GUYANA suffered from the sinister plot to hoist upon Guyanese the People’s National Congress as the paramount force in the country, with dictatorial powers over Government, State institutions such as the Police Force and Army, and the Judiciary.

Testimonies from senior members of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) over the past two days at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry in Georgetown exposed the repressive role of the PNC rule in Guyana.
Both Dr Nigel Westmaas and Mr Tacuma Ogunseye testified of the repressive and oppressive rule of the PNC during the period when several Guyanese political leaders were assassinated, including Dr Walter Rodney, who died in a fatal bomb blast as he sat in his car on a dark night outside the Camp Street jail in Georgetown on June 13, 1980.
Dr Westmaas, on a break from his job as Professor at Binghamton University in New York, USA, appeared at the Presidential Commission this week to testify about how and why Dr Rodney was assassinated.
The historic Commission is probing the atmosphere and circumstances in Guyana during 1978 to 1980 that caused brutal political turmoil and repression of civil liberties in Guyana, when the PNC Government controlled even the distribution of basic food items, resulting in several persons assassinated.

[box type=”shadow” align=”alignright” ]Westmaas gave as example of the paramount nature of the PNC: the existence of the Knowledge Sharing Institute (KSI), which operated as a grocery store, but engaged in importing and distributing basic food items, selecting the beneficiaries of that essential food. While the PNC Government had banned the importation and distribution of these basic food items, the KSI, under the paramount nature of the PNC, was allowed to engage in this activity. Westmaas said. Counsel Williams interjected that the KSI was “just a cake shop”, but Westmaas ignored the comment, noting that it was spread across the country and was the sole importer and distributor of essential food items, with the PNC Government controlling the distribution of basic food to the Guyanese people.[/box]

WILLIAMS’ SUBTLE TACTIC
Counsel for the PNC at the Commission, Mr Basil Williams, sought to discredit Dr Westmaas’ testimony with the same tactic he used against other witnesses, including ex-Police Intelligence double agent Robert Allan Gates and ex-PNC executive and notorious ex-religious hoodlum Joseph Hamilton. In cross examination, Williams repeatedly put to these witnesses his contention that they lied and fabricated facts related in their witness statements.
Williams contended this week that much of Dr Westmaas’ testimony lacked credibility as it was based on research rather than first-hand experience.
Westmaas’ testimony drew heavily upon his research over the years into the life and times of Dr Rodney, who was a world famous historian, brilliant scholar and staunch defender of oppressed peoples across the world, including Jamaica and Africa. Westmaas is also an academic historian with keen interest in African liberation studies.
Williams said Westmaas’ testimony lacks credible basis, despite the Professor’s thorough research for several academic papers he wrote and published, dealing with Dr Rodney and the period under probe at the Commission.
Dr Westmaas also published a book dealing with events on the era, and is writing another book on the subject.
Williams adopted a different tactic with Ogunseye, who appeared as a pleasant, amiable witness. He works as Vendor at the Kitty Market, describing himself as a leader of the WPA and a member of a former closed-door Security Committee within the Party, which was formed to defend WPA leaders and activists against the PNC Government’s growing harassment and threats against the WPA.
Williams sought to establish from Ogunseye that the WPA was bent on an armed rebellion against the PNC Government, a contention that Ogunseye denied with much benevolent frustration at Williams’ subtle questions.
Ogunseye said the WPA launched a civil resistance that grew and spread against the PNC’s repressive rule, and denied Williams’ assertion that the civil resistance was an armed rebellion.
Commission members, Chairman Sir Richard Cheltenham of Barbados, Seenath Jairam of Trinidad and Tobago and Jacqueline Samuels-Brown of Jamaica, intervened several times to assist the witness against Williams’ subtlety and intricate way of trapping Ogunseye into providing answers that established that the WPA was engaged in an “armed rebellion”.
Ogunseye kept trying to divert Williams from this tactic, providing qualifying statements to answers, with Williams insisting he didn’t ask for qualifications, only “to answer the question, and nothing else”.

LESS ABRASIVE
Eventually, a less abrasive than usual Williams gave up, informing the Commissioners that he would stand down and allow for an adjournment of this the third sitting of the Commission, which takes a break and resumes July 28 next.
Williams has sought to defend the PNC’s role in Government during the period that Dr Rodney was assassinated against some serious witness statements that implicate the PNC with its declaration of paramountcy and its authoritarian rule over the Guyana State machinery, including the Guyana Defense Force (GDF), the Police Force and the courts, in the assassination of Dr Rodney.
Williams sought yesterday to establish through his cross examination of Ogunseye that Dr Rodney was leading a violent rebellion against the PNC Government, based on Ogunseye’s testimony that the WPA possessed handguns. Ogunseye said in his Witness Statement that he had “caused the distribution” of handguns to 25 WPA cells in Georgetown, and insisted that this was a defensive move, because of the growing violence and threats the WPA faced against the oppressive PNC Government.
In the period leading up the death of Dr Rodney, Westmaas research detailed the assassination and killing of several other persons, including Catholic Priest Father Darke, a photographer for the PNC Government-repressed publication of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Standard.
Several WPA members and supporters were killed, while others suffered death threats, intimidation and harassment.
Witnesses paint the period of the PNC Government in Guyana as a dark era where Guyanese lacked civil liberties, freedom of the press, freedom of movement, and suffered from the banning of essential food items.
Westmaas gave as example of the paramount nature of the PNC: the existence of the Knowledge Sharing Institute (KSI), which operated as a grocery store, but engaged in importing and distributing basic food items, selecting the beneficiaries of that essential food.

[box type=”shadow” align=”alignleft” ]Ogunseye said the WPA launched a civil resistance that grew and spread against the PNC’s repressive rule, and denied Williams’ assertion that the civil resistance was an armed rebellion. [/box]

FOOD DISTRIBUTION CONTROLLED
While the PNC Government had banned the importation and distribution of these basic food items, the KSI, under the paramount nature of the PNC, was allowed to engage in this activity. Westmaas said. Counsel Williams interjected that the KSI was “just a cake shop”, but Westmaas ignored the comment, noting that it was spread across the country and was the sole importer and distributor of essential food items, with the PNC Government controlling the distribution of basic food to the Guyanese people.
Ogunseye testified that WPA members and supporters suffered from “trumped up charges” and he himself faced the courts charged with false criminal activities.
Westmaas detailed how paranoid and draconian the PNC Government acted, relating an incident involving ex-Intelligence boss of the Joint Forces Intelligence organ of the PNC Government, Mr Laurie Lewis.
Westmaas said he practiced jogging in the morning on the seawall from his home in Prashad Nagar, Georgetown, and Lewis, a senior Police Officer at the time, who lived a couple houses away on his street, would follow Westmaas in his car, gesturing to him every morning.
On one occasion, Lewis drove his car in a threatening manner to Westmaas, following him at close proximity to his gate. Lewis stopped when Westmaas got to his home. Lewis proceeded to sit in his car staring at Westmaas.
Westmaas, who worked as a leading activist for the WPA, and whose father was a leading member of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), said he saw this as an effort at intimidation and causing fear.
Westmaas’ testimony highlighted the PNC’s declaration of itself as paramount over Guyana, with Williams’ cross examination referring the PNC document, known as the Sophia Declaration, to dispel that idea.
Ogunseye’s testimony, on the other hand, highlighted the WPA’s civil resistance as the “chosen” method of the WPA to push back against the impact and effect of the PNC Government’s repressive role in Guyana.