PROBING into our past to explore why we got to where we are today as a nation plays a crucial role in designing our future: We cannot create the future we want for the Guyanese nation without knowing the mistakes we made, and exercising deep courage to face the past.Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee, showed how serious the Government of Guyana takes this idea, with his appearance at the Presidential Commission probing the suspected political assassination of Guyana’s greatest historian, Dr Walter Rodney.

When President Donald Ramotar convened the international Commission of Inquiry to probe Guyana’s socio-economic and political atmosphere that caused Dr Rodney’s tragic demise, the Government of Guyana showed character and good conscience.
The Rodney file had become the Commonwealth Caribbean’s worst cold case, languishing gathering dust for 34 years. Dr Rodney’s widow and his children, along with international scholars and human rights advocates, voiced frustration that Guyana could not solve the case.
President Ramotar showed the courage, human decency and good conscience to make sure the Commission got Government’s support for a professional inquiry.
With Commissioners Sir Richard Cheltenham of Barbados, Jacqueline Samuel-Brown of Jamaica and Jairam Seenauth of Trinidad and Tobago, the Commission had culled together legal luminaries of outstanding regional and international integrity.

‘We see a perfect platform for the Guyanese nation to stand before impartial and leading Caribbean jurists to engage in an authentic conversation about why Guyana suffered during the era of rigged elections and PNC rule’

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, carried out the task of establishing the Commission, under President Ramotar’s direction, and with Rohee’s appearance as a witness last month, the Government of Guyana showed its commitment and resolution to face the past, and document where we went wrong as a nation after political Independence.
Our nation stands perplexed and puzzled that Opposition Leader, Brigadier David Granger, adamantly refuses to participate in this process. One would expect, not only as a former top leader of the Guyana Defense Force (GDF), but also given his current leadership role in our nation, that Brigadier Granger would want to solve the Dr Rodney cold case and see the ghost of the past put to rest.
But the Opposition Leader refuses to acknowledge the Commission’s integrity, and even said that if his coalition wins the May 11 national elections, he would terminate the Commission’s work.
Other key leaders in the society, including Moses Nagamootoo, refuse to acknowledge the Commission’s vital role in moving the Guyanese nation forward.
Yet, the Commission provides a perfect platform for the Guyanese nation to stand before impartial and leading Caribbean jurists to engage in an authentic conversation about why Guyana suffered during the era of rigged elections and PNC rule.
The PNC no longer exists as a political entity vying for political office, as it’s now subsumed in a political coalition. In fact, the Commission is seeing the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), which stands today opposed to Government, as a national hero. Why would the testimonies champion the WPA if the Commission was a plot for political mileage against the Opposition? The argument of those opposing the Government and the Commission lacks credibility, as it would make no sense that testimonies at the Commission hail the WPA as a hero, while showing up the PNC as a political villain.
As Rohee testified, the Commission reveals a dark, sinister era of Guyana’s history, and it would not be easy for the leaders of the political party that had Guyana in its iron grips to face such truths. But we must all summon the courage and strength to introspect what happened to the soul of our nation.
The Commission vindicates the role of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), and is writing the admirable history of this political party in the making of modern Guyana.
Along with the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), the WPA led from the front to bring Guyana to where we are today, with free and fair elections entrenched as our democratic culture, and with a vibrant socio-economic engine driving us forward.

‘The PNC no longer exists as a political entity vying for political office, as it’s now subsumed in a political coalition. In fact, the Commission is seeing the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), which stands today opposed to Government, as a national hero. Why would the testimonies champion the WPA if the Commission was a plot for political mileage against the Opposition? The argument of those opposing the Government and the Commission lacks credibility, as it would make no sense that testimonies at the Commission hail the WPA as a hero, while showing up the PNC as a political villain’

The Opposition uses the excuse that the Government is using the Commission as political currency, to opt out of facing the evidence the Commission unearths.
Indeed, the evidence shows a shameful state of play in Guyana during the 1978 – 1980 period that is under the Commission microscope, this period now a historical stain on the conscience of the Commonwealth Caribbean, and it might be very understandable why the PNC would not want to face itself in the mirror of the Commission: who wants to relive the shame of a nasty past?
Rohee outlined that past with vivid and graphic language.
“During this period the thugs from the House of Israel and a death squad which was centrally directed from the PNC headquarters at Sophia was unleashed with greater frequency on the political opposition. The PPP suffered enormously during this period. Many of its activists and supporters were harassed, victimized and arrested. Several PPP members’ homes and yards were ransacked or dug up in search for arms and ammunition. … I myself came under surveillance by the Special Branch. Every time I travelled out of the country through the Timehri airport, the Special Branch would be there to see me off and would be waiting to welcome me home with thorough searches of my luggage and my body”, Rohee told the Commission last month in his testimony.
Rohee claimed that the prime suspect in the suspected political assassination of Dr Rodney, Gregory Smith, an ex-GDF soldier, received assistance from the PNC Government to “leave the country”, and Smith offered to return to Guyana, “provided the death penalty was removed”.
“The period 1978 to 1980 was characterized by an excruciating economic and social crisis, rigged elections, a rigged referendum, increased burdens through increased taxation on the people, removal of subsidies, rampant unemployment, shortages of all kinds of commodities, skyrocketing prices, discrimination in the distribution of basic food items, political and racial discrimination, resulting in thousands leaving the country, Dr Rodney’s failure to get a job, Government’s refusal to pay the $14 per day minimum wage, which was agreed by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), resulted in the isolation of the PNC regime.
“In addition, violence was openly manifested since it was part and parcel of the psychology of the PNC which had its roots in the 1962 – 1964 period,” Rohee told the Commission in his sworn written statement.
The Home Affairs Minister claimed that “political violence” became rampant in the period 1978 to 1980, and this showed up in “the establishment of a Terrorist Body (sic) sponsored by the PNC called X13, whose plan was discovered by the Police, the bombing of the Michael Forde Bookstore at the headquarters of the PPP in 1963, the killing of Jagan Ramessar and Bholanauth Parmanand in 1973. Later, during the period under review political violence was carried out not only by the PNC, but also by the House of Israel who was protected by the Government of the day”, Rohee said.
The veteran leader said political violence in the period under probe included “the gunning down in 1971 of Dr Josh Ramsammy and the attempt to kidnap Clive Thomas from his home in the same year (as) concrete expressions of State-sponsored violence that took place during that period.
“The killing of Father Darke, several other Opposition political activists and ultimately, the assassination of Walter Rodney was the end product of the regime’s refusal to appoint him at the University of Guyana (UG) in 1974”, Rohee said.
We would avoid such tragedy in the future only if we face these truths, and ventilate how we got to where we are as a nation. We would heal our psyche only if we face how and why our soul suffered such deep historical wounds and severe psychological scars. Minister Rohee’s testimony at the Commission demonstrates Government’s commitment to such a process.