GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Monday June 20, 2016 – An online petition has been launched, pressing the Guyana government to officially release the report from the Commission of Inquiry into the death of historian and political activist Dr. Walter Rodney in 1980 and to change the cause of death on his death certificate to reflect that he was murdered.
The creator and signatories of the petition also want the government to implement the report’s recommendations; change the profession on the death certificate of Rodney from “unemployed” to “historian/professor”; and overturn the conviction of Rodney’s brother Donald, who survived the explosion in which Rodney was killed and was subsequently charged with being in possession of explosives, and expunge any related criminal history.
Dr. Rodney, also a Pan-Aficanist and author whose best known publication was ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, was killed when a bomb hidden in a walkie-talkie exploded on his lap as he sat in a car on June 13, 1980. The Government of Guyana contended that Walter Rodney was responsible for his own as he planned to use the bomb concealed in the walkie-talkie to blow up the prison, but it accidentally exploded.
But the Commission of Inquiry report which was delivered to President David Granger in February, found that the then Forbes Burnham Government was directly involved in Dr. Rodney’s assassination. Dr. Rodney was a leading member of the Worker’s Party Alliance (WPA) at the time.
From the testimony received from the surviving Rodney and other witnesses, including experts, the Commission said Dr. Rodney’s death was as a result of an explosion of a devise provided to him by Gregory Smith, a serving member of the Guyana Defence Force – who had been building walkie-talkies for him and had instructed him to test it – and that the explosion was triggered by an external source.
It further concluded that Smith acted under the direction of the highest echelons of the People’s National Congress (PNC) government. “Any suggestion that Walter Rodney could have mistakenly triggered the device is irreconcilable with this expert and independent evidence. We go further and hold that the theory of an accident has no support on the evidence,” the Commission wrote in its report which was delivered to President David Granger in February.
The online petition, started by Ajay Murphy, charged that there is a “continued cover-up of the staggering facts and findings” in the Commission’s report. The Commission was authorized in 2014, 34 years after Dr. Rodney’s death, by then President Donald Ramotar.
Apart from its chairman Sir Richard, it included Seenath Jairam, SC, a Trinidad based born Guyanese; and Jamaican Jacquelyn Samuels Brown.
In the letter accompanying the report, Sir Richard noted that the Commission did not hear from all the witnesses scheduled to testify as the Government brought the Inquiry to a premature end. There were at least ten 10 witnesses still to be heard. However, the commission chairman added, there was on record enough evidence to make significant findings of fact and recommendations.
The recommendations include that: every effort should be made to have a well-trained and highly professional Police Force with a thorough appreciation of its duty to serve impartiality regardless of ethnicity or party affiliation and loyal to the best interests of the country and to the constabulary;
a thorough and prompt review of the systems be undertaken so as to ensure that an improved, efficient and reliable system of record keeping is provided to both the army and the police; and that no party in government should be permitted to tamper easily or at all with the electoral system such as to secure an unfair advantage.