Dear Editor,
Rupert Roopnaraine’s recent disclosures that long before Walter Rodney’s assassination the WPA had been accumulating weapons and equipment of various kinds, some of which belonged to the GDF, is something that the leadership of the PPP at that time had long suspected.
The WPA’s leadership at that time never took the PPP into its confidence to mention its predisposition to such subversive actions on its part. But political intelligence generated over time by the PPP provided sufficient prima facie evidence at the time to conclude that the WPA had embraced and embarked on other forms of struggle that were miles apart from the PPP’s.
This was in the 1977 period when the PPP advocated the establishment of a National Patriotic Front and a National Front Government in which the PNC and the WPA were to be included. That call was rejected by both parties for reasons that were already told publicly.
Because of its political position, the PPP was ridiculed, mocked at and mauled politically by those who felt that it should have picked up the gun and fought arms in hand to remove the PNC from office. There were those inside and outside the PPP who wanted a tactical shift in our position from civil resistance and non-cooperation and later, critical support to an armed struggle.
However, the PPP led by Cheddi Jagan successfully resisted this extremist manoeuvre and placed the party firmly on the path to parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, non-violent forms of struggle in Guyana.
Dr Roopnaraine’s statement may not be simply a ‘confession’ or ‘admission,’ it may very well be a subtle signal of abandonment of his Rodneyite commitment to that particular form of struggle to which those of whom he is perhaps aware and who are still around remain committed. Further, Dr Roopnaraine may be alerting the public to the fact that there are some in our midst who still adhere tenaciously to the Rodneyite philosophy and who may be contemplating engaging in similar extremist and adventuristic forays locally.
Recall Roopnarine’s appearance in 2006 on a political platform with the PNCR, an act which provoked some public debate to the extent that it was deemed a betrayal of the core values of the WPA. Perhaps in an effort to be consistent with this political somersault, Dr Roopnaraine is telegraphing to the leadership of the PNC that he is no longer supportive of armed struggle in Guyana and he wants the current and future leadership of the PNCR to know that. Only Dr Roopnaraine knows what he is about politically having made this recent public disclosure at this time. Now that this public disclosure has been made by Dr Roopnaraine we now know that there are two sets of firearms out there that were illegally acquired: one set by the PNC and the other set by the WPA, both of which have not yet been accounted for. In this connection, it is downright hypocritical for both the PNC and the WPA to continue harping on the threadworn issue of phantom groups when both are guilty of serious transgressions in the security sector thus compromising the security situation of the country.
Those who continue to plot the subversion of the existing social order in Guyana should reflect on Dr Roopnaraine’s confession and situate that ‘confession’ in the Guyanese historical context and experience.
Yours faithfully,
Clement Rohee
Member of the Executive and
Central Committees
People’s Progressive Party
