Dear Editor,
Much has been written about the Walter Rodney COI. For posterity, it is important to clarify a few things:
The end of the Donald Ramotar presidency during the hearings did not, by law, affect the continuity of the proceedings. Monies had already been budgeted for the Inquiry and barring a Gazetted revocation or other official Presidential intervention, the work of the Commission ought to have continued. Each Commissioner had taken an oath to fully investigate the outlined terms of reference.
When the Government changed in 2015, Mr Hugh Denbow, Administrator to the COI, verbally conveyed to me that the instructions from Office of the President were that I should bring an end to the proceedings by presenting closing submissions (I refused to obey such instructions and resigned as Lead Counsel in protest).
I requested at minimum, an additional two weeks to call a few remaining important witnesses and to issue Salmon Letters to persons who were adversely affected by the evidence.
The police rank that had investigated the incident, Mr Vernon Gentle, had already agreed to travel to Guyana from the USA to give evidence and witnesses from Kwakwani that had witnessed the arrival of Gregory Smith and family by GDF aircraft immediately after the incident, were among witnesses slated to be called.
It was the intention to officially write to Robert Corbin, Hamilton Green and others, against whom adverse findings were possible on the evidence, to give them an opportunity to lead rebuttal evidence.
Rupert Roopnaraine, who was physically present at most of the hearings, and who was seen as an important witness, had consistently rebuffed my many efforts to take, or to himself provide, a short written statement to the Commission which was deemed to be a procedural prerequisite to testifying).
By law, the Commissioners enjoyed powers identical to Judges of the High Court to issue summonses to witnesses to compel their attendance and to produce documents with a view to obtaining relevant evidence.
While I do believe that there was sufficient evidence on record to support the findings of the Commission, for historical purposes, I bemoan the fact that there was a lost opportunity to further flesh out specific aspects of the inquiry.
Sincerely,
Glenn Hanoman
Lead Counsel
Walter Rodney COI