Walter Rodney Commission to be sworn in next week

Dear Editor,

At long last, after more than 33½ years, a high-powered commission was set up by President Donald Ramotar to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Walter Rodney who died following an explosion from a walkie talkie made by former army sergeant, Gregory Smith.

The commission is to be headed by Barbadian Queen’s Counsel, Richard Cheltenham, the other members being Guyanese born Senior Counsel Seenauth Jairam, who has been practising in Trinidad and Tobago since 1979 and is now head of the Bar Association in that country, and Jamaican Queen’s Counsel Jacquelene Samuels-Brown who is the Chairperson of the Council of Legal Education (CLE).

Members of the commission will be sworn in on Monday by President Ramotar.

The Forbes Burnham administration failed to hold an inquiry after the assassination of the great historian/politician, but Desmond Hoyte in 1988, eight years later, ordered an inquest after Rodney’s widow, Patricia, addressed a sorrowing letter to him following a protest by an organization called ‘Women in Guyana.’ However that inquest was “marred by great defects” according to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) when it visited Guyana the following year.  The finding of the inquest was “death by accident or misadventure.”

One would have thought that after the PNC government was voted out of office, that the Cheddi Jagan administration would have investigated the root of the brutal murder which stunned the nation,  but unfortunately President Jagan instead threw cold water on it. He asked what the imprisonment of Gregory Smith would do for Rodney family, and then bestowed the country’s highest national award, the Order of Excellence (OE) posthumously on Walter Rodney. The National Archives many years later was named after the great historian.

Jagan’s action did not find favour with Shaka, Rodney’s son who held a fast-vigil in 1993 which prompted Dr Jagan’s government to say a special committee would be set up to study the documents; however, nothing more was heard of this. In 1996, an arrest warrant was issued for Gregory Smith by a Guyanese magistrate, but nothing came of this either because there was no extradition treaty between France and Guyana (Smith had fled to French Guiana after the brutal murder), and the French were thoroughly against capital punishment, and Smith, if convicted in Guyana for murder, could have been executed. He was using the assumed name of Cyril Johnson, but unfortunately he died in 2002 from stomach cancer.

Rodney, a Guyana scholar, who became famous in Africa for his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was a lecturer at the University in Tanzania, and before that, UWI Mona, but because he took up the cause of the working class was deemed persona non grata by Jamaican Prime Minister Hugh Shearer, which sparked off unrest. He was appointed Professor of History at the University of Guyana, but he was blocked by the then government from taking up the appointment. This forced the brilliant historian into politics. He then co-founded the WPA, and held meetings all over the country. He became extremely popular in a relatively short time, cutting through the racial barrier, and was poised to take over leadership of the country when his life was snuffed out on Black Friday June 13, 1980. Members of the commission will hold discussions with stakeholders next week before commencing their sitting in Georgetown.

Yours faithfully,

Oscar Ramjeet