Amended records will officially state he was assassinated

The Guyana government has announced a raft of steps that are to be taken to correct the historical wrongs concerning the bomb-blast death of Guyanese historian and co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Dr Walter Rodney, 41 years ago.

Attorney General Anil Nandlall, who made the announcement yesterday in response to a request from Rodney’s widow and children, declared the government would be amending his death certificate from death by misadventure to assassination.

In an article published by Demerara Waves, Nandlall was quoted as saying the following:

“For too long, Dr Walter Rodney’s death has been the subject of an irreverent mis-description. It was not a misadventure. It was an assassination. A great stain on our Republic. This sadistic misrepresentation on Dr Rodney’s death certificate prevented his family from recovering not a blind cent from his life insurance policy, the only financial provision he had made for his family, his wife and three infant children. This desecration must end now. His death certificate will be amended to delete the words ‘misadventure’, as the cause of death and substitute therefor, the word ‘assassination’.

The Guyanese attorney general said the records would also be amended to read that Dr Rodney was professor instead of unemployed. Further, he said the inquest that had been conducted in 1988 would be invalidated because of its “perverse” findings.

Resuscitating the Walter Rodney Chair at the University of Guyana

Nandlall reported that the government is resuscitating the Walter Rodney Chair at the University of Guyana, and would use several of the late historian work, as reading materials, as part of the school’s curriculum and the recently renamed Walter Rodney Archives.

He added that materials from the 2014 Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry would be digitized and stored at the archives and at a university in the United States announcing that Dr Rodney’s graveside and monument would be “declared national monuments” and would be managed by the National Trust.

The Attorney General told the local media that a motion to adopt the findings and recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into Dr. Rodney’s death would be tabled in the National Assembly. He said these actions by the government are part of a process to right the tragic wrong perpetrated against Dr. Rodney and  to begin the process  rectification of a historical record.

Findings of the Commission of Enquiry

The Commission of Inquiry had found that the then Forbes Burnham led administration had played a major role in the assassination of Dr. Rodney by using then Guyana Defence Force electronics expert, now late Sergeant Gregory Smith as a state agent. Dr. Rodney’s brother, Donald, had minutes earlier on June 13, 1980, collected a bag containing a walkie-talkie from Smith at his Russell Street, Charlestown, Georgetown home.

That device later exploded killing Rodney, who at the time was seated in his Mazda Capella car, PBB 2349. Years later, Smith had expressed a willingness to return from French Guiana to testify if he had been given amnesty.

He could not have been extradited to Guyana because France does not allow extraditions to countries where there is the death penalty