Dear Editor,
Let me see how I can usefully enter the award discussion. I do so with the objectives of justice and reconciliation. I want to do so without compromising justice or endangering reconciliation. These two are the midwives of a better, more secure, more equal Guyana. Memories (including mine) are shaky. A review of the record may be helpful. Challenges will be welcome as we must clear the air without polluting it.
After the killing of Walter Rodney in an explosion in a car in June, 1980, the administration arrested one person, his brother, and driver at the time of the explosion. The administration invited two UK experts, Dr Skuse and Dr Johnson who prepared reports that can be useful in a trial or inquiry. Those experts were not qualified, nor required, to investigate guilt. Donald Rodney named as suspect a soldier, whose identity was denied by the army Chief of Staff, now a government nominee on the Broadcasting Authority Board. His statement was later exposed by the suspect’s neighbour, a woman of great homely courage and keen intelligence who identified the suspect as an active GDF soldier. The Catholic Standard, not the police, led the investigation and kept the police reacting.
In its wisdom and for reasons not stated the administration showed no interest in finding the offender, and promised no investigation. The only person charged was Donald Rodney. He was found guilty of possession of an explosive.
The Guyana Human Rights Association, the Caribbean Conference of Churches, the UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group, with Lord Avebury and others, Horace Campbell, Allan Alexander (T&T), Canadian and Guyanese human rights persons in Canada, Rupert Roopnaraine, Andaiye and Wazir Mohamed as International Secretaries of the WPA and the Rodney family were among the numerous persons and groups pressing for an international inquiry. The PPP was extremely supportive of a Commission of Inquiry and of regular inquests. Five full years passed with no effort by the Prime Minister, later President from 1980 and his law department even to hold an inquest to clear doubts. President Hoyte held an inquest into Rodney’s death in the third year of his presidency, but no inquiry. That inquest, discounted by jurists, found “death by accident or misadventure.” The PPP in its 20 years acted, but appointed no Commission of Enquiry.
To be fair, the holding of inquests had been unsatisfactory. The official excuse was a lack of magistrates ‒ the usual coroners. During his broadcast funeral oration, the then PM had called the killing of Minister Vincent Teekah an “assassination.” Yet no investigation or inquest followed or was ever announced. Although it was of the highest profile, they can claim that Rodney’s case was not an exception. I observed in court and out of doors an inquest for Ohene Koama. Because it was rigged, as Attorney at Law Moses Bhagwan noted, and as I then wrote publicly, it fell apart. Yet it found “no one criminally responsible.” In fact the state criminally doctored the evidence to justify the police in shooting to kill.
The South African government’s proposal to confer the Oliver Tambo award on the late President Forbes Burnham has led to a widespread expression, a cross-fire of opinion on the rights and wrongs, of the award.
In my time I had disagreed and agreed with Mr Burnham as I had agreed and disagreed with Dr Jagan. I lived in the jurisdiction and was seldom neutral. I never joined any campaign to oppose or support their awards and honorary degrees. Any statement from me about the fitness of the receiver for the honour might be brushed aside as self-serving, partisan, the result of prejudice, or old spite. During last year I disappointed many friends by declining to sign a petition to deny that most reckless of presidents Mr Jagdeo an honorary degree. He got the degree and hopefully is now more learned than he was before.
When friends sent me the news of the award to President Burnham I wrote, “The news of this Award has left me unmoved…. It is what governments do.” I often fear to tread where angels rush in.
With no inquiry in sight, the Rodney family and Rodney’s colleagues and generation knowing at first hand of his involvement in the African liberation movement and being close to the value of his scholarship, even into the 21st century, saw the award as callous disregard of the family, endorsement of the assassination and a verdict in favour of the first ruler, even if innocent, to ignore Walter Rodney’s constitutionally guaranteed right to life.
South Africa’s choice for the gold in the Tambo Award was made in 2004 to a past President, Dr Jagan, after his death. In their wisdom both Presidents had failed to mount an inquiry. There was no protest in the case of Dr Jagan’s award, even by the PNC.
President Burnham passed on in 1985, from natural causes, and although he was a known foe, some of us, Dr Roopnaraine, now Dr Wazir Mohamed and I, of the WPA, out of respect for his family and supporters, walked past his remains as his body lay in state at the National Cultural Centre.
The WPA established a Walter Rodney Commemoration Committee headed by Professor Horace Campbell and in August 2005, from all reports, rich international observances took place in Georgetown, Guyana. The event ended on a hopeful note of expectation and it was reported that discussions about the form of inquiry had begun. The new President, Mr Jagdeo impressed those he met with his zeal for the commission.
One national figure, publicly dismissive of persons from another country pronouncing on the Burnham award made an attractive argument: That the award could only be made in recognition of the Guyanese people and to Guyana through a particular leader. That is so. But then, if the award was already given to Guyana through a previous leader, Dr Jagan, the argument can be turned into an argument against a second award to yet another leader of Guyana, unless the previous one is cancelled. The statement by a UG academic in SN that there is no real ground for withholding the award from Mr Burnham is a statement, which, like this one, will not please everybody but is made with the long-term interests of the country in mind. In 1973 I wrote “Jaganism, Burnham and the People.” The response came, not from a Jamaican, but from an African American who was embedded with the PNC. Elsewhere he described my opposition to Mr Burnham as a “family feud.” No one challenged his right to speak. Jagan and Burnham found racial insecurity when they came on the scene. They did not invent it. However, they both made it a political tool. I am bound to comment in passing that the PPP/C controlled Guyana Chronicle is the most racially provocative newspaper in the Republic today. The only mass leader in my experience that did not exploit race was Walter Rodney.
The fate of the Rodney Inquiry
Both the PNC and the PPP regimes failed to mount a Commission of Inquiry into Rodney’s death. It was Rodney’s family, the GHRA, the UK parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Lord Avebury and others, Guyanese and Canadians in Canada, the WPA and friends with numerous advocates like Horace Campbell and the PPP that raised the demand for an inquiry. Richard Small (Jamaica) Alan Alexander (T&T) and Rupert Roopnaraine with Campbell deserve special mention.
When the news broke from CANA of Gregory Smith’s hiding place, Mrs Patricia Rodney now Dr Patricia Rodney, the widow, early in 1987 addressed a letter to President Hoyte demanding action, but she pleaded in vain. Women in Guyana launched a supporting petition which was delivered to President Hoyte by Walter Rodney’s mother, Mrs Pauline Rodney. My private prosecution followed and could have been for the state reason for action. In this mysterious atmosphere the suspect landed in New York on August 5, 1987 to visit his sick mother (see Assassination Cry by Gregory Smith and Anne Wagner).
After Dr Patricia Rodney’s letter and after Gregory Smith gave an interview to CANA in February 1988 under President Hoyte, an inquest took place into Rodney’s unnatural death (see Dangerous Times by Gabriehu). When Professor Ali Mazrui accepted an invitation from President Hoyte to speak at the Cultural Centre in July 1988, Mazrui’s call for restoration of Walter Rodney to his nation brought warm and prolonged applause from an audience largely of Georgetown residents.
With the supposed “return to democracy” the campaign for a Commission of Inquiry began to lose force at home and abroad. It was supposed that the new government needed no prodding. However, the new President’s first statement on the matter is on record. He wondered what the conviction and imprisonment of the suspect “would do for Walter Rodney.” That was the maximum leader and it is not unfair under democratic centralism to see later positions as bound by that statement. The PPP government under President Jagan conferred the Order of Excellence on Walter Rodney.
Uneasy at the lull in the campaign for an inquiry, Walter Rodney’s son, young Shaka Rodney held a fast and vigil in Georgetown from late 1993 to early 1994 in order to shake the new government and others out of their state of inaction on the inquiry. There was some quick response, reported loss of official documents and later the visit of the ICJ, on request of Caribbean Rights (1995). The jurists found the inquest (1988) “marred by grave defects” and recommended a commission and that Smith be brought before it (Gabriehu). At the time of Shaka Rodney’s vigil, President Jagan was touring South-east Asia, courtesy of some admirers in the timber trade.
Shaka’s agitation moved the PPP from President Jagan’s doubt of what a conviction “will do for Rodney” to a new place. Dr Rupert Roopnaraine worked tirelessly with the Attorney General, the government’s legal adviser, for some process to obtain the repatriation of Smith from Cayenne. Senior Counsel Doodnauth Singh was later appointed special prosecutor and in 1996 Chief Magistrate Juman Yassin issued a warrant for Smith’s arrest.
The June 2005 Rodney International Memorial at Rodney House in Guyana offered hope for the holding of an inquiry. The parties in the National Assembly, especially the PNC, deserve credit for joining in the achievement of a resolution in the National Assembly in 2005 for an independent inquiry. The WPA should be credited for the part it played and the PPP for abstaining and not voting against the motion. The Rodney family did not make an issue of the replacing of the word “assassination” in the motion by the word “death.” This maturity on all sides was a good indication for the future.
President Jagdeo, with little sign of maturity had the idea of wanting to hold the inquiry during the election year, 2006. I am among those who opposed the holding of such an inquiry during an election year, a short-sighted proposal. It would have made Rodney’s name as well as the names of others political footballs.
One issue much examined and perhaps discussed was the French law’s rejection of the death penalty, as permitted by law. Nothing, however, it seemed, prevented an arrangement for the testimony and cross-examination of the suspect by a Commission of Inquiry.
Being absent I do not know what delayed the inquiry since the 2006 elections. I am sure that it is possible to have an inquiry with agreed terms of reference that are fair to all parties.
Personally, I doubt that state hostility had much to do with the accumulation of arms. Regardless of the opinions of people I respect and will continue to respect, I will not ignore the fact that one thing Mr Burnham’s regime sustained well was solidarity with the African liberation movement even though he used that status to obstruct a younger generation of Caribbean delegates of non- governmental organisations from being invited to the 6th Pan African Conference. On September 18, 1981 his police, again probably without his knowledge, also broke up an anti- apartheid and living wage rally in Georgetown, brutalised women organisers and locked them up at Eve Leary Police Headquarters. In fact in both areas, domestic and foreign the Guyana ruler put his actions defiantly on record, regardless of public opinion.
A statement by an articulate member of the WPA leadership that the party was accumulating arms has delighted many who have begun to cross-examine others.
I have been in and out of courts and tribunals defending, prosecuting, advocating, applying, observing and being excluded. My personal preference in these matters is for sworn testimony. Twice in the early 1970s, before the WPA existed, the young Guyanese scholar, Rodney, applied to teach at the growing University of Guyana and was appointed by the Academic Board only to be twice banned from the university by the intervention of the ruling party. There was some overblown fear of ideas, not arms. In those circumstances, ASCRIA decided on all-party protests and invited all opposition parties including the PPP to join a campaign of mass protest rallies. A vital human resource had been vandalized.
Jagan, Burnham, Ramphal and South Africa
It is interesting that our maximum leaders failed to overcome colonialism by developing political institutions and a culture of all-round ethnic security in Guyana. Mr Ramphal’s role in the ‘modfications’ of electoral laws during 1967 and 1968 did not bar him from receiving the Oliver Tambo Award, unopposed, for services known to the African states.
Yet, separately and once jointly, the two Presidents took steps in solidarity with those facing apartheid. Fighting racial injustice elsewhere has always been attractive to race-dependent leaders. This does not question their sincerity in the foreign causes, but it underlines their weakness.
After the 1948 election of Malan as Prime Minister of South Africa and a spate of laws there to ensure a place at the bottom for the native Africans and contain Indians, Jagan made his famous speech in the Legislative Council, ‘The Malan Menace’ and sold it widely as a pamphlet.
Next as Chairperson of the new PNC, Mrs Winifred Gaskin, visited Jamaica and was impressed with the campaign of the Teachers Union against South African goods. The PNC itself launched a public campaign against consumers buying South African goods. Then the PNC Leader took a motion to the Legislative Council under the Jagan premiership to ban trade with South Africa. The motion was accepted and the necessary legislation banning trade with South Africa was enacted and enforced on the initiative of the PNC under a PPP administration.
When I wrote a tribute at the funeral of an unknown soldier in Buxton on April 12, 2013 before the award issue burst on the scene, it referred to his secret role along with other unknown GDF soldiers in reversing history. Cedric L Joseph has shown how the West Indian regiment was employed by the British in the Ashanti wars against Africans. I felt it necessary to say that the humble Mervin Edwards had fought with the Cubans in Angola against forces backed by the apartheid regime and deserved to be listed as a Pan Africanist along with Makonnen and Rodney. Somehow, neither of our Presidents came to mind as examples. However, I recalled in that tribute Burnham’s defiance of the USA in 1975 to allow the Cuban aircraft facilities at the Timehri Airport and the fact that all parties in Guyana supported that decision. That is history and I dare not ignore it. A writer recently revealed that only two flights were permitted before the Prime Minister yielded to US and Venezuelan pressure. Wikileaks raises questions about the constancy of Guyana’s then Foreign Minister.
The ANC, if not the government of South Africa lacked human diplomacy when it consulted the family of the late President who died from natural causes, and did not consider the response of the family of the one whose right to life has been violated.
Governments and ruling parties decide on certain matters such as awards not on ethical principles, but on votes in the United Nations, forums and other international world assemblies, and their working committees. Hence my statements “News of the award leaves me unmoved,” and “That is what governments do” causing the South Africana government to vary its decision is a measure of the standing of Walter Rodney thirty-three years after his removal.
I have to reveal that in all this I am very aware of the feelings of those who suffered loss in the tragedies of 1978 to 1980, to isolate the political ones. The “children” if any, of Teekah, those of Ohene Koama and of Edward Dublin must purse their lips and sigh every time they recall their unnecessary loss and hear them misrepresented. I also have in mind those of the other side; the feelings of the Burnham “children.” They must purse their lips and sigh every time they hear an accusation without proof against their father. For me these are valid considerations.
Rickey Singh, a well-known critic of Mr Burnham wrote in 2004 when a Caribbean poll named Mr Burnham Man of the Century: “Opposition Leader Dr. Cheddi Jagan may consider it justified in questioning the Guyana Government’s non aligned policy. But even he must agree that in the nationalisation of Alcan’s Demba and the thrust towards the Sino-Soviet bloc, Mr. Burnham has dwarfed his Caribbean colleagues and has elevated himself and Guyana in the eyes of the Governments and people of the Third World.”
And a website chronicle critical of Mr Burnham generally wrote about his government’s African policy, “In addition, it catapulted Guyana into the position as a champion in the western hemisphere for the developing countries of Africa and Asia. And when in May 1967 the UN General Assembly created the UN Council for South West Africa (later Namibia), Guyana was elected unanimously for one of the eleven members. The Guyana Mission to the UN was very active in the work of this Council and also was involved in active discussions with the African Group in many political and economic matters raised at various forums of the United Nations.”
(Guyana.org)
Conclusions
As an unrelenting promoter of the work and vision of Walter Rodney as a live dynamic resource I did not see the disputed award as affecting his standing. The Rodneyites I consult often on Guyanese affairs seem to be of this view. I have to disclose that the movers in this campaign have honoured me and have proved to be friends to me in time of need. (Dr Patricia Rodney once told me that her husband would reject the idea of “Rodneyites.” ) I would not have used it in his lifetime.
I am silent on the further campaign concerning the award as it is it will be risky for me and Rodney witnesses at the inquest to get involved at that level. Still I see it as a campaign of conscience by persons I will continue to respect as a private prosecutor (1987) of the actual suspect and with an inquiry in mind. The issue of Burnham’s fitness for the award rests on tests of his anti-apartheid contribution and on his human rights credentials. On these matters Mr Burnham put himself candidly on public record as he wanted to be and there is abundant documentation. He did not shy away from them. Those who give him a clean domestic bill of health should reflect. I reserve further comment pending an inquiry during my now fleeting lifespan.
The campaign for which I am available is for a well-ordered, civilised Commission of Inquiry, as very few, can now be convicted for the offence or the alleged offences of 1980. The struggle is for accountability of the executive, the right to life, solidarity with the human losers and fairness.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana