As we reported on Thursday, President David Granger adjudged the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry report “badly flawed”, and gave notice of the government’s intention to challenge its findings and the “circumstances under which … [it] was conducted.” Now this is before the report has been laid in the National Assembly, or released to the public, or been given to the lawyers involved in the hearings, or made available to Dr Walter Rodney’s widow, Dr Patricia Rodney. Some media houses, including this one, have seen it and have published reports based on it, so it is circulating in a limited fashion in the public domain already, if only unofficially. As such, therefore, there is no reason for the government to withhold it from citizens and interested parties any longer.
APNU had been hostile to the commission even before it came into government, despite the fact that it voted in favour of setting it up in the first place. It was originally commissioned by President Donald Ramotar in 2014 to determine as far as possible who or what was responsible for the explosion which killed Dr Walter Rodney, a leading historian and the most prominent of the WPA leaders, on June 13, 1980. After he assumed office in May of last year, President Granger indicated that the inquiry would be brought to an end. Despite pleas from various quarters that it should be allowed to complete its task, the decision to terminate it was not rescinded.
As we reported on Thursday, the Head of State told the media that the money expended on the inquiry – taxpayers’ money – could have been better spent. “We could have built ten schools with the money that was spent on that commission,” we quoted him as saying. His view was that the government had supported the pursuit of the truth by the commission, but that it had “varied its mandate and has accepted a lot of hearsay evidence.” Furthermore, he continued, “the most glaring example of the flaw in the Commission’s report is the fact that they decided to accept the evidence of a convict.”
The “convict” to whom the President was referring is Robert Alan Gates, who is currently serving 48 months in prison for obtaining money by false pretences, and who was in the police force at the time Dr Rodney was killed. The commissioners deemed his evidence eminently credible, including an account he gave of what he had heard about a conversation between then President Burnham, the Chief of Staff of the GDF and two senior members of the Police Force.
One of the latter – Mr Cecil ‘Skip’ Roberts – was brought into the country by the commission to testify, but despite being here for ten days, never gave any testimony, a point on which the President also alighted as an example of a flaw in the report. “Why should the commission accept the word of a convict and refuse to bring onto 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?” he asked.
It was former AG Anil Nandlall who in a letter to this newspaper yesterday, pointed out that the rules of evidence applicable in a court of law do not apply to commissions of inquiry. President Granger himself served on a commission of inquiry in the past, and one might have thought he would have recalled the rule. “Inquiries of this type,” wrote Mr Nandlall, “are inquisitorial and not adversarial. In other words, they are fact-finding missions.” The President theoretically, therefore, may take issue with the reliability of the evidence given by the witness, but not with the fact in and of itself that it was hearsay.
Then there is the matter of putting “convicts” on the stand. As more than one commentator has observed, it is normal practice not just in our courts, but in the courts of all common law jurisdictions to put convicted prisoners on the witness stand when necessary, never mind commissions of inquiry. What is at issue in this inquiry as with a court case, is, as said above, the reliability of the evidence any given person provides. For its part, the commissioners called Mr Gates “a witness of the truth.”
As for Mr Roberts not taking the stand, lawyer for the commission, Mr Glenn Hanoman told this newspaper in July last year after the government had announced there would be only one final session, that there were still a number of important witnesses who either had to give evidence, or in some cases had to complete their testimony. Included in the list he mentioned was Mr Roberts, along with Mr Vernon Gentle, Mr Norman McLean, WPA leader Dr Rupert Roopnaraine and an unnamed bomb expert. In the case of Mr McLean we reported Mr Hanoman as saying that he had to return to continue his testimony and that there was a lot of documentation that lawyers might want to examine him on.
In other words, by truncating the work of the inquiry the government is responsible for Mr Roberts not appearing on the stand, and also for Dr Roopnaraine and a bomb expert not giving testimony, all of them, one would have thought, absolutely critical witnesses. If, therefore, President Granger was so concerned about the commission arriving at the “truth”, then he should have allowed it to complete its sessions.
It is, of course, perfectly true that money was wasted in some instances, and also a great deal of time, such as when former Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee occupied the witness stand for a lengthy period, when really he did not have very much relevant information to contribute. But then – and this is probably what irked the PNC so much – the PPP/C government wanted the commission for its own political and propaganda purposes in the period leading up to an election. It might be noted en passant, that for all its best efforts, it got very little if anything of propaganda value out of it.
As for the monetary aspect, while it is true a great deal has been spent on this particular Commission of Inquiry, the logic of preventing it from completing its investigation makes no sense. After that level of outlay, one would have thought it should at least be allowed to fulfil its terms of reference. Furthermore, it has taken us nearly forty years to reach this point of a serious inquiry into Dr Rodney’s death, so why throw it all away when it was so close to completion? In addition, the early cut-off showed the PNC in a poor light, as not wanting a rational finding.
But in the end, one suspects, what really eats at some members of the PNC, is the commissioners’ conclusion. What can be said on that score – however the commissioners arrived at their conclusion – is that it surprises absolutely no one, and that had they come to a finding which was far removed from the verdict they did reach, it would have been regarded by the public as plainly fictitious. And this is despite the fact that the commission’s sittings were brought to a premature conclusion, and therefore by definition, not all the evidence which could have been heard, was heard.
There presumably will be those who have different nuances, or emphases or versions of events from the report, and there will be others who will see it as more or less flawed, but the commission’s general finding will be accepted by a large segment of the population as being largely right. The evidence reported in the press during the hearings more than sustains the conclusion. (If the President was tempted to believe, to give an example, that any thinking being would take Ms Wagner’s account seriously, he would be very much mistaken. Ms Wagner was Gregory Smith’s sister, who wrote a fantastical narrative of her brother’s activities.)
If the conclusion is in the right arena, what about the report taken as a whole, given that it lacks input from crucial potential witnesses? How useful will it be as a historical account of events? Unfortunately, its shortcomings and/or its strengths at the present time are not open to all for review, but suffice it to say that what is there will have intrinsic value as on-the-record testimony. Historical evidence, fully accurate or otherwise, is in any case, frequently incomplete, and often doesn’t need to be complete for certain obvious conclusions to be reached. In any case, even if all the witnesses like Mr Roberts had testified, no one could ever be sure if there were not others who could have contributed something but who did not come forward. In other words, completeness of evidence is a relative concept.
The PNC should have expected this outcome and steeled themselves for it. They also have to consider that they are in alliance with the WPA, of all parties, although it must be said the latter went into the arrangement with their eyes wide open, since they have never had any doubt about who was responsible for Dr Rodney’s death. Whether the marriage will come under strain following this report remains to be seen, but its chances are better the less the PNC part of APNU says and does. Exactly where the President is going to challenge the report is something of a mystery, but he will get no advantage by doing so and giving it what from his point of view would be an extended lifespan.
At this stage the government has nothing to gain by prevaricating and cavilling. As said earlier, it only has one imperative, and that is to make the report public.
