WHY the People’s National Congress (PNC) refuses to offer its full cooperation to the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry remains a mystery, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall says.

Nandlall holds responsibility, on behalf of the Government of Guyana, for ensuring that the Commission achieves its mandate of reporting on the circumstances, events and national condition in Guyana that caused the political assassination of leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Dr Walter Rodney, in a mysterious bomb blast on June 13, 1980.
President Donald Ramotar convened the Commission of Inquiry in answer to a national and international campaign, lasting 34 years, for Guyana to hold an Inquiry into Dr Rodney’s assassination.
Dr Rodney’s widow, Patricia Rodney, and the three Rodney children, have been in the forefront crying out for an Inquiry, for decades. Dr Rodney’s brothers, Edward and Donald, have also been asking for an Inquiry, along with a host of international academics and Caribbean political leaders.
President Ramotar convened the Inquiry because the Government of Guyana chose to answer this decades-old international outcry for Justice for Dr Rodney’s brutal murder, a State official said.
The Rodney assassination ranks as the worst political assassination in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean, with only Maurice Bishop’s demise in Grenada of equal brutality. The Grenada Government long ago investigated that dark era of its own history.
But Guyana refused to investigate its own days of political terror, and for decades allowed the deep wound to become a nasty festering sore on the body politic.
Now, citizens in the Diaspora and nationally pay keen attention to the gory details of dark conspiracies, political intrigues and suspicion, distrust and political vengeance that Guyanese saw unleashed on the nation in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
In an exclusive interview for this report, Minister Nandlall said he finds it “strange and disturbing” that the PNC refuses to participate in probing the socio-political state of the Guyanese society during its Government, in an effort “to avoid that sort of sordid brutality of Guyanese citizens ever happening in Guyana again”.
Commentators on behalf of the PNC have said publicly that the political party refuses to participate in the Commission’s probe because the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) set up the Commission to garner political mileage.
Nandlall denounced this, saying that “all the Government of Guyana is doing here is seeking justice for Dr Rodney’s family. The PNC is not even an Opposition party in Parliament. Why would the PPP/C want to set up this Commission to gain cheap political points over the PNC? The PPP/C sees its main political Opposition as the Party that is constituted under the grouping A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). Brigadier David Granger happens to be leader of APNU and of the PNC today. But nowhere in the Government of Guyana’s work relating to the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry has anyone said anything about APNU. If the Government wanted to attack the Opposition, why haven’t we said anything about APNU? In fact, APNU never comes up in relation to the Commission of Inquiry. The PNC’s name comes up. And where is the PNC? It is not around as an Opposition in Parliament. The PPP/C and the Government have nothing to do with the PNC. We see APNU as the main Opposition”.
Nandlall said that the Commission benefits the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), “more than any political party, because the WPA is finally seeing its story told on the international stage, and the WPA is finally getting some justice for the terrible sacrifices its leaders paid fighting for their nation Guyana. This is not about the PPP/C at all. Rather, it’s more for the WPA, as everyone can see from the Commission’s work so far”.
Nandlall claimed that the PNC “owes it to the Guyanese people to apologize for its role in causing a socio-economic collapse in their country over the 1970’s and 1980’s. The PNC would do well to participate in the Commission’s probe, fully, and to offer the Guyanese people a mea culpa, a cleansing of its soul. How could this Party now say that in probing a period of our history, which resulted in the political assassination of one of the most outstanding Guyanese scholar, who was recognized and admired all over the world, that the Government of Guyana is carrying out a political act? The Commission’s work is justice, not politics. As Minister of Legal Affairs, I owe it to the Guyanese nation to get these things done”.

Under Nandlall’s tenure at the Ministry of Legal Affairs, President Donald Ramotar has accomplished the historic feat of convening the Commission of Inquiry into Dr Rodney’s death. In addition, President Ramotar has also appointed an Ombudsman, a position that had remained vacant for over a decade.
“This Government is serious about getting things done. President Ramotar has shown that he is active and he takes decisive leadership. Despite not having all the resources as we would like, the Government is working to lift the Guyanese nation to the pinnacle of its potential. This is the simple reason why President Ramotar convened the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry,” Nandlall said.
Cultivating consensus and cooperation in his quest to construct a well-developed Guyana caused President Ramotar to convene the Commission of Inquiry, Nandlall said, noting that “not only are we seeing a healing process evolving out of the Commission’s probe so far, as with Joseph Hamilton’s testimony and apology to Guyanese from the witness box, but also Guyanese are seeing the dynamic role the WPA played in the socio-political arena on the national stage. The historical story of the WPA is finally being told, and what does the PPP/C gain politically from that? Nothing. This is about us working together as Guyanese to heal our divides, admit our mistakes, and work together to achieve national development. The Walter Rodney Commission is already starting to see this happen, and, sadly, the PNC refuses to participate in such a noble cause”.
Nandlall also said that in dismissing the Commission as a PPP/C political ploy, “which may really just be their excuse to cover up the PNC’s own sinister political plots that caused Dr Rodney’s death”, the PNC “is insulting the ethical and moral integrity of the three distinguished members of the Commission. Chairman of the Commission, Sir Richard Cheltenham, along with his fellow Commissioners, the outstanding Seenath Jairam of Trinidad and Tobago, and the brilliant Jacqueline Samuel-Brown of Jamaica, are eminently qualified as impartial and ethical Jurists. They are held throughout the Caribbean, and internationally, with the highest regard for their integrity and high judicial ethics. For the PNC to question the integrity of this Commission, and to claim it’s a political ploy of the PPP/C, is not only disingenuous as an excuse to opt out of probing its own political sins, but also an awful insult to President Ramotar and his integrity of leadership, and a grave disservice to the distinguished Commissioners”.
Nandlall said that “Guyanese must openly talk about these things. President Ramotar fosters an open society, where we see independent media operate with no fear or intimidation. That’s the kind of society the PPP/C Government is constructing for our Guyanese citizens. President Ramotar sees it fit to convene a Commission of Inquiry so the family of Dr Rodney, the Guyanese nation, the WPA, and the international community can find out how and why this horrible crime happened in Guyana. That’s the simple reason why the Commission is probing the killing of Dr Rodney”.
Attorney-at-Law and Member of Parliament Basil Williams appears as Counsel at the Commission, and told the Commission that he represents the interests of the PNC. Williams has been leading cross examination of witnesses appearing at the Commission, and intervened during the testimony of ex-Army Chief Norman McLean to make points in favor of the witness.
Efforts will be made to interview Williams and the PNC leadership to respond to these comments of Attorney General Nandlall, and to secure definitive answers to ongoing questions about the Party’s non-participation in the probe of the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry, which resumes hearings on June 23 next.
Guyanese across the world show deep interest in the ongoing Rodney probe, and the PNC’s participation would provide the nation with crucial answers as to why Guyana had descended to such a poor socio-political state that one of its top political leaders, the populist intellectual Dr Rodney, was killed in a bomb blast on the streets of Georgetown on that dark night of June 13, 1980.

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The PNC would do well to participate in the Commission’s probe, fully, and to offer the Guyanese people a mea culpa, a cleansing of its soul. How could this Party now say that in probing a period of our history, which resulted in the political assassination of one of the most outstanding Guyanese scholar, who was recognized and admired all over the world, that the Government of Guyana is carrying out a political act? The Commission’s work is justice, not politics. As Minister of Legal Affairs, I owe it to the Guyanese nation to get these things done”

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Nandlall also said that in dismissing the Commission as a PPP/C political ploy, “which may really just be their excuse to cover up the PNC’s own sinister political plots that caused Dr Rodney’s death”, the PNC “is insulting the ethical and moral integrity of the three distinguished members of the Commission. Chairman of the Commission, Sir Richard Cheltenham, along with his fellow Commissioners, the outstanding Seenath Jairam of Trinidad and Tobago, and the brilliant Jacqueline Samuel-Brown of Jamaica, are eminently qualified as impartial and ethical Jurists. They are held throughout the Caribbean, and internationally, with the highest regard for their integrity and high judicial ethics. For the PNC to question the integrity of this Commission, and to claim it’s a political ploy of the PPP/C, is not only disingenuous as an excuse to opt out of probing its own political sins, but also an awful insult to President Ramotar and his integrity of leadership, and a grave disservice to the distinguished Commissioners”

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“This Government is serious about getting things done. President Ramotar has shown that he is active and he takes decisive leadership. Despite not having all the resources as we would like, the Government is working to lift the Guyanese nation to the pinnacle of its potential. This is the simple reason why President Ramotar convened the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry” – AG Anil Nandlall
Written by Shaun Michael Samaroo