PRESIDENTIAL Advisor on Governance, Ms Gail Teixeira, has said she finds it “unfathomable” that the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has refused to bring whatever documents, evidence, and opinions it has to the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) that was set up into the death of brilliant Guyanese historian/politician Dr. Walter Rodney.“It is unfathomable to me. Rodney was a most outstanding leader that this country produced,” she told a post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the President in Georgetown, yesterday.

The GHRA said this week that it is unwilling to give evidence in the inquiry, noting that at a time of much speculation over general and regional elections, the proposed CoI could be read as the worst form of electioneering.

“The GHRA is of the view that the proposed CoI into the death of Dr Walter Rodney has greater potential for reviving, rather than healing, ethnic division in Guyana. Should this indeed be the outcome, it would be a travesty of Dr Rodney’s major contribution to Guyana,” the human rights body has said.

But a notably annoyed Teixeira told reporters following the conference: “Personally, I was around in that period, and I know about the marches across this country. Nothing can match what happened in that period in terms of racial unity, political unity of the opposition parties. Here is a man blown to pieces and we have to get into academic exercise of[the] GHRA talking about electioneering and racial unity? For people like me, who lived in that period, this is offensive. It is personally offensive.

“Why wouldn’t we want, as Guyanese, to be able to investigate the murder of Dr Rodney and to be able to come out with a report that finally makes a judgment on it? Maybe there are reasons why some organisations are hesitant about dealing with this issue. I don’t understand where the link with elections is, nor do I understand the issue of racial division. I cannot deduct mentally and intellectually a link between the Commission and the issues of elections and racial division. My brain is not able to do that intellectual gymnastics right now,” she declared.

Teixeira informed that this CoI is distinct from any other because it is one in which all persons coming before it are immune. “They are granted immunity. So if someone comes and says I was the person who made the bomb and I put it there, they will be granted immunity. That was the request of the family; to bring closure to this issue. All the family wants is truth.”

The family of Rodney made it very clear what their specific requirements were, and the non-involvement of any partners other than their agreement with the Government. A number of organisations and individuals have indicated that they wish to come before the CoI, Teixeira informed.

Meanwhile, President Donald Ramotar approved the establishment of an international CoI into the assassination, 33 years ago, of Rodney. The announcement was made on the 33rd anniversary of Rodney’s death by Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon.

Luncheon had said that the Administration had noted the inconclusive results of past inquiries into Rodney’s demise, and the fact that Rodney’s family wants the matter to be dealt with in a manner that would end all the speculation.

Rodney had been a strong critic of the former People’s National Congress (PNC) Government led by the late President Forbes Burnham. He died when a remote-controlled bomb exploded in his lap while he was sitting in a car with his brother Donald at the wheel.

Ex-Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Sergeant Gregory Smith was identified as the army’s electronics expert who gave Rodney the explosive disguised as a ‘walkie talkie’, and the latter was testing the device on specific instructions from the former.

Upon Rodney’s death, Smith fled to French Guiana, where he remained until he died several years ago.
Rodney, who campaigned against capitalism, argued for a socialist development template.

The Jamaican Government led by Prime Minister Hugh Shearer had banned Rodney from that country in October 1968, because of his advocacy for the working poor of Jamaica, and that had led to riots which eventually claimed the lives of several people and caused millions of dollars in damage.

Rodney is survived by his widow, Dr Patricia Rodney, and three children, who, in 2004, donated his papers to the Robert L. Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center in the United States (U.S.).
By Telesha Ramnarine