In one of its final decisions before going into its annual recess, the National Assembly in the early hours of Tuesday passed a motion to adopt the findings of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the death of historian Dr Walter Rodney.
Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira moved the motion on behalf of the government for the Assembly to adopt the report and its findings, which include that late President Forbes Burnham and the People’s National Congress were culpable in Rodney’s death.
The CoI held former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) member Gregory Smith as being responsible for Dr. Rodney’s death on 13 June, 1980, and also that he was acting as an agent of the State, having been aided and abetted so to do, by individuals holding positions of leadership in State agencies and committed to carrying out the wishes of the PNC Administration.
Teixeira laid a similar motion in 2016 but the then APNU+AFC government members amended it and voted to “acknowledge the report” and resolved to direct the then administration to “examine the findings so as to ascertain which, if any, are acceptable and implementable.” Teixeira later said that the government’s changes had “watered down” that motion.
On Monday evening she lamented that even the measures committed to in 2016 were not implemented and once again argued that the motion was simply meant to correct a wrong 41 years and almost 2 months after Rodney’s assassination.
“It is time for justice. It is time to right a wrong and bring conclusion to this issue,” she declared.
With the passage of the motion, which did not have the support of the APNU+AFC coalition members, the National Assembly resolved to adopt Volume 1 of the CoI report and its findings; call on the govern-ment to take measures to implement the associated recommendations in order to preserve and strengthen the democratic architecture of the state; and call on the government to take measures to make the complete CoI report publicly available, including electronically.
According to Teixeira, while the only record currently accessible from the CoI is Volume 1 of the report, the other volumes and transcripts are actively being sought so that they can be properly archived in several forms as they represent an important record of what happened in a period of Guyana’s history when democracy was undermined.
Teixeira implored the nine opposition speakers scheduled to address the motion to at least offer support to the recommendations, which advocated the need for reform within the Joint Services. She said they are measures for which all political parties have expressed support.
“I know in 2016 the Report was a difficult pill to swallow, which went down like a craw in the throat…but we must do what is right, even if it is 41 years later,” she stressed.
Some of the recommendations include that Guyana should make every effort to have a well-trained and highly professional police force with a thorough appreciation of its mandate to serve, regardless of ethnicity or party affiliation. The CoI also recommended that the force should be the recipient of regular training at every level.
Also recommended was the professionalisation of the GDF.
‘A farce’
Despite the seemingly innocuous nature of the recommendation, none of the APNU+AFC members supported the adoption of the report.
APNU+AFC parliamentarian Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, a former executive member of Rodney’s party, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), neither supported nor condemned the motion.
Sarabo-Halley did not address the motion beyond repeating its recommendations and instead used her presentation to take aim at the current PPP/C administration, accusing it of engaging in a political farce. In this way, she replicated the actions of her former WPA colleague Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, who during his own pre-sentation in 2016 declared that the then motion was an attempt to politicise the matter.
Sarabo-Halley invited the governing party to show its commitment to democracy by initiating inquiries into the murders of former minister Satya-deow Sawh, and political activist Courtney Crum-Ewing, among others.
“This mantra of democracy is a farce,” she said.
The suggestion of a political motive behind the CoI was further advanced by acting APNU+AFC Chief Whip Ganesh Mahipaul, who told the House that the PNCR will support a full and impartial inquiry into Rodney’s death.
“This CoI was far from impartial. The only intent of this CoI was to seek cheap political mileage in an effort to name, blame and shame the PNC,” he declared, while adding that the findings were heavily based on hearsay and gossip.
He lambasted the decision taken to accept the testimony of a convict Robert Alan Gates and stressed that the witness, having been convicted of fraud, is a proven confidence trickster whose crimes depended on his ability to be dishonest. To consider the hearsay testimony of such a person valid, he argued, is “suspect”.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall, one of the two other members of government to speak on the motion, expressed disappointment with the presentations from the APNU+AFC members.
The motion, he claimed, was not intended to be controversial and in fact was meant to complete a process started when the Irfaan Ali government acceded to a request from the Rodney family to honour the deceased politician’s life and legacy and clear certain matters related to his death.
Nandlall stressed that the House was not 41 years later debating “who killed Walter Rodney?” He said it was established since Rodney’s death that the PNC was responsible.
He shared a memory of a protest march on the day of Rodney’s funeral with WPA leaders chanting “Who killed Rodney? Burnham killed Rodney!”
Nandlall also claimed that Mahipaul was not qualified to question the integrity of those involved in the CoI and maintained that as a matter of law the rules of evidence are relaxed during a CoI to allow hearsay evidence.
Responding to Sarabo-Halley’s invitation, Nandlall said that the former APNU+AFC, which initiated several inquiries, had five years to do something about the deaths she mentioned but did nothing. “Did you bring a motion in this House?” he asked.
In June, before Rodney’s death anniversary, the government had announced its intention to honour the life and legacy of slain WPA Leader Dr Walter Rodney and to set the record straight about his death.
Among the announced initiatives towards this end was securing the record of the CoI, having it digitised 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 depositing copies of same at that institution as part of the Walter Rodney Papers and Special Collection.
It 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; and that 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 administra-tion of The National Trust.
It also announced plans for Rodney’s books for children, “Kofi Baadu: Out of Africa” and “Lakshmi: Out of India,” 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,” “Guya-nese Sugar Plantations in the late Nineteenth Century,” and “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” would be made available to the library of the University of Guyana.
In addition, the government said the Walter Rodney Chair at the Uni-versity of Guyana would be reestablished.
