A few weeks ago, after reading the press release “GHRA [Guyana Human Rights Association] not convinced about purpose or process of Commission of Inquiry into death of Dr. Walter Rodney” (March 2014), I asked myself “When is the next Rodney inquiry?” Nothing has happened since then to make that question redundant. Indeed, matters have become progressively worse and it would take something of a miracle for the current commission process to bring closure to the Rodney issue as so many had hoped.
In their press release, the GHRA claimed that it was unacceptable for the government to construct the inquiry process without at least consulting the Working People’s Alliance, the party of which Walter Rodney was the acknowledged leader. It also pointed to what it deemed “provocative” terms of reference, which firmly inserted the PPP into an inquiry in which it should have been marginal. The release also suggested that the act of establishing the inquiry at a time when elections are in the air appears the worst form of electioneering. It will not be party to the inquiry because “Reluctantly the GHRA feels compelled to conclude that the proposed initiative has more to do with prolonging the ethnic dimension of Guyanese politics than laying to rest controversy over who was responsible for Walter Rodney’s death.”
The GHRA is one of the better known and more credible civil society organisations in Guyana. It has also been one of the organisations that have consistently been demanding an independent inquiry into the death of Dr. Rodney. If in spite of this lineage it took a negative position on the current inquiry, it appeared to me that the PNC and WPA must have similar concerns. They could only involve themselves in the process at a political risk that they were unlikely to take – hence my question.
Since then, the matter has become even more complicated. The WPA and the PNC have objected to the appointment of one of the commissioners on the ground that he has taken legal briefs from the PPP/C government and may well be biased in favour of that party. And more recently, the PNC has been making much of the fact that the chairperson of the commission is in a conflict of interest position as he failed to disclose that he both knew Dr. Rodney and spoke at a memorial service held for him in Barbados in 1980. I believe that there are good reasons for concern on both counts.
Firstly, this inquiry is not simply a matter of taking a legal brief and presenting before a judge as some would have us believe. It is about carrying out an investigation into a very controversial historical issue in a highly charged ethnic/political situation where the perception of party allegiance is based on race and connections.
Secondly, I believe that too many foreigners, even from the Caribbean, misconstrue Guyana’s unique political situation. Here we live in at best what I called last week a democracy without the other political virtues. Unlike other Caribbean countries, first autocratic rule and now ethnic voting mean that regime change has been extremely infrequent, and before the 2011 elections, governments hardly paid attention to the opposition. As a result, all our governments since independence have had very limited legitimacy, which has now been exacerbated by the minority status of the present regime.
Therefore, in our political situation, consensus must be arrived at about both the process and personnel if the outcome of this kind of inquiry is to have the necessary level of acceptability.
Added to all of this, since the commission began its work, the PNC has been questioning the process whereby the unsubstantiated negative allegations by witnesses are being widely published. Regardless of how well meaning, such subjectivisms are the stuff of political propaganda and may be precisely what the organizers of the commission intended.
Furthermore, while I do not gainsay the point that Guyana is a small society in which public accusations can become a life-long condemnation regardless of whether such accusations are later proven false, to be meaningful the commission must work in an open and flexible environment and they do have ways of mitigating the effects of such allegations.
The reader may sensibly ask whether it is not extremely foolish and a waste of public resources for anyone genuinely wanting closure on the Rodney issue to present major stakeholders – even before the commission begins its work – with sufficient reason not to accept the outcome.
Lord Heseltine, the former deputy prime minister of Britain, is reported to have told the British Parliamentary Public Administrative Select Committee that “no government wants inquiries; they are usually in circumstances where the government is in trouble … They are not popular things for governments.” Sad as it is, nowhere does this appear more true than with the present inquiry into the death of Walter Rodney now that the PPP/C is in electoral trouble.
The PPP/C has been in government for over two decades in an environment clamouring for an independent inquiry into Dr. Rodney’s death. Why was an inquiry not established before and now being done in a manner that can very likely not resolve the issue? The PPP/C could not have lost so much of its sense of reality to believe that the WPA and PNC, who have so much at stake, would simply go along with its arbitrary impositions.
But I believe that this does not bother the PPP/C and is possibly precisely what it wants. The party has for decades blamed the PNC for Rodney’s death and this is now very much part of the psyche of its supporters, particularly those of the middling generation who are now becoming more and more disillusioned with it. For the PPP/C, the best result from this controversy would be for it to gain the propaganda value without the issue of Rodney’s death being resolved so that it can remain in the party’s armory.
The PPP/C wants to have its cake and eat it. The PNC and WPA, as organisations, are not taking part and have stated their objections to the processes. A not unreasonable question is then: “When is the next Rodney inquiry?”
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
