The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) has welcomed the Irfaan Ali-led government’s announcement that it would be moving to honour the life and legacy of slain WPA Leader Dr Walter Rodney and to set the record straight about his death.
“This is indeed a moment of overcoming for Guyana, the Caribbean and the wider world. It is also a moment of justice for other martyrs of that revolutionary moment such as Ohene Koama, Edward Dublin and Father Bernard Darke,” the WPA said on Friday in a statement reacting to the announcement, which was made on Thursday by Attorney General Anil Nandlall in the National Assembly.
Rodney was killed on June 13, 1980 in an explosion that is believed to have been engineered by the then PNC government under Forbes Burnham. A Commission of Inquiry set up under the Donald Ramotar-led PPP/C government had found that Gregory Smith was responsible for Rodney’s death and that he was acting as an agent of the state.
The WPA yesterday noted that it is especially heartened that the death certificate of Rodney would be amended to reflect the true cause of his demise—assassination. “WPA has never wavered in our belief that Dr. Rodney was murdered by agents and at the direction of the government of the day because of his political activism. It is an act that will forever be a stain on the face our independence and it will always be a grim reminder of the nasty underbelly of our native politics,” it said.
“That a government of Guyana has taken this necessary step is the direct result of four decades of relentless advocacy and struggle by many colleagues, friends and admirers of Dr. Rodney,” it added, while pointing out that although the party has been in the forefront of this fight, special recognition must be given to the Rodney family, which never gave up the fight for justice for a husband, brother, father and relative.
According to the party, despite its deep differences with the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and its disdain for that party’s opportunism on Rodney’s death over the years, it commends the governing party for taking the announced initiative. “Notwithstanding the fact that the PPP takes this initiative at a time when that party is engaged in the worst assault on national jointness in Guyana’s post-independence history, they must be recognized for doing the right and honourable thing. Sometimes in politics we must be able to extricate elements of progressive outcomes from webs of conspiracies. In this instance WPA separates Rodney and the announced initiatives from the real and perceived sinister political intent of the authors,” it added.
Nandlall on Thursday announced a series of measures that he said were approved after Rodney’s family approach-ed Ali for assistance to honour the late historian and to set the record straight on his death. He identified the family members as Rodney’s wife Dr. Patricia Rodney and children, Shaka Rodney, Kanini Rodney-Phillips MD and Asha T. Rodney.
Among other things, Nandlall said Rodney’s death certificate would be amended to delete the word “misadventure” as the cause of death and the word “assassination” would be substituted in its place. “Every effort will be made to remove and expunge all public records that intimate any level of guilt or wrongdoing by Dr. Walter Rodney in relation to the June 13th 1980 tragedy”, he declared.
He further noted that efforts have already begun and will continue to secure the record of the 2014 Commission of Inquiry into Rodney’s death and they will be digitized by the National Archives, recently renamed the Walter Rodney National Archives, in collaboration with the Walter Rodney Foundation and the Atlanta University Center – Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta, Georgia, and copies of same will be deposited at that institution as part of the Walter Rodney Papers and Special Collection.
Nandlall also said the Rodney Gravesite and Memorial, which are currently being managed collaboratively between the Rodney Family and The National Trust, would be declared National Monuments and fall under the administration of The National Trust.
Rodney’s books for children, “Kofi Baadu: Out of Africa” and “Lakshmi: Out of India,” are also to be placed on the national syllabus by the Ministry of Education, while his other major works, including “A History of the Guyanese Working People,” “Guyanese Sugar Plantations in the late Nineteenth Century,” and “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” shall be made available to the library of the University of Guyana.
In addition, the Walter Rodney Chair at the University of Guyana will be reestablished.
‘Utter disgust’
Although welcoming the developments, the WPA also voiced its “utter disgust” over the way in which it said the PPP has used the memory of Rodney to encourage the further divide of Guyana politically and ethno-racially. “The PPP never misses an opportunity to mis-locate this Guyanese patriot outside of his African Guyanese heritage and place him and his life’s work in collision and conflict with the interests of that segment of our nation,” it said, calling it a crime only slightly less grievous than his assassination.
According to the party, while Walter Rodney was a prophet of multiracialism, he was forever proud of his African ancestry and “had nothing but contempt for Black self-haters.” Additionally, it said that despite its recent outpourings, the PPP has always accepted the PNC’s version of Rodney’s death and the activities of the WPA at that time. “That party’s characterization of Rodney and the WPA as “adventurists” who delivered Rodney’s head on a “platter” gave credence to the PNC’s narrative that Rodney’s murder by the State was justified,” it added.
The WPA also condemned “in the strongest terms” both the past and present leadership of the PNC. It said the former presided over Rodney’s murder, while the latter, when given the opportunity to redeem itself, “chose to assassinate our brother a second time.” The latter refers to the abrupt termination of the Rodney Commission of Inquiry by then President David Granger upon assuming office in 2015. It added that the former administration’s blunt refusal to implement reasonable recommendations of the Commission and to formally release its report “reflected a political viciousness that has no parallel in recent Caribbean political history.”
“What is even more cynical is that they did so as a government in which Rodney’s party was a junior member. It was one of the worst betrayals of political trust that exposed the WPA to unjustified but, in the circumstances, understandable ridicule and condemnation from those opposed to national reconciliation,” the party said.
“It was also an act for which the top leadership of the PNC will be forever condemned. The WPA showed good faith in the interest of national healing by joining a partnership with a party whose previous leadership had assassinated our leader but was rewarded with gross disrespect by a narrowminded leadership which could not recognize that healing a nation is always sacrosanct and necessary and must be paramount to partisan considerations,” it further added, while saying history will forever harshly judge the lack of foresight and vision exhibited then when it was most needed.
The WPA, which parted ways with the PNCR-dominated APNU coalition last August, added that it is not too late for the “current transitional leadership of the PNC” to find a way to extricate the party from those sordid chapters.
As it awaits the implementation of the initiatives by the government, the WPA noted the superlative quality of his scholarship and its inherent commitment to national wholeness and cautioned the administration against using him as the cover to insert the “PPP’s partisan version of the country’s historical journey and reality” into the educational curriculum.
It also argued that although the announcements emanate from the PPP, they are done in the name of every single Guyanese, regardless of ethnicity or political affiliation. “The resources that will be used to implement the decisions are the products of the labour of all Guyanese, including the political descendant of the assassins. In the end, Walter Rodney belongs to no single political party, ethnicity or race—by his activism and example he is the embodiment of the quintessential Guyanese,” it added.
