Dear Editor,
I quietly withdrew from Guyanese politics and from active Guyanese public service more than 30 years ago. Since then, with one or two exceptions, I’ve resisted every temptation to reverse my decision to leave politics behind. I focus now on other things. Above all, as a repentant sinner and born-again Seventh-day Adventist Christian, I focus on preparing, and helping others prepare, for Jesus’ soon return.
So, while I still harbour dreams of contributing, perhaps in a community development context, to the land of my birth, I remain, at best, a long-distance spectator in the sport of Guyanese politics.
Mostly what I do is to read. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to refrain from weeping as I read.
Every so often, though, what I read affords me a smile, and sometimes generates downright laughter. An example of the latter was when I read that the Rodney Commission of Inquiry was giving serious consideration to a document that found itself in the files of the Police Special
Branch, seemingly without the proper context being provided.
I remember as if it were yesterday when a press conference was held by the WPA, I believe to expose this document that ‘proved’ that the GDF was issuing arms to the PNC. Unless my memory fails me on this specific point, which it could, because this was some 35 years ago, the form included some reference to the arms eventually going to the House of Israel.
I was Minister of Information at the time, and I was blessed with a staff of active, dedicated, intelligent, mostly young officers. They quickly put together a pamphlet, a copy of which I still possessed, at least until a couple years ago, with the title ‘How They Could Lie So?’ I’m sure the successor to the old Ministry of Information could find a copy.
That pamphlet contained the signature that purported to belong to Major McPherson. That it was a pale and unimpressive forgery was obvious when it appeared alongside Major McPherson’s actual signature. This he had kindly provided, and it was printed on the pamphlet.
The pamphlet indicated, as apparently was pointed out in evidence before the commission, that the form employed in the forgery was never used for the purpose indicated, ie, the transfer of arms. Moreover, the pamphlet revealed that the code name used for Chief of Staff Norman McLean in the same forgery (or in a related one, I’m not sure now) either was never General McLean’s code name or had ceased to be his code name by the time of the forgery.
The Ministry of Information pamphlet was so thorough in exposing the fraud that I never heard about that alleged order form again, until I saw the news that the commissioners were investing their valuable time, their undoubted legal talent, and the Guyanese people’s scarce tax dollars to evaluate how much weight should be given to a fraud that the perpetrators walked away from with athletic speed a long time ago.
I hope the commission and its Chairman could take judicial note of the facts presented here by someone who has long ceased having a political axe to grind. My respectful suggestion to them would be that, should they desire their venture to be taken seriously, they should leave this one alone. Let that fraudulent document rest in the place of disrepute that it holds and deserves, in the history of Guyanese political trickery. There is, Lady and Gentlemen, ‘no there there.’
Having said that, I will now quietly return to my own peaceful place of retirement from Guyanese politics.
Yours faithfully,
Frank A Campbell
Former Editor of the New Nation,
Editor-in-Chief and Executive Chairman
of the Guyana National Newspapers Ltd (Chronicle),
Ambassador of Guyana to Cuba
and Minister of Information