QUIET, calm and collected, Donald Rodney stood his ground in the witness box and faced off against Counsel for the People’s National Congress (PNC), Basil Williams yesterday at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry.The Commission resumes on a quiet note this week following a near-month long break since its last session in February, 2015.

Williams saw his cross examination draw the ire of Commission Chairman Sir Richard Cheltenham of Barbados. Sir Richard’s voice rose with stern rebuke, as he asked Williams how Counsel could proceed with a line of questioning after the Witness had denied the premise of the line of argument.
Williams peppered Rodney with leading questions, seeking to have the witness commit to the premise that the leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Dr. Walter Rodney, may have deliberately been working to secure an explosive device.
Williams was referring to Guyana’s only case of a deadly bomb blast in the nation’s history, when a bomb, disguised as a communications device, exploded in the lap of Dr. Rodney, killing him as he sat in his car in the early evening of Friday, June 13, 1980, in Georgetown. The cold case sat unsolved for 34 years as the Commonwealth Caribbean’s worst political assassination, ranking with Maurice Bishop’s demise in Grenada.
Dr. Rodney’s death shattered the political innocence of Georgetown, and shocked the global intelligentsia and academics from around the world who spent three and a half decades advocating for an investigation into that terrible bomb blast.
President Donald Ramotar showcased his good conscience and commitment to national justice for the Guyanese nation last year when he stepped out in a determined move to establish the Presidential Commission to probe the circumstances, atmosphere and condition in Guyana that caused that bomb to explode on that fateful day, forever tainting the conscience and soul of the Guyanese nation.
The Commission has accumulated a vast volume of evidence, testimonies and records supporting allegations that the PNC State machinery devised an elaborate secretive political plot to assassinate Dr. Rodney, thus silencing him against his advancing popular national movement that sought to end the PNC dictatorship.
Donald Rodney, Dr. Rodney’s brother, is today the only eyewitness to that infamous bomb blast that changed Guyana’s history forever. He became a star witness of the Commission, submitting a detailed written statement, and appearing several times to be questioned and cross examined. He wrapped up his vital testimony yesterday.
Rampant suspicion abounds around the world that the PNC State assassinated Dr. Rodney, and the PNC took an official position of not cooperating with the Presidential Commission, although Williams acts as PNC Counsel, cross-examining witnesses.
Williams cross-examines witnesses, as with Rodney yesterday, seeking to establish that the WPA was planning a violent overthrow of the PNC regime, and thus the movement sought to secure the explosive device.
Witnesses have contradicted that premise, and yesterday Commission Chairman had strong rebuke for Williams as he tried the tactic with Rodney.
The PNC Counsel even told Rodney that when in “fleeing” the scene of the bomb blast, wounded and alone, it was a sign of “guilt”. Williams said Rodney behaved “like a guilty man”.
Williams also said Rodney “fled the scene because he knew and was involved in an unlawful enterprise with the so-called walkie-talkie”.
But Rodney quietly denied this and said he went to get help for Dr. Rodney, whom he knew was badly wounded. Rodney said he himself was bloodied and when he tried to ring the doorbell of the WPA activist’s house to which he resorted, he found his finger slit to the bone and numb. His left hand was “in worse shape”.
In shock and trauma, he could not get his mind around what had happened to talk to Police until late the next day, although he could not give a statement even that day, he told the Commission.
Before the bomb blast, the Rodney brothers drove to Russell Street in Georgetown. Rodney left Dr. Rodney in the car on that awful night of June 13, 1980, and went into the house of the main suspect in the suspected assassination, Gregory Smith, an ex-Guyana Defense Force (GDF) soldier. He was scheduled to collect a communications device from Smith.
Smith worked, unknowing to the WPA or the Rodneys, according to testimonies to the Commission, as a double agent, spying for both the WPA and the PNC State’s Intelligence Command.
Smith promised the Rodneys he would secure for them an electronic communications device, as this was banned in Guyana, and illegal to acquire. On that night, Rodney showed up at Smith’s house to collect the device.
Following instructions, the brothers proceeded to test the device, but instead of it conveying communication, it exploded in the deadly blast that rocked Georgetown and forever changed the political climate of this nation.
After the explosion, Rodney said he realised Dr. Rodney “needed assistance and help. I couldn’t see well. My hands had lost sensation and I realised that. When I got to the house at Croal Street, I realised my right thumb was split at the end and the bone was showing and the rest of my hand was singed. I was not in a position to render assistance. My left hand was worse, and for days I could not raise it”, Rodney said.
Rodney said he felt reluctant to give the Police a statement about the explosion “because my faith in the Police Force was shaken since the day of Father Darke’s killing”. He was referring to the stabbing assassination of Catholic Priest and photographer for the Catholic Standard newspaper, Father Darke, who was stabbed to death on Brickdam in 1979 when, according to Commission testimony, PNC-aligned political thugs of the cult, House of Israel, attacked a peaceful protest and stabbed him several times about his body.
“I felt it would be self-defeating to give a statement to the Police, because I didn’t see the Police as necessarily acting fairly”, Rodney said.
Cross-examined by his own Counsel, Keith Scotland of Trinidad and Tobago, Rodney said conditions in Guyana under the dictatorship were “far from normal”, and he feared “death by the dictatorship”.
After the demise of his brother, with Guyana descending into a dark fear, Rodney migrated to Barbados, where he lives today, travelling to Georgetown to appear at the Commission and give his testimony.
Quiet, dignified, with a noble posture and an erect upright walk, his face somber and intelligent, Rodney said he has always been ready to see justice served in Dr. Rodney’s demise, and his appearance at the Commission is a long-awaited desire fulfilled.
The Commission meets at the High Court in Georgetown, and yesterday the courtroom’s audience was sparse. But leading members of the WPA, a political movement that survived enormous tragedy in its goal for a free and fair Guyana against the PNC dictatorship, took up front row seats and voiced support for Rodney as he faced off against Williams’ cross-examination.

(by Shaun Michael Samaroo)