The Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry

Dear Editor, As in almost every former colonial territory with the English common law and a corresponding Westminster system legislature, Guyana has experienced severe challenges in terms of the guaranteed rights of the people. As an authority in jurisprudence President Anthony Carmona of Trinidad & Tobago recently addressed the strategic matter of judicial independence in terms of restorative justice and the need for court judgments “to be steeped in a type of social and global consciousness”.

Multiparty politics commencing from the birth of the People’s Progressive Party has reflected the pluralist dilemma rooted in the class character of the society; so much so that from the early days the PPP identified its fortunes with socialism.

The recent disclosures and revelations of former Attorney General Anil Nandlall (‘What I said in the National Assembly about Patricia Rodney’s request re the CoI is the truth,’ SN, Sepember 10), again brings into perhaps sharper focus the institutional legacy inherited historically from the era of LFS Burnham. It must be emphasised that the Presidential Commission of Inquiry did not have any mandate such as that of a legal court or a judicial function. Indeed that critical element evidently has tended to serve as a pretext for several negative and caustic remarks alien to a legitimate evidence-based inquiry.

A number of issues arise at the level of the legal superstructure in relation to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Dr Walter Rodney’s death. First, even before the Atlanta/New York meeting between then President Donald Ramotar and Dr Asha Rodney, who represented or articulated the family’s views on behalf of Rodney’s widow, Dr Patricia Rodney; the Walter Rodney Justice Committee led by Prof Horace Campbell and others were actively lobbying for an inquiry. The objective then was for a full and comprehensive inquiry.

Secondly, during the decade after the historic 25th anniversary programme in June-July 2005 in Guyana, the Working People’s Alliance leadership, whilst affirming its ‘Rodneyite’ credentials had cultivated a back-to-back relationship of collaborating with the PNC bureaucracy.

Thirdly, at no time during the annual June 13 anniversaries sponsored by the WPA and involving representatives of inter-faith groups, was there any attempt to reach out and consult with the mass of ordinary people at the national level. In other words, there were no groundings on this essentially political issue.

Fourthly, in this WPA-PNC engagement as opposition to the Bharrat Jagdeo administration, there developed the issues of African marginlisation as well as the extrajudicial killings of African youths by the Guyana Police Force, coupled with the socalled Roger Khan episode.

What was remarkable at this time was the absolute relegation of the class antagonisms this process harboured. And with the inclusion of Rodney’s widow’s name (as well as that of Asha Rodney) on protest documentation published locally it would have been difficult if not impossible for any genuine CoI to have included anything of the political environment. Stabroek News reported Rodney’s widow as urging a nonpolitical context for the inquiry.

Last, but by no means least, the Rodney family itself came under criticisms for appearing to be part of the chicanery and the complot orchestrated by the PNC, even if the rank and file WPA would have had serious misgivings. These were misgivings about transparency, about the constitutional rights of the Guyanese people as well as the heritage and legacy of Walter Rodney to freedom and liberation based on peace on a transnational Atlanticist scale. Yours faithfully, Lawrence Rodney