The Alliance for Change (AFC) will take an independent position on both the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry Report and Minister of State Joe Harmon’s appointment of Brian Tiwari as an advisor after discussing same at the executive level.
“Some people feel it is just Ramjattan’s opinion on the matter. So it is important that all these other members who sometimes feel we are too controlling and influenced to democratize the process, to give a broader statement that would incorporate the views of all,” AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan told Stabroek News yesterday. The AFC is a member of the governing APNU+AFC coalition.
Ramjattan disclosed that he received 10 copies of the Rodney CoI report from President David Granger and has given them to the party executive for analysis and subsequent input so that when the party puts out a statement on the issue, it will be reflective of its members.
“I haven’t gotten their inputs yet …it is important that we have a collective statement on it,” Ramjattan asserted. The APNU+AFC government is yet to release the report to the public. Leaked copies have however made their way into the public domain.
Ramjattan pointed out that the same inclusive process of discussion will be followed as it pertains to letting the public know how the party feels about Harmon’s appointment of Tiwari. “That is a very sensitive issue for me, I tell you. I will want those members also to come forward with whatever they want to make. I want to democratize the process even further so that not only the party leader or party chairman speaks and that will include this,” he posited.
Only President David Granger has spoken from the coalition on the Walter Rodney CoI and on the Harmon issue.
With regards to the Walter Rodney CoI, Granger said that government will challenge the report, charging that “badly flawed” evidence was contained in the final report.
“When you look at details of the evidence provided it is clear that the report itself is very badly flawed and we intend to challenge the findings of the report and the circumstances under which that report was conducted. That is all I would like to say at this time on that Report but it is terribly flawed” he had said.
The report of the CoI chaired by Barbadian Queen’s Counsel, Sir Richard Cheltenham delivered a damning indictment of late Prime Minister Forbes Burnham who it said was likely part of a conspiracy that involved the army and the police to kill Rodney. Granger is presently the leader of Burnham’s party, the PNCR and attained the rank of Brigadier in the Guyana Defence Force (GDF). The PNCR had maintained a hostile stance to the CoI from the inception.
Granger had also said that the report would be discussed at the Cabinet level but up to when Stabroek News had inquired about this two weeks ago, it had not yet been discussed.
Rodney’s Party, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), which is also a member of the governing APNU+AFC coalition, says that it will this week, at a meeting of the party’s executives discuss the report and determine if they will make a public statement on their views.
“That is a matter for the WPA. We have an executive meeting this week and I am sure it will be on the agenda. The matter has not yet been discussed by the executive and we will discuss it and see what we have to say about it,” Leader of the WPA Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine told Stabroek News yesterday.
WPA members David Hinds and Tacuma Ogunseye had expressed disappointment at the president’s reaction to the report and said his positions cannot be defended creditably.
“The president, in his capacity of Head of State and Government of Guyana, has taken a clear partisan stance on a matter of high national importance and one that has continually divided the country. This is what bothers me. I knew the president fairly well long before he assumed high office and concluded that he is a person of political integrity who has the rare quality of not allowing partisan differences to stand in the way of the larger good. His approach to the matter at hand, however, flies in the face of that praxis,” Hinds wrote in a letter to Stabroek News.
“The president must know that when he speaks on behalf of the government he speaks for a coalition of parties. On the matter of Walter Rodney, it is no secret that two of the established parties in the Coalition, PNC and WPA, have had differing views. The president, therefore, could not be speaking for both parties when he rubbished the findings of the CoI,” he asserted.
