Inquiries

This doesn’t mean that it isn’t important to try and pursue the details of what occurred, but it does mean, as said in an earlier editorial, that it has to be done in a formal historical context – preferably, but not necessarily by professional historians. This should not stop anyone who was intimately involved with events from recounting their personal experiences to a serious writer, or recording it in a memoir (or on tape) for posterity, even if it is not published now. What one doesn’t want are the endless accusations and counter-accusations in a political context about who started what, or who is to be blamed for what. Many of them are based on hearsay, but through constant repetition have acquired the status of truth, when more properly they belong in the realm of myth. The truth about the era 1945 to independence is a complex story which needs a rational approach that takes into account those complexities and treats both sides even-handedly.

These endless narrations of perceived wrongs, expressed as they frequently are in uncompromising language, have an abrasive effect on ethnic relations. It is one of the misfortunes of this country that the two largest political parties are each associated with one or other of the two major races. The criticism of a party, therefore, slides over into a criticism of the ethnic group which is perceived to provide its support base. Furthermore, both parties in office (although Hoyte infinitely less so than Burnham or the PPP) have sought to occupy every available space in the society. Autonomous bodies, independent associations and non-political organizations have not been given the latitude to flourish; the aim has always been to control them, or if that is not possible, cause them to be extinguished.  By politicizing everything in the society there is no uncommitted space, and that exacerbates the divide.

There have also been suggestions that there could be an inquiry into the rigging of elections between 1968 and 1985. In this particular instance, there hardly needs to be an inquiry into whether electoral fraud took place or not, because the evidence as it stands is overwhelming that it did take place. The PNC would certainly do itself a favour – and by extension, the country too – if it simply acknowledged that and said some kind of mea culpa, so they could lay this particular ghost to rest. If they did that, the mechanics of how the fraud was perpetrated and the events surrounding each election would also then become a matter for the historian, so the information would go on record, but would be in a form less likely to feed into the acrimony of the contemporary political debate.

There is, of course, the matter of Dr Walter Rodney’s assassination which is now thirty years in the past. Exactly why the PPP/C government did not pursue its declared intention to hold an inquiry into that killing has never been made clear; at the time it first came under consideration Dr Rodney had been dead only sixteen years. Winkling out evidence within the formal setting of an inquiry becomes harder with the lapse of time. Witnesses die and leads go cold, and it is unlikely that those who remain and who have maintained their silence for three decades are going to volunteer disclosures, more especially as there is no statute of limitations on murder.  It is a moot point that even if there were a ‘truth commission’ at this stage, with the WPA revealing their side and a guarantee of no legal consequences, anybody who had something meaningful to say about the killing would be inclined to make available information which might brand them forever. After all, this is not South Africa; it is a very small society indeed.

Having said all of that, a nation needs to know the truth, and it becomes a question of how that is best accessed at this point. While as suggested last week the WPA should consider telling the public its side of the story in the interest of ‘truth,’ other than providing context that would still not answer the fundamental questions about Walter Rodney’s death. What one is looking for presumably is confessions, provided in circumstances where there will be a feeling of security on the part of anyone with critical information. In addition, those who might be privy to peripheral details, such as how Gregory Smith left the country, for instance, might be moved to come forward with that information at least.

But the WPA’s niche in the political story does not impinge directly on relations between the PNC and the PPP and their supporters, who at critical periods recite with such rancour their catalogue of grievances against the other. Having said that, Minister Clement Rohee in a rather curious letter published in our edition yesterday, lumps the WPA and PNC together in terms of what he alleges in the case of the WPA and implies in the case of the PNC, was a commitment to “armed struggle.” He then goes on to state that there are two sets of firearms out there which were “illegally acquired” and have not yet “been accounted for.”  The point of all of this was clumsily to suggest that the two parties were in no position to ‘harp’ on the “threadworn issue of phantom groups” when they had compromised security themselves.

In the first place weaponry left untouched for decades in the case of the WPA, is hardly an immediate security risk, more especially as this is a tropical environment. And if it has been maintained for that period of time, there is no evidence that it has filtered into the society. In contrast, there is plenty of evidence that weapons stolen from the military, in particular, on the PPP/C’s watch are now in criminal hands. In the second place, the WPA never actually did engage in “armed struggle,” no matter what their intentions might have been at some now distant point in time.

As for the PNC, if the Minister has evidence that they were involved in attempting to overthrow the current administration, he certainly has no business accusing them by innuendo in a letter; he should lay out his evidence and the persons involved should be charged.

And if the PPP/C has nothing to hide, why is it so resistant to an inquiry into phantom groups – an inquiry which could also deal with the whole circumstances surrounding what happened in 2002 and subsequent years. In fact, if inquiries are needed, it is generally for relatively recent occurrences, and the era of the phantoms certainly qualifies on those grounds.  Apart from all the other arguments which have been set forth previously, what emerged from the various cases in the US connected to Roger Khan certainly begs for a formal investigation.

This is one dark period in Guyana’s history where the light of truth could now be shone, rather than allow the myths to accumulate once again and provide more fodder for the reviling, besmirching, maligning and good, old-fashioned mud-slinging that some of our politicians seem to favour.