Ramotar defends Rodney probe terms of reference

Walter Rodney

-says imperative to look at political atmosphere when he died

President Donald Ramotar has defended the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry (COI) saying that it was imperative that the ToR be crafted to recreate as far as possible for the commissioners, the political atmosphere and environment at the time of Rodney’s death.

“Indeed, it would have been myopic and self-defeating if the inquiry was circumscribed by its own Terms of Reference from venturing beyond June 1980. It is a fact of public notoriety that Rodney’s death was not an isolated event, but has its genesis in a series of events beginning with his public and political activism after his refusal of employment at the University of Guyana, which culminated with the fateful events on June 13th, 1980,” Ramotar wrote in an April 1 letter to the Working People’s Alliance (WPA). The WPA through its executive members Professor Clive Thomas and Dr Rupert Roopnaraine had written last month to the President expressing concerns over the ToR and composition of the COI.

In response to Ramotar’s letter, the WPA said it was disappointed that Ramotar could not find any merit in the