TODAY, it’s hard to understand the difficult struggle Guyanese experienced and felt living under the paramount rule of the People’s National Congress (PNC) government, veteran political activist Karen De Souza said yesterday.People today find “it’s difficult to comprehend” living under PNC paramount rule, she said, noting that for her and those who lived under such harsh, authoritarian conditions, including the banning of essential basic foods, the experience is far removed from today’s Guyana.

Under cross examination from a battery of defence lawyers yesterday afternoon at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry going on at the High Court, De Souza fended off aggressive questioning from PNC Defence Attorney Basil Williams. Williams got elected as the PNC’s Chairman last month at contentious internal party elections, and yesterday faced off against De Souza as she sat in the witness box, peppering her with targeted questions to establish that the PNC Government did not assassinate Dr Walter Rodney, a charge, of deliberate violent suppression of political opponents, that has afflicted the PNC for 34 years.
De Souza rejected Williams’ accusation that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) may also have wanted to rid Guyana of Dr Rodney. Williams claimed that Dr Rodney incurred several enemies, and angered not only the PNC government, but also the PPP. But, her voice strong and assured and confident, De Souza rejected this, noting that the PPP did not beat or harass members of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), or falsely charge and jail any of them.

[box type=”shadow” align=”alignright” ]After courteous, chivalrous, gallant questioning from Trinidad and Tobago Attorney Keith Scotland, De Souza faced the fiery, fierce-questioning Williams in a dramatic showdown. Frail, walking with a slow shuffle leaning on a cane, De Souza showed great resolve and composure facing the combative Williams as she sat in the witness stand, frequently matching him for wit and subtle inferences.[/box]

A household name in Guyana after decades of political activism to end the PNC’s authoritarian rule under a dictatorship government that massively rigged local and national elections to stay in power during the 1970’s and 1980’s, De Souza said all Guyanese suffered under the PNC rule.
Dr Rodney died in a brutal bomb blast at Hadfield and John Streets in Georgetown on June 13, 1980, and President Donald Ramotar convened the Presidential Commission to probe how and why the intellectual leader suffered the worst political assassination in the history of the Caribbean. Testimonies at the Commission paint an ugly picture of top PNC leaders involved in nefarious political conspiracies, double agent underhand Intelligence and unholy alliances in a clandestine quest to stifle Dr Rodney’s political influence and national appeal, and violently suppress the populist WPA. The PNC wanted to quell the WPA’s rapid inroads into PNC’s strongholds of power, which the PNC saw as a threat to its dictatorship, witnesses have testified at the Commission.
De Souza told Williams, during cross examination yesterday that she was unaware of any plans for violence within the WPA, corroborating the evidence of Ogunseye earlier in the day.
After courteous, chivalrous, gallant questioning from Trinidad and Tobago Attorney Keith Scotland, De Souza faced the fiery, fierce-questioning Williams in a dramatic showdown. Frail, walking with a slow shuffle leaning on a cane, De Souza showed great resolve and composure facing the combative Williams as she sat in the witness stand, frequently matching him for wit and subtle inferences.
Several times, Commission Chairman Sir Richard Cheltenham intervened to warn Williams not to persist pushing a premise to his question which the witness had disagreed with and rejected. These interjections led to aggressive tit-for-tat between Williams, Commission members, and even with other Counsels interjecting their own contribution.
The afternoon ended after 3 pm as drama, tension and rapt attention in the audience made for an intriguing day.
De Souza followed TacumaOgunseye on the stand yesterday, both resuming their testimonies before the Commission after being interrupted last month for more urgent witnesses. Today, defence lawyers cross-examined both, and both fended off Williams’ assertion that the PNC was not involved in Dr Rodney’s assassination.
Both Ogunseye and De Souza had joined Dr Rodney in an intense national mass resistance against the PNC rule. Dr Rodney had returned to his homeland, Guyana, from activist stints in Africa and the Caribbean, to resist the PNC dictatorship, and was gaining strong momentum and national appeal, when he died in the bomb blast that rocked the global intellectual world, and caused shock and trauma to Guyana’s body politic that has ricocheted through its history to today.
Counsel for the WPA, Christopher Ram, asked De Souza if she’s representing the WPA at the Inquiry, and she said “no”, noting that she came to testify of her own accord.
Her testimony revealed the chaos and confusion that shrouded Georgetown in its darkest hour in the immediate minutes after the bomb that assassinated Dr Rodney exploded in his lap as he sat in his car with his brother, Donald Rodney.
De Souza said that Donald, nursing severe wounds and bleeding badly, arrived at a house she was at with fellow WPA activist Andaiye, and blurted out that “there was a terrible accident”, and asked for help for his brother.
Assuming that Dr Rodney was alive but badly wounded, De Souza said she ran with Andiaye from the house on Croal Street, situated not far from the bomb blast, which the duo had heard seven minutes before Donald showed up wounded, to the bombed car.
There they saw “about 15” police officers from the special squad, and a crowd of people already gathered. Dr Rodney had died in the bomb blast.
De Souza rejected Williams’ notion to her that Donald and she knew that the “terrible accident” meant that whatever the two Rodney brothers were planning had gone wrong. De Souza told Williams and the Commission that Donald Rodney instead ran to trusted friends in the WPA, because he feared for his life. “Had he gone to the police station for help, or the hospital to be treated, it would have been suicide,” she said, noting that the Police and even hospitals could not be trusted to provide professional service to people opposing the PNC government.
The political activist said under the PNC authoritarian rule, its diktat of paramountcy controlled every facet of the society, and so Donald Rodney had to rely on friends for treatment and protection, instead of the Police Force and hospital.
Commission member Jacqueline Samuel-Brown sought clarification from De Souza about whether, if Guyana was a socialist state, the PNC government was not behaving accordingly. De Souza said Guyana suffered under the PNC party not because of its socialist ideology, but because of the “exercise of power”, whereby the PNC used its political power to commandeer paramount control of every facet of Guyanese society, controlling justice, food distribution, health care and political power with maximum paramount force.
The Commission resumes this morning.