IN the Western world, classified documents are generally released between 40 and 60 years. Based on the nature of the historical events and people still living, the documents are made public 60 years after. In most circumstances, the documents are redacted. For example, the declassified documents in relation to the American request to the British Government to assist in removing Premier Cheddi Jagan are heavily redacted. One CIA document dated July 17, 1964, about the bombing of the Michael Forde Bookshop has parts that are wiped out.

Now imagine a man at 50 years becomes the Prime Minister or President of his country. His government falls because a particular unpleasant incident in his past is revealed. His deputy assumes power. Suppose his deputy was working with a foreign intelligence agency to bring down the Prime Minister or President? The fallen leader will never know what his deputy did because he would have to live to 110 years before he knows what his friend did to him.

The closet person to President Forbes Burnham that Burnham trusted at a deep level was Elvin Mc David. Long after the PNC lost power, Mr McDavid told me in his home in Queenstown that the Burnham government had a well-placed informant in the WPA’s leadership. I tried my utmost to ask Mr McDavid for the name, but he told me to “stop it.”

Hamilton Green in his home told me that the PNC government knew everything the WPA was doing. Green went so far, in my recorded interview, to tell me that they knew that Ohene Koama had guns in his car trunk and the police were waiting for him. Koama left a WPA meeting in Tiger Bay and travelled home in South Ruimveldt. The police intercepted him in South Ruimveldt and killed him. Only persons high in the WPA leadership knew Koama had those guns in his car.

Koama was killed in 1979. Classified documents on the mole(s) inside the WPA will not be released until 2040. Eusi Kwayana is 100. Clive Thomas is 89. Rupert Roopnaraine is 85. Will they be around to know who that mole was?

The AFC was born in 2005. It had deep and extensive connections with the USAID that helped to form and fund it. We have to wait for another 50 years through declassified American documents to know who the key players in the AFC were that the USAID chaperoned. Will the current founders of the AFC be around the next 50 years given their current age?

This column was written on the  basis of the reactions I got yet again about my pieces on Martin Carter.

I did two pieces on Carter. One was on the 14th. Based on the response to that, I did another piece last Saturday. This column is in response to the reaction I got from the Saturday piece.

This is my last reflection on Martin Carter for a long time to come. I have written revisionist, iconoclastic history on Carter. I believe my arguments and points are valid and plausible and cannot easily be rebutted.

I am concluding my discussion on Carter with a comment from a well-known Guyanese who defied my request to name him.  I got four comments from my Saturday piece, but I will reply to only one of them.

This gentleman said that Mrs Janet Jagan admired Carter intensely and was the person solely responsible for Carter being honoured when he died with a burial place in the Seven Ponds. He said Mrs Jagan would have been furious at anyone referring to Carter as a spy. I was annoyed but held back my anger because I respected this gentleman.

Mrs Jagan died without knowing that British intelligence had a mole inside the PPP leadership in the 1950s. It was only through declassified MI5 documents that we now know that and that his code name was Lascar.

Mrs Jagan died years before MI5 declassified its files on the PPP party in the 1950s and the PPP government in the 1950s. Both Dr Cheddi Jagan and Mrs Jagan died without knowing about Lascar. Had they lived after the MI5 files were released, there is no doubt in my mind they would have reflected on who Lascar might possibly be.

Because Mr Burnham was disliked through his autocratic government, many people who would have been alive today would probably want to point to Burnham as Lascar as former President Ramotar did. But logical deduction and circumstantial evidence indict Carter.

I have made my point. I am finished for now with the Carter controversy, unless I see an intellectually based rebuttal to my work on Carter.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.