Why would we hide Smith? asks the WPA

REACTING to last week’s ‘Stabroek News’ exclusive interview with Gregory Smith, the WPA, in a statement declared he would be finally exposed by his claim that the party got him out of Guyana.

‘One day at an enquiry, or in the Courts, he will be invited to explain, step by step, day after day, how this happened,” the WPA said. ‘It is really the most thoughtless mistake in all his reporting. He will have to reconstruct that whole escape...but can never succeed before a tribunal in such a tale. For this reason, we are thankful for this lie - one that is a key to others,” it added.

WPA said: “We hope readers will ask themselves why the WPA would, as Smith claims, rush him off to a place of safety in Cayenne and keep Donald Rodney here to face possible violence and a criminal trial for all sorts of offences. Not only that, but he was named by Donald Rodney while he Smith was in the country, so that WPA was putting him and itself in danger.”

It is not true that Donald named Gregory Smith only when he gave the statement to the Police. In his earlier interview to the Press, before he was strong enough for Police interrogation, he did name Smith. It was CANA that exercised its discretion to omit the name in its reporting.

Why then would WPA name Smith on June 14 or 16 (1980) when it is hiding him and the public does not know him, yet run the risk of hiding him after naming him and labelling him a wanted man responsible for Walter Rodney’s murder?”

The party said it was glad Smith has started talking ‘regardless of what he chooses to say,” and urged Guyanese to “read everything...and demand a Court trial for Smith, or failing a trial by jury, an independent investigation to lay everything bare.”

Gregory Smith would not be an agent if he could not have wormed his way by similar pretense as those in ‘Stabroek News’ into Walter Rodney’s confidence.

He must be a fine actor,’’ the party said.