Who would really benefit from the Walter Rodney COI?

Dear Editor,

Regarding the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry that was finally appointed and its members sworn in, many Guyanese locally and overseas seem to think that nothing new would be known other than what is so far known. The cardinal reason for this is that many think that the two principal witnesses are now dust in their graves. They are now references in the corridor of history.

The then first head of state of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana Mr LFS Burnham and principal nemesis of that unlucky victim is dead. He must have known everything about that tragic incident as it was calculated. And many may want to suggest too that he was the main planner of that murder. But I doubt that the commission would be so forthright as to make that blatant statement in its final report.

The other person, Gregory Smith, the erstwhile Guyana Defence Force Sergeant who it is also alleged made and gave the walkie talkie bomb to the unsuspecting victim is also bones in a foreign land. Case closed. Dead men can’t talk.

The question that is most pertinent and should now be asked is that apart from the commissioners with their clerks and the press, who else would benefit? The commissioners would be paid, newspapers would earn from the publicity and – that’s it. We the public would not be wiser and as taxpayers we have to pay the bill.

It would all be lots of publicity at the financial expense of the beleaguered taxpayers. And no one would be wiser.

Case closed!

Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)