This article was Published on May 24, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear\nEditor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today,\nthe Working People\u2019s Alliance will mark the 40th anniversary since its leader\nWalter Rodney was killed. A Commission of Inquiry (COI) found that he was\nmurdered at the hands of the PNC and its agents. I was the WPA\u2019s Counsel along\nwith Moses Bhagwan (in absentia) and took my instructions from Tacuma Ogunseye,\nJocelyn Dow, Dr. David Hinds, Desmond Trotman, Eusi Kwayana and to a lesser\nextent Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine. Despite the passage of more than thirty years,\nthe evidence provided to me was no less compelling or riveting. In his\nevidence, Ogunseye told the COI that Mr. Burnham was prepared not to lose power\nat all costs, and that he was \u201cprepared to do anything to maintain that power\u201d.\nAs the French would say, \u201cplus ca change\u2026\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nwere stories of photographs of these persons and their cars featuring in a PNC\nissued Recognition Handbook; of Roopnaraine and Nigel Westmaas having to seek\nshelter from Burnham\u2019s goons in the cane fields of West Demerara; of Burnham\nmockingly promising to send Rodney to the Olympics for outrunning those same\ngoons; of Burnham\u2019s wicked plot to recruit Gregory Smith to kill Rodney and\nthen sending Smith by GDF plane to French Guiana; of the opportunistic issue of\npassports by the Immigration Department; of the attempted public murder of\nleading member Dr. Josh Ramsammy in which a top PNC strongman still with us was\nnamed by the WPA; and of the killings by Burnham\u2019s police of leading WPA\nmembers including Ohene Koama and Edward Dublin. Incidentally I borrow the term\n\u201cgoon\u201d from the WPA\u2019s official publication Dayclean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But\nthe WPA was not cowed and the courage of Andaiye, Bonita Bone, Dow, Karen De\nSouza, Hinds, Ogunseye and Roopnaraine and hundreds of unsung heroes, employed\nand unemployed, academics and labourers, men and women, young and old, all\nrisking their lives for democracy, for Rodney, for each other and for Guyana\nwill long be remembered. When Burnham thought he had covered all the tracks it\nwas a simple woman \u2013 Pamela Beharry \u2013 who exposed the plot. It was as Dickens\nwould say, the best of times and the worst of times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nplayed a minor role in the WPA from 1986 to 2016 but was invited to meetings of\nthe Executive of the Party. For several elections I was associated with\nfundraising for the WPA and for the 2015 elections specifically, Maurice Odle\nand I were responsible for fund raising while Kidackie Amsterdam and I were\nresponsible for upgrading the WPA\u2019s facilities in Queenstown and the\npreparation and distribution of the Party\u2019s paper Dayclean. Both from my\nknowledge and observation, the WPA has departed from the high standards with\nwhich it has always been associated \u2013 a party of high principles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having\nplayed a major role in the weakening and the eventual downfall of the Burnham\ndictatorship, the WPA has spent the last five years practising some of the very\nevils for which so many of its rank and file valiantly fought the dictatorship.\nUnfortunately, no sooner was it given executive power than it willingly\naccepted the direction that it should use its ministry (Education) and\nDepartment (SOCU) to find jobs for its supporters as the AFC was doing at\nPublic Infrastructure and Information. In exchanging its principles for power,\nit willingly accepted disrespect and indignities from Granger who refused to\npractise power sharing in his Coalition, leaving the likes of David Hinds and\nClive Thomas to fret continually. Despite Roopnaraine\u2019s contribution of the\nbest speeches in the 2015 election campaign, the WPA accepted the rejection of\nRoopnaraine\u2019s appointment to the Environment Ministry on spurious grounds. I\nknow this because I was a witness to those grumblings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As\ntime went by, the WPA became tolerant of corruption, incompetence and wastage\non a scale unprecedented in Guyana. It witnessed the rapid decline of GuySuCo\ncaused partly by the Granger Administration\u2019s failure to follow the\nrecommendations of a Commission of Inquiry of which Clive Thomas was a co-Chair\nand author of a major section of the report. It remained silent. Egregiously,\nthe \u201cDoctor\u201d party appeared incapable of calculating the majority of 65 \u2013 all because\nof its embrace of jobs and perks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nmust say this: I have not heard of any accusations of financial improprieties\nbeing levelled against the party members in Government. On the other hand, none\nincluding Clive Thomas and Rupert Roopnaraine, both famous for their\nintellectual prowess, has stood out for competence or outstanding performance.\nDr. Maurice Odle as Chairman of NICIL is another long-standing member and he\nwill find it difficult to escape responsibility for the many failures of NICIL\nwhich bears a large share of the blame for GuySuCo\u2019s near demise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nwomen of the WPA were always a formidable set of individuals including Andaiye,\nBonita, Vanda and Danuta Radzik and Karen De Souza and individually and\ncollectively made a tremendous contribution to the Party. It might be an\noverstatement to say they were a balancing influence in the WPA but it does\nappear that their departure many years ago weakened the Party. This was\nexacerbated by the departure from Guyana of a whole coterie of the Party\u2019s leadership\nincluding Kwayana, Moses Bhagwan, Rohit Kanhai and Nigel Westmaas. I recall\ndriving up to Buxton to pick up Kwayana the morning he left Guyana and of his\ndissatisfaction with Ogunseye\u2019s role in relation to the violence which\nhad erupted on the lower East Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\nmovement that was once famous for its values and Rodneyite principles is now\ndeeply involved in the attempt to rig the 2020 elections. It has been silent on\nthe attempt by the Region 4 Returning Officer to rig the elections in favour of\nthe APNU of which the WPA was at one time the second largest party. Judging by\ntheir public roles, the leading active members of the Party are Desmond\nTrotman, Tacuma Ogunseye and David Hinds. The first holds the PNC line in\nGECOM, Ogunseye remains committed to the romantic notion of a liberation\nstruggle and Hinds\u2019 dismissal of elections moves him sharply away from the\nWPA\u2019s embrace of multicultural relationships and free and fair elections and\ncloser to the promotion of an increasingly strident brand of African rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hinds\nas a political commentator and agitator can benefit from his other role \u2013 that\nof an academic. He should do some additional reading on democracy and elections\nand I strongly recommend to him Staffan Lindberg\u2019s book \u201cDemocracy and Elections\nin Africa\u201d, a passage of which was cited in a recent Malawi elections petition\ncase. This is what Lindberg said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhile\nthere are many views on what democracy is \u2013 or ought to be \u2013 a common\ndenominator among modern democracies is elections \u2026 But elections are also and\nmore importantly an institutionalized attempt to actualize (sic) the essence of\ndemocracy: rule of the people by the people. Every modern definition of\nrepresentative democracy includes participatory and contested elections\nperceived as the legitimate procedure for the translation of the rule by the\npeople into workable executive and legislative power\u2026\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nWPA in the pre-democracy era propounded and embraced as a foundational\nprinciple People\u2019s Power which must surely recognise the will of the people\nexpressed in their vote. Hinds wants to reject that vote \u2013 to destroy the\nballot boxes. He wants power sharing but refused to engage me on a Globespan\nprogramme on his definition of power sharing. Hinds who is seen as a leading\nWPA spokesperson must recognise that Rodney\u2019s party\u2019s power sharing call arose\nin a pre-democracy era. The WPA subsequently supported inclusionary democracy\nin Articles 13 and 149 C of the Constitution. What WPA\u2019s spokespersons,\nincluding Hinds, are now advocating is the abandonment of these Articles so\nthat their party can stay in power \u2013 by any means necessary, to use Ogunseye\u2019s\nwords \u2013 as Burnham did from 1968 to 1985. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And\njust as an afterthought, this power sharing call by Hinds and his colleagues\nonly arose because the vote count showed his Coalition as losing the elections\nas confirmed by the recount. There are some truths which the WPA seems to want\nto avoid. That is not what Rodney stood for and was killed for. The WPA should\nlet him rest in peace. I fail to see how they can now celebrate him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yours faithfully,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christopher Ram<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This article was Published on May 24, 2020 Dear Editor Today, the Working People\u2019s Alliance will mark the 40th anniversary since its leader Walter Rodney was killed. A Commission of Inquiry (COI) found that he was murdered at the hands of the PNC and its agents. I was the WPA\u2019s Counsel along with Moses Bhagwan … <\/p>\n