Dear Editor
Mr Donald Ramotar has recently returned to the theme of the WPA’s betrayal of Walter Rodney because of its alliance with the PNC in the APNU partnership. Mr Ramotar and the PPP are being hypocritical. The truth of the matter is that it was the PPP that betrayed Rodney even when he was alive. The PPP never wanted to get close to Rodney and sought to confine him to the Black communities. They saw him as a troublemaker. Many PPP members were thrown out of the PPP because of their association with Rodney. The marginalization of Rodney has continued since the PPP came to power in 1992; it has done very little to advance Rodney’s ideas in the mainstream of Guyanese politics and society.When Walter Rodney returned to Guyana in 1974 he joined the WPA. He was an ardent advocate of a broad alliance similar to what we have now in the form of the APNU. He wanted a close relationship with the PPP.
Towards this end he began visiting communities across the country. Alas, the PPP urged the WPA and Rodney not to go into Indian communities but to concentrate on the African areas. They were trying to keep Dr Rodney from going into Indian Guyanese communities.Out of respect for their friendship with the PPP, Dr Rodney and the WPA went into Indian Guyanese communities only when they were invited. And much to the PPP’s disappointment they were invited on numerous occasions. For example, Dr Rodney played a pivotal role in the Arnold Rampersaud case, a case that involved a PPP Correntyne activist, Arnold Rampersaud, who was charged for murder of an African policeman. Rodney, Eusi Kwayana, Moses Bhagwan and other WPA leaders played a pivotal role in bringing that case to the forefront and ensuring Rampersaud got justice.
In 1979 when Rodney was leading a civil rebellion on the streets of Guyana the PPP described his activism as adventurism. The WPA invited the PPP to speak at the massive public meetings they were holding around the country at that time. But none of the top PPP leaders attended; they stayed far away from Rodney. The only PPP leader who spoke at those meetings was Moses Nagamootoo .
When Dr Jagan was asked at Howard University in 1979 about Rodney and the WPA he described them as “a group of Black intellectuals” who were attracting disaffected Black people. Here we see a minimizing of Rodney’s role in Guyana by framing him as an obscure Black leader. After Rodney’s murder in 1980 the PPP mocked Rodney at public meetings. They told the meetings that Walter Rodney promised Guyanese a Christmas present but all they got was “his body on a platter.”
Under pressure to mount an investigation into Rodney’s murder, the PPP in 2005 introduced a motion to that effect in the National Assembly. The PNC and the WPA voted for it. But lo and behold the PPP abstained on its own motion because the word “assassination” was not included. In its 19 years in office the PPP has not seen it fit to use Rodney’s books in our schools, in particular his two books Lakshmi out of India and Kofi Baadu out of Africa, which were written specially to sensitize our children to our racial diversity.
Yours faithfully,
David Hinds
