– Karen De Souza tells COI hearings

COORDINATOR of Red Thread Karen De Souza, who was associated with the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) in the 1970’s, yesterday said her initial opinion after she learned that party founder Dr Walter Rodney was dead was that he had “finally” been killed by the People’s National Congress (PNC) Government.

De Souza, the third witness called in the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the circumstances surrounding the death of Rodney, recalled arriving on the scene moments after Rodney was killed (assassinated) in a white car on Friday, June 13, 1980.

She was led by Counsel Latchmie Rahamat before Commissioners Sir Richard Cheltenham, Ms Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, and Mr Seenath Jairam.
Asked to explain why she thought the PNC was responsible for Rodney’s death, De Souza referred to the “very serious adversarial posture of the WPA and the PNC”, and “the fact that at more than one of the PNC rallies, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham had been uttering threats about making ‘wills’ and so forth; that people in the worst possible alternative should make their wills…and that the steel of the PNC was sharper than any steel that the WPA might have.”
De Souza said some of these threats were made at the Square of the Revolution at what might have been a PNC anniversary rally.
Furthermore, the fact that two other party members were killed before Rodney also fueled her feeling about the PNC’s involvement. Ohene Koana was shot in Shirley Field Ridley Square and Edward Dublin in Linden. Both of these murders occurred prior to 1980.
An inquest was held into the Koana killing and, “the public attitude of the government was this is what happens when you oppose us.” No one was ever charged with these murders to the best of De Souza’s knowledge.
She informed that the WPA was totally opposed to many of the policies and behaviour of the PNC and hence the WPA was no friend of the PNC.
She recalled how when she attended WPA meetings in 1979, some were broken up by the ‘Death Squad’, a unit of the Guyana Police Force (GPF), also referred to as the ‘Special Branch’, ‘Quick Response’ and ‘Black Clothes’.
The ‘Death Squad’ wore plain clothes and was particularly vicious, De Souza said, adding that the attackers were usually armed with police bat arms and hockey sticks and they had no problem using them on persons who were unarmed.
Other WPA meetings were broken up by the House of Israel (HOI). De Souza described the HOI as a religious group that broke up meetings. “I certainly assume that they were affiliated with the PNC. The adversarial relation between the PNC and WPA and the fact that the police who broke up meetings were under the instruction of the PNC; that the HOI was also breaking up meetings…my assumption therefore was that they were under the same instructions,” De Souza said.
Meanwhile, when she was taken back along memory lane to the day of Rodney’s death, De Souza said she was living at Lot 45 Croal Street, Georgetown and heard a banging on her door from Rodney’s brother, Donald. He was bleeding and was in clear distress when he told her that he and Walter were driving down John Street when something terrible happened. He wanted to know who else was at home and wanted her to go to the scene of the accident.
Before he arrived, though, De Souza recalled hearing a loud explosion at about 8 pm.
Minutes later when she arrived on John Street, close to Hadfield Street, De Souza said she saw a crowd that was made up mostly of the ‘Death Squad’. The roof of the white car was blown off and she recognised Rodney’s body in the front of it.
Because she was quite petite at the time, De Souza said she was able to get very close to the car, at the passenger’s side. She couldn’t recall seeing any member of government or House of Israel there. Also, there were no marked police vehicles and ambulances when she got there.
The hearings continue today.

(By Telesha Ramnarine)