Special Report on the Rodney Commission of Inquiry by Shaun Michael Samaroo

Gouveia flew Smith in GDF plane one day after Rodney’s killing

CAPTAIN Gerald Gouveia told Attorney for the People’s National Congress (PNC), James Bond, yesterday: “Guyana must never go back to those days. I don’t think even you want to go back to that.

Today, Guyana is free.”

During Bond’s cross-examination of Gouveia at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry, Gouveia told the young Attorney, in a deeply passionate tone, that the period in Guyana under the PNC dictatorship Government lacked “freedom of expression, free elections” and freedom of the Private Sector.
Dressed in his pilot’s uniform, Gouveia appeared at the Commission as a high-profile witness testifying in the Commission’s probe into the death of Dr. Walter Rodney, who was killed on June 13, 1980, when a bomb exploded in his lap while he sat in his car outside the Camp Street jail.
The Presidential Commission wants to find out why Dr. Rodney was assassinated, including what socio-economic and political atmosphere existed in Guyana at the time to cause the world-respected political leader, gifted historian and brilliant scholar to die in the manner he did.
Under oath before the Commission, Gouveia confirmed allegations that he piloted a plane belonging to the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) from the airport at Timehri to the hinterland community of Kwakwani, on the morning of June 14, 1980, with Dr. Rodney’s suspected killer, GDF Army Sergeant Gregory Smith, on board.

12 HOURS AFTER

Gouveia piloted the plane to transport Smith 12 hours after the bomb blast rocked Georgetown and killed the populist political leader who was caught up in a brutal political struggle against the draconian, corrupt and dictatorial PNC Government. Testimony at the Commission is revealing how Dr. Rodney and the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) were locked in an armed insurgency and popular revolt against the authoritarian PNC Government.
Gouveia said that around 9:00am on June 14, 1980, he piloted the GDF Army plane that transported a man he later thought was Smith, along with a woman and “a couple of small children” from Timehri Airport to Kwakwani, a 49-minute flight.
This was just 12 hours after Dr. Rodney died, the bomb having exploded in Georgetown shortly after 8:00pm the night before.
Testimony before the Commission is unraveling a devious plot, where the PNC Government snared State institutions such as the GDF, the Guyana Police Force and other organs to nullify the political threat of Dr. Rodney and the WPA. The harsh PNC Government response also collared the sinister religious cult, the House of Israel with its fugitive leader, to harass and beat WPA leaders and activists.
On the morning of the notorious GDF flight, with Gouveia in command as pilot, the young commissioned officer turned up for work at the Army hangar and received his orders of where he was flying that day. He had three flights, and the first was to take the mystery man, the woman and the children, all of whom were waiting in the hangar, to Kwakwani. Gouveia described the assignment as a routine military operation. He got no information about his passengers, and was not interested in them, he said. He also had no conversation with them, nor did he see anything in his passengers’ demeanour to “cause an anomaly.”
Later that night, on June 14, 1980, he heard on the radio that Dr. Rodney was killed. He said he knew “nothing” of Dr. Rodney, and therefore took little interest in this news.
However, a few days later, he saw a newspaper report of Dr. Rodney’s death, with an accompanying picture of a suspect implicated in the brutal assassination. He said the picture matched the features of the man he had transported from Timehri to Kwakwani.
This time, Gouveia said, he felt an “anomaly”, which, however, did not move his conscience, or curiosity or interest to find out who the man was, and why he had flown him that day.

MILITARY PROTOCOL
Instead, he said, he stuck to military “protocol” and did not question his superior officers in the GDF.
He just ignored the whole thing and moved on with his life and career, hardly ever discussing the incident with anyone, he said.
Now, 34 years later, he said he feels “obligated” to “tell the truth” at the Commission.
Gouveia kept emphasising to the Attorneys and the Commission members that he looks at Guyana within “contexts”. “Back then,” he said, “there was one context; and now, there’s another context. So when I think of this, I have to put it in context.”
The popular, highly-successful tourism, airline and hospitality entrepreneur said he feels that in “today’s context”, he should reveal his role in the historical, momentous and significant event that is Dr. Rodney’s death.
But, in 1980, when he was a young commissioned Army officer, he was in a different “context”, and simply obeyed military “protocol” of unquestioningly carrying out the orders of his superiors. Responding to persistent questions from Commission Chairman, Sir Richard Cheltenham about whether he felt any moral qualm, sense of conscientious obligation or personal curiosity to find out details of the momentous happenings around June 13 and 14, 1980, Gouveia said he felt nothing, and did nothing.
Sir Cheltenham, a Barbadian legal luminary, wanted to know what impact did Dr. Rodney’s death have on Gouveia,, given that it rocked the country, and was a major event in the Caribbean. But Gouveia said he did not even know who Dr. Rodney was, and only learnt of his international stature after his death.
Commission member, Jamaican Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, interjected during Sir Cheltenham’s questioning of Gouveia to ascertain whether the media in Guyana reported the Rodney assassination with a bad bias.
The authoritarian PNC Government had banned all independent media by 1980, and only the PNC-controlled State newspaper was in operation, reporting false news on Rodney’s death. The underground newsletter, the Catholic Standard, which had seen its own photographer, Father Darke, being stabbed to death in Georgetown in 1979, carried unbiased reports, but its circulation was small. The Caribbean News Agency (CANA) also carried independent reports of the assassination, and Gouveia said that though he got information on the Rodney killing from CANA reports, he felt inclined to stick with the local reports.

GOUVEIA’S ANOMALY
Gouveia said he learned from reading the local newspaper in 1980, and from other local news sources, that Dr. Rodney may have blown himself up as he tried to operate a bomb. He later told the Commission he has always thought that the report of Dr. Rodney’s brother, Donald Rodney, saying they were testing an electronic communication device when it exploded, caused in him an “anomaly”.
He said the bomb that killed Dr. Rodney had “a red light”, and this sounded more like a remote electronic device than a “walkie-talkie”.
Under intense questions from various Attorneys, Gouveia said that in “today’s context” he feels the WPA’s cause against the PNC’s repressive regime was “just”, but the “methodology” lacked smartness.
The decorated military pilot and accomplished entrepreneur said power comes in “three forms: Soft power, hard power, and smart power,” and that, maybe, the WPA lacked smart power, and thus suffered for it.
Gouveia recalled an incident where the dictatorial PNC Government sent in members of the Presidential Guard to take the guns of GDF soldiers who were in a public parade, empty all the ammunition into “brown paper bags”, and caused the soldiers to parade on the streets with empty guns. He said this constituted a grave insult to the military, and suggested that the incident shows how draconian and paranoid and high-handed the PNC Government acted, not trusting its own military.
Gouveia’s Attorney had requested that his client wrap up testimony early, because he had to go off to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport to welcome the arrival from New York of the inaugural flight of his new airline venture, Dynamic Airlines.
The Commission granted him his request, and he resumes his testimony this morning at 9:30am.
Testimony at the Commission grips the nation today, with dramatic revelations of political intrigue, sinister plots, exercise of dictatorial powers, assassinations and murders, paranoia and brutal denial of freedom of the press, rigged national elections and grotesque political leadership.
The Commission has heard it all, and yet the dramatic heat rises with each new witness.

WPA BURGLARY
Meanwhile, news yesterday that mystery persons broke into the Georgetown offices of the WPA last Wednesday night and stole computers and printers shocked the city. The WPA has taken centrestage at the Commission, with several of its leaders attending hearings daily.
Sources say detectives could not lift fingerprints at the robbery scene, as the thieves may have worn gloves, indicating that “professionals” operated in the crime.
Gouveia yesterday said the WPA’s struggle that led to the death of Dr. Rodney, was a “just” cause, and noted that he feels it’s his obligation to fully cooperate with the Commission, especially given his pivotal role in the historical, momentous events under probe.
PNC Attorney, Bond, filled in yesterday for Basil Williams, who has hitherto appeared for the troubled political party.
In cross-examining Gouveia, Bond exhibited a softer tone than the hostile tone Williams employs in cross examining witnesses. Bond’s cross examination of Gouveia allowed the pilot to state his preference for the “context” of today’s Guyana, rather than those dark days of the draconian PNC regime.
“Today, Guyana is free, and should never go back to how it was then,” he told Bond, who is a Member of Parliament on the Opposition bench, in a direct address.
Gouveia resumes his dramatic testimony this morning, with widespread interest from citizens across the country, and throughout the Diaspora.