meeting was broken up by thugs and his car was destroyed. Many of us still remember Burnham publicly joking and laughing at how fast Rodney and others could run and how high they could jump in scaling fences, to escape from thugs who broke up their meetings.
Yours faithfully,
John Da Silva
