Dear Editor,
While watching the WPA’s programme, ‘Walter Rodney Groundings,’ on Sunday, April 18 on HBTV Channel 9, I learned with horror of the death, via information from WPA executive member, Desmond Trotman, of my brother, comrade, friend, distinguished son and true patriot of Guyana, Clarence Ellis.
Clarence Ellis was not only involved in the struggle for African people’s liberation, but for the liberation of all oppressed peoples wherever they are located. His passing in his adopted home in Washington DC, USA on Saturday, April 10, should serve as a reminder to us of our collective failure to give real meaning to independence, thereby making Guyana a worthy homeland for patriots to live and die in. Too many of Guyana’s outstanding nationals are forced into self-imposed exile in foreign lands.
In spite of my knowledge of his prolonged illness, I was shocked to learn that he had passed on to the realms of the ancestors. This realization invoked in me contradictory emotions. I grieve over his passing, not only because of who he was and what he had done, but also because of the tremendous vacuum this has opened in the ranks and the difficulty to fill his space even as we, who survive him, continue the process of liberation, hopefully with the dignity which had so characterized his work. As I pondered on his passing and silently applauded (as I had done publicly on many occasions) his immense and honourable contributions to our struggles in his earthly life, I also lamented the fact that even as he continued to survive in the world of the living he had arrived at a point in his life where he had become too weak to continue waging the liberation war with his usual energies. I knew how deeply affected he would have been at his inability to give at this critical juncture his all to the process of change to which he was so committed. I however console myself with the thought that Clarence has now ventured into the world of his ancestors and, with renewed energy and new tools will continue the fight. One cannot but be amazed at how complementary are the opposing emotions of sorrow and joy.
My early memories of Brother Ellis go back to the early 1970s when he was involved with the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA), which was housed in a building in Third Street, Alberttown. He was one of many African academics employed in the government services who found the time to teach classes after their working hours. In spite of his prestigious position in the government service he fearlessly stood up to and resisted Prime Minister Forbes Burnham who had declared war against ASCRIA after its alliance with the PNC ended because ASCRIA’s leadership had taken a decision to publicly expose corruption in the Burnham regime. Many comrades who were members of ASCRIA or had close relations with the organisation ran away out fear of losing their jobs. However, Clarence in an early demonstration of his indomitable will, held his ground and continued to teach and maintained his association (membership) with ASCRIA. Since then he had neither faltered nor buckled under the pressures which high or low political officials had attempted to impose on him. He was a warrior who fought for noble principles and remained incorruptible throughout his life.
It was ironical that after many decades we met again in another African organization. This time it was the African Cultural Development Association (ACDA) where he played an important role in defining and developing the organization’s work in its struggle for shared governance in Guyana. Like many patriotic Guyanese he was convinced that there could not be meaningful social, economic and political progress in the motherland without a just solution to our racial/political crisis. For him, shared governance was the way forward.
His public efforts in this and other issues were ventilated in the letter columns of the nation’s newspapers and are there to be scrutinized and judged. His private efforts to influence major personalities in the political life of the country and the region are for the most part, unknown to the general public. In this regard I wish to mention his efforts to bring the former President of Guyana and late PNCR leader, Hugh Desmond Hoyte, around to accepting the concept and putting his party on the path of shared governance as the way forward for Guyana.
In his public campaign to make Guyana a just society and rid itself of divisive politics he had, as was expected, incurred the wrath of many of the established PPP/C leaders and some of their just-come PPP/C supporters and Indian rights activists, who were unaware of Clarence’s history and consistency in the struggle to make Guyana a better place for all its people, and if they were aware, did not care one iota for it. They treated him as if he was a political upstart whose appearance on the scene was intended to strip them of political power. In spite of their denunciation of him in the press and on the world wide web, they were shocked and fazed by his steadfastness and his refusal to be intimidated by their unsavoury tactics of attacking the messenger and not the message. They often engaged in cheap propaganda and deemed him an African racist who was out to destroy Indians. What a folly.
ACDA and the African community have lost a great son and soldier at a time in our history when our leadership is demonstrating weakness and lack of resolve. Like Eusi Kwayana and many of that generation he has been an advocate for the revival of the African village movement in Guyana as a vital instrument in our economic liberation. His love and concern for the future of the county of his birth, Essequibo, has never wavered. As I await the return of his mortal remains to his beloved Guyana my sincere sympathy goes out to his children, relatives, friends and his many comrades around the world.
Clarence, my friend and comrade, I pledge to continue the struggle for shared governance, which we pursued collectively for many years.
I await your return dear warrior.
Yours faithfully,
Tacuma Ogunseye
