The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) was yesterday accused of orchestrating a “massive cover-up” in the death of historian Dr. Walter Rodney following the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Cargill Kyte that a number of Air Corps documents before the 1980s could not be located.
The accusations were levelled by attorney Christopher Ram during the cross-examination of Kyte when he testified before members of the Commission of Inquiry into Rodney’s death yesterday at the Supreme Court. Ram is appearing on behalf of Rodney’s party, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA).
Former GDF pilot Captain Gerry Gouveia had previously testified that he suspected he transported Gregory Smith to Kwakwani, a day after the latter allegedly engineered a bomb blast that killed Dr. Rodney on June 13, 1980. Gouveia, long said to be the pilot who transported Smith to the Berbice River location from where he was transported to French Guiana, said he never corroborated his suspicions by investigating further.
For his testimony, Kyte, who had been the commander of the Air Corps from 1999 to 2012, was requested by the commission to enquire into the procedures of the army Air Corps between 1978 and 1980. He reported that though he had made requests into the procedure for the time period,
