Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, yesterday wrapped up his evidence to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the June 13, 1980, killing of Working Peoples Alliance (WPA) Leader, Dr Walter Rodney, and dismissed outright any claims that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) had any hand in the ‘assassination.’ Rohee returned to the witness stand yesterday following bouts of in-camera sessions by the Commissioners and was grilled by Attorney-at-Law Basil Williams, who is representing the interest of the Peoples National Congress (PNC) in the hearings.

POLICE TRASH
Under cross examination by the PNC Attorney, Rohee dismissed the contents of a number of documents presented and referred to by Williams during his cross examination.
The documents were tendered by Crime Chief Leslie James, and were held out to be files from the Guyana Police Force’s Special Branch Unit from the period in time when Dr Rodney was killed some 34 years ago.
The Home Affairs Minister denied knowledge of any of the contents of the allegations contained in the documents referred to by Williams. The documents also accuse PPP leaders of warning its party supporters to be careful in its dealings with the WPA.
Williams, who on numerous occasions had to be cautioned by COI Chairman, Sir Richard Cheltenham, over the relevancy of his line of questioning, re-introduced to the hearings an alternative theory to the death of Dr Rodney.
He suggested that the PPP also had motive for Dr Rodney’s demise.
Williams put the notion to Minister Rohee that the PPP had become worried that the WPA was eating away at its support base, a charge that Rohee, also General Secretary of the PPP, vehemently denied.
In fact, Rohee spoke of a cordial working relationship between the late Dr Cheddi Jagan, the party’s co-founder, and the slain WPA leader.
“You are dead wrong again,” were among the many responses provided by Rohee, as Williams continued to press his case that since the WPA had been eroding the support base of the PPP, then it would have had an interest in Rodney’s death.
Rohee questioned the source of the documents that Williams repeatedly referred to and when informed that it was the Police’s Special Branch’s, he dismissed it as ‘trash.’
“Special branch again, with the usual trash,” was one response proffered by Rohee, since according to him, none knew how the police unit operated or gathered intelligence.
Most of the Special Branch police notations at the time were based on hearsay and speculation.
CUBAN SPIES
The Minister instead called for Williams to produce documents from the PPP which could substantiate his allegation that the party was mortally afraid of the WPA hijacking its support base, including those workers in the sugar belt.
Rohee said the documents referred to by Williams, purportedly to be from the Special Branch files, can suggest anything, but this does not mean it to be true.
Williams was at this time reminded by Commissioner Seenauth Jairam that James, the person who submitted the files to the hearing, did point out that the notations by ranks of the Special Branch surveillance operatives do contain certain levels of inaccuracy and as such, are usually analysed.
Rohee, under continued cross examination, testified to being unaware of any directive by the PPP’s leadership to any of its membership in relation to being wary in its dealings with the WPA.
Rohee repeatedly dismissed as total rubbish the allegation that the WPA was eating away at the support base of the PPP, to the point where it felt threatened by Dr Rodney, and as such would have had an interest in killing him.
Williams also alleged that the WPA and PPP, through Dr Rodney and Dr Jagan, with the help of Cuban spies, were working covertly in Guyana to overthrow the then PNC Government.
Rohee also canned this allegation and countered by saying the two parties were instead working together on a common struggle.
Williams based his allegations on the files tendered by James, files rejected by Rohee who claimed no knowledge of what was being suggested.
“Special Branch as usual, they could write anything,” was Rohee’s response when told of the source of the allegation.
Rohee refuted as nonsense a plot where Dr Jagan was supposed to ‘lay low,’ while Dr Rodney and the WPA were supposed to have overthrown the PNC Government.
The WPA was supposedly to have then turned over power to Dr Jagan and the PPP to which Rohee replied, “Nonsense, I don’t agree with nonsense.”
COMMON STRUGGLE
The PPP General Secretary also dismissed claims put to him that the WPA was in fact the formidable opposition at the time, and not the PPP, and added that the two parties were working together in a common struggle.
This common struggle, he said, was not to oust the then Forbes Burnham- led administration, but rather “to improve the life of the people.”
The PNC Government led by the then President, Forbes Burnham, has widely been accused of being behind the bomb explosion that killed the WPA Leader, but Williams, the current Chairman of the PNC, and appearing on its behalf, suggested too that the ‘imperialists’ may have had a hand in the 1980 assassination.
The affairs of the ‘imperialists (White Expatriates)’ were also another forte where the two senior functionaries of the PPP and the PNC differed on.
Williams suggested that the economic hardships that had been felt at the time came in part from the nationalisation process which then led to instances where foreign powers retaliated through acts, such as the blockade of the sale of flour to Guyana.
Rohee, under oath, dismissed this notion that the exogenous factors led to the decline of the economy at the time, but rather directly blamed those who inherited the nationalised industries.
He said items such as flour, which could not be had in the country, was not as a result of any decision by a foreign power to not sell to Guyana.
According to Rohee, it was simply a case of the country not having enough foreign currency to buy the flour for import.
CRITICAL SUPPORT
This notion appeared to have found some credence with Commissioner Jairam, who pointed out that even if Guyana were to have problems with one or two countries over its nationalisation policy, then it could have surely been able to purchase the staple from some other market.
Addressing those gathered at the High Court Building for the hearings officiated by Sir Richard, Queen’s Counsels Jairam and Jacqueline Samuels – Brown, the Minister was also challenged on the PPP’s then support of Forbes Burnham’s policy, to nationalise industries such as bauxite and sugar.
Rohee responded affirmatively but pointed out that it was not a case where the PPP provided full support, but rather ‘critical support.’
He said the PPP subsequently found difficulty with the way the decisions taken and supported were being implemented.
According to the Minister, it was this nationalisation process that led to the ‘Parasitic, Bureaucratic, Bourgeoisie’ class.
The Minister said that these were the persons at the helm of the nationalised industries. He said that it was these persons through their incompetence that led to the decline of the various industries.
Rohee dismissed the claims by Williams that countries were not buying bauxite from Guyana at the time, which contributed to the hardships.
According to Rohee, it boiled down to the simple fact “there was no bauxite to export.”
CRIME SCENE
The public hearings into the 1980 assassination of Dr Rodney will continue today when Holland Yearwood is expected to take the witness stand.
Donald Rodney, the brother of the slain WPA Leader, who was in the car on the night of the explosion, will return to continue to give his evidence-in-chief.
The hearing is also slated tomorrow to visit the site of the crime scene where the explosion occurred on the night of Friday June 13, 1980 killing Dr Rodney and leaving many to speculate for 34 years as to culpability.
Dr Rodney was killed instantaneously when a bomb exploded in his lap while he was seated in the passenger seat of his brother’s Mazda Capella motor car, PBB 2349, in John Street, between Hadfield Streets in the vicinity of the Georgetown Prisons’.

(By Gary Eleazar)