PNC Government offered spy $1M to ‘blow Roopnarine’s head off’
–also offered $1M to kill Rodney

BITTER political enemies, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and the Government of the People’s National Congress (PNC) resorted to nefarious secret spying and manipulation of guns and ammunition during the period that a mysterious bomb-blast killed Dr Walter Rodney, an ex-Police Intelligence official said yesterday.Giving testimony at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry the day after ex-Army Chief, Major General (ret’d) Norman McLean testified before the Commission, the witness escalated the drama and tension of the probe to fever pitch as he named names, and gave minute details of nefarious spying and dark secrets on the streets of Georgetown in 1980.
Rodney was assassinated in his car on June 13 of that year when a communication device exploded in his lap while he sat in his car outside the Camp Street jail.
The witness spent several minutes at the start of the day’s hearing to clarify a mystery around his name.

He said the Government of Guyana, through his Police and Army handlers, offered both him and Smith a million dollars each to assassinate Dr. Rodney and Dr. Roopnarine, and ‘they also offered us safe flight out of the country’

Standing in the witness box, neatly dressed in shirt and tie, the witness told the Commission that his name is currently Allan Robert Gates, but that’s not the name on his birth certificate. He was born Brian DeNobrega-Gibbs, and changed his name by deed poll in 1992, because he felt he had to go into hiding for fear that his life was in danger. His name as a Police officer was Brian De Nobrega Gibson, he said.
Gates attended every day of the Commission’s sitting this week, but even that turned out to be filled with drama and suspense.

As testimonies unfold at the Commission, the narrative is becoming progressively more suspenseful, dark and dramatic, with witness after witness painting a picture of Guyana in the 1978 – 1980 era as a society in the vice-grip of nefarious conspiracies involving PNC Government leaders, the House of Israel religious sect, the Guyana Defence Force, and the Guyana Police Force.
Guyanese home and around the world watch and listen to the murky revelations coming out before the Commission, in live Online streaming, with astonished and shocked fascination. The Commission’s findings are exposing a period of Guyana’s history that distorted the society, filled with grotesque secret collusions, and strange hidden intrigues.
Gates, for example, takes the stand as a prisoner at the Camp Street jail, where, he told the Commission, he is serving a 48-month sentence after being convicted of “obtaining by false pretense”. He tried to explain that he was framed to prevent him from testifying at the Commission, but Commission Chairman, Sir Richard Cheltenham told him that that’s a separate matter. Gates told Sir Cheltenham that he appealed his conviction, and the case is before the Chief Justice. Sir Cheltenham told him to leave it there, and not bring it up at the Commission’s probe.

The high drama emanating from the work of the Commission grows as succeeding witnesses reveal ever deeper and darker secrets as the probe goes on. Gates’ testimony so far is explosive and detailed, and contradicts testimony offered from a previous witness, ex-Army Chief, Major General (ret’d) McLean.
Gates revealed to the Commission that he operated as a double agent in Georgetown, a spy who worked for two masters, each against the other: Dr Rupert Roopnarine, and the Guyana Police Force.
Dr. Roopnarine is co-leader of the WPA, and was a close confidante of Dr. Walter Rodney in the 1970s, up until the deadly June 13 bomb blast. Gates readily pointed out Dr. Roopnarine sitting in the audience when Sir Cheltenham asked him if he could identify the WPA leader.
Gates said his life took an ugly turn when he refused orders from his spy handlers in the upper echelon of the Police Force to cause the assassination of Dr. Roopnarine. “I did not want to harm Dr. Roopnarine, because he treated me well; and he’s a fine gentleman, and a very good person,” Gates said.
The former double-agent spy told the stunned courtroom, and the highly attentive Commissioners, that he spied for Dr. Roopnarine, reporting Police information to the WPA leader; and he also spied on behalf of top officers of the Police Force and the Joint Services Command on Dr. Roopnarine.
At one point in 1980, Dr. Roopnarine asked Gates to secure ammunition, and to safeguard this until needed. Gates said he kept the weapons at his house. But, he said, he had passed on the tip to his handlers that the WPA leader was requesting ammunition, and the Security Force handlers agreed for Gates to give Roopnarine what he wanted, but only after the ammunition “got packed” so they would explode in a deadly explosion upon being used.

He said Smith told him that his immediate handler was McLean. Gates also named his immediate handlers as ex-Police Chief, Mr. Laurie Lewis and a lower-ranked Police official he referred to as “Chico”, and mentioned that McLean was integrally involved as well

Gates said Dr. Roopnarine escaped “many” assassination attempts, and noted that he was fingered to kill the Opposition leader, but felt his conscience could not carry out the act. He told the Commission that his spy handlers wanted him to give Dr. Roopnarine the tampered bullets, and make sure he used them “in testing”. But he was warned to stay a safe distance away, “because it was intended that Dr. Roopnarine would die; his head blown apart.” Gates never gave Dr. Roopnarine the deadly bullets.
Instead, he said, he fled to Sandy Creek, an isolated community on the Berbice River.
Gates, who grew up in Sandy Creek, said he fled there because he knew it “like the back of my hand.”
He had grown up there with Gregory Smith, whose name comes up constantly during the course of the Inquiry, as allegedly being integrally involved in the assassination of Dr Rodney.
Although Major General (ret’d) McLean denied knowing Smith, or interacting with him at the Army during the 1978-1980 period, Gates claimed yesterday that Smith was also a double-agent spy, working for WPA leader, Dr. Walter Rodney and also the Guyana Defence Force, under the command of McLean.
Gates said he knew Smith well, as they grew up in the same Sandy Creek community, and that he and Smith met regularly in clandestine locations around Georgetown to compare notes and share “intelligence”.
He said Smith told him that his immediate handler was McLean.
Gates also named his immediate handlers as ex-Police Chief, Mr. Laurie Lewis and a lower-ranked Police official he referred to as “Chico”, and mentioned that McLean was integrally involved as well.
Packed with dark details and filled with conspiracies of hair-raising suspense, Gates’ testimony speaks of the deepest of intrigues and political plotting to murder, harm and harass Guyanese and political leaders, with spying and weapons accusations affecting both the WPA and the PNC Government.
Gates said Smith told him that his handler at the Army had asked him to assassinate Dr. Rodney with a walkie-talkie. “I told him not to do it,” Gates said, noting that Smith “reluctantly” agreed not to execute the deadly plot.
The witness said a “KGB Russian” secret agent provided “technical training and information” to both him and Smith on the use of deadly weapons. He would meet with the foreign spy, who “could hardly speak English”, at the Pegasus Hotel poolside, sometimes with “Chico and Laurie Lewis”, and the chief security at the hotel. The foreign spy was living at the hotel at the time.
Gates said after he failed to assassinate Dr. Roopnarine, he fled Georgetown for the Sandy Creek area, hiding in the dense forest, and working for his brother’s lumber company.
He said he later saw one of Smith’s cousins, who lived in the area and had been his school friend. After consulting his written statement to the Commission, he said Smith’s cousin told him he had seen Smith in the area, and he seemed agitated and scared, and was on the run because he felt he would be killed.
Gates said he heard of Rodney’s assassination, and thought that maybe Smith had committed the act of assassinating Dr. Rodney, as he had said his GDF and Police handlers had conspired and plotted with him.
The Commission wrapped up its hearing yesterday abruptly when Sir Cheltenham asked for an early adjournment, and two Commissioners were booked to leave Guyana on a 3pm flight. The Commission resumes its work on June 23 next.
Throughout his testimony, Gates referred to Dr. Roopnarine as his spy master, noting that the WPA leader paid him around $1500 a month to be a spy. He did not say if the WPA leader suspected him of being a double-agent for the PNC Government, through the Police and Army handlers.
He said the Government of Guyana, through his Police and Army handlers, offered both him and Smith a million dollars each to assassinate Dr. Rodney and Dr. Roopnarine, and “they also offered us safe flight out of the country.”
The Commission is seeking to find the truth of what occurred in Guyana in the 1978-1980 period that resulted in the brutal assassination of world-renowned Guyanese scholar and populist political leader, Dr Walter Rodney. His death marked the major political assassination in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean, and has remained unsolved for 38 years.
The WPA and the international community have long called for an Inquiry, but the PNC resisted, and even today has refused to participate in the Commission’s probe.