Did Gregory Smith leave Kwakwani on June 17, 1980 in an army aircraft? This is the question that still lingers 34 years on.
Smith then a member of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) had been implicated in the bomb blast which killed Working People’s Alliance (WPA) co-leader Dr Walter Rodney on June 13. He was flown by a GDF aircraft to the Berbice River location of Kwak-wani the following day, where he spent a day or two before he was transported back to the city. It is believed that Smith left Kwakwani on June 17, three days after he had been reportedly transported there initially in an army plane. Subsequently it was discovered he was in French Guiana, where he lived until his death.
During the ongoing Walter Rodney Commis-sion of Inquiry (CoI), the date June 17 has come up on a few occasions. How-ever no one knows for certain if Smith indeed left on this day or what his mode of transportation was when he left Kwakwani. While there seem to be several different versions, no one knows for certain which one is accurate. While evidence suggests that it was an
