By Svetlana Marshall

ATTEMPTS by Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira to have the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry (CoI) Report sent to a Parliamentary Special Select Committee for further examination were defeated by House Speaker Dr. Barton Scotland.The report was made public on Thursday, after being laid before the House. According to the report, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) had conspired with Gregory Smith and the State to have Dr. Walter Rodney assassinated on June 13, 1980 in Georgetown.

“Dr Walter Rodney was a man of large and significant stature, both in Guyana and beyond, at the time of his death. He could only have been killed in what we find to be a State-organised assassination, with the knowledge of Prime Minister Burnham in Guyana of that period,” the report stated.

Minutes after the report was laid, the Opposition Chief Whip proposed that the motion which sought to have the report laid in the National Assembly within two weeks be amended to have the report sent to the Parliamentary Special Select Committee for further examination.

According to Standing Order 57, an amendment is usually made after the question is put to the House. This did not sit well with Teixeira, who made an emotional appeal to the Speaker.

“You know why I am begging you sir, because we must never allow this to happen again. It must never happen again, and we can only do that by looking at it and examining it…so I cannot comprehend why you would do this,” she stressed.

She pleaded that the recommendations put by the Commission must be taken seriously for the betterment of the country’s security system.

Despite her pleas, the Speaker maintained that the Standing Order must be adhered to, and, as such, the amendment was disallowed.