Dear Editor,
Tacuma Oguyseye castigated Hamilton Green on his distorted letter about Walter Rodney (see, ‘Green misrepresented the facts surrounding Rodney’s assassination’, SN, March 15). Mr Ogunseye said, “I have great difficulty with public personalities who show contempt for the citizens of this country and think that they can always get away with falsehoods in public. Let me illustrate an example from Mr Green’s letter. He is contending that the CoI brought Cecil ‘Skip’ Roberts to Guyana and had him here for two weeks and failed to take evidence from him. The facts show a different story.”
President Granger was quoted in SN as saying, “The Commission brought one of the persons who was present at that meeting into this country for ten days, kept him at a hotel and then sent him back to the United States without asking him a single question. Why should the Commission accept the word of a convict and refuse to bring unto the stand, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, who in fact was supposed to be at that meeting with Former President Burnham and was also the chief investigator into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Rodney? So when you look at details of the evidence provided it is clear that the report itself is very badly flawed and we intend to challenge the findings of the report and the circumstances under which that report was conducted.”
Mr Ogunseye stated as follows: “For the benefit of those who do not know the Chairman was always at pains to point out that Mr Roberts was brought to Guyana based on the assurance he gave to them that when he arrived in Guyana he would produce his statement. The Chairman had also on numerous occasions reminded counsel present of the commission’s rule that a witness must submit a written statement before he/she can take the stand and give evidence. It was said that Mr Roberts refused to comply with the commission’s request in spite of the several attempts made by the officials of the commission to get his cooperation.” Mr Hanoman, counsel for the CoI, confirmed Mr Roberts’s refusal to provide a statement, despite the assurance he (Roberts) reportedly gave the commission (as per Ogunseye). A Chronicle article noted “Hanoman said he sat down with Roberts and tried to take a statement from him, but Roberts only kept saying that he could not remember anything. I told him to return at a later date but he never did. He never did although my staff left messages for him at the hotel he was staying at.”
Both Hamilton Green and President Granger effectively said the same thing. However, Mr Green is rightly criticised but Mr Granger gets strange silence from Mr Ogunseye when both demonstrated the same moral position on the very same point. As Mr Ogunseye said and Glen Hanoman, lawyer for the Rodney CoI, confirmed, the CoI’s rule was explicitly clear that a witness must submit a written statement before he/she can take the stand and give evidence. For the President to suggest the CoI refused to bring Roberts to the stand is ludicrous when the evidence points unequivocally to Roberts refusing to cooperate. How does the refusal of a man to provide a statement, which is a necessary precondition to testifying and which was probably explained to him before his fare was paid for him to come to Guyana to testify, become a refusal on the part of the commission to bring that person to the stand? What kind of illogical leap of faith is the President making here?
Mr Hanoman said he tried to question Mr Roberts who reportedly told him that he could not remember anything. Mr Hanoman said his staff left several messages and tried to contact Mr Roberts at the hotel he was staying at and Roberts never responded. Mr Hanoman tried to question him and Mr Roberts said he could not remember anything. This is the very man President Granger and Mayor Green said had vital testimony to give on the matter, which if we are to believe them would have had a dramatic impact on the CoI’s findings.
For a President versed in strategic thinking and tactical awareness, who is very intelligent and who made national unity politics a centrepiece of his rule, it is profoundly disturbing that he engaged in this warped factual analysis and moral equivocation. One has to surmise that we may have exchanged rather than changed on May 11, 2015. As I stated before, Walter Rodney still serves this nation magnificently in death. He still presents the incisive moral dilemmas to those in power and those watching those in power. He still allows us to really understand what the mindset is behind the carefully cultivated veneer since May 2015.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
