Walter Rodney Lives!

Peoples Power No Dictator!

Wazir Mohamed

[A reflection on Walter Rodney’s continuing relevance 27 years after his assassination in Guyana on June 13, 1980, by the Wazir Mohamad, former Co-Leader of the Working Peoples’ Alliance of Guyana, now
PhD Candidate in Sociology-Binghamton University, New York.]

Part 1

The Stalled Rodney Inquiry and the Racial Dimension of Guyana

I think it necessary that this pertinent question is asked: What happened to Walter Rodney, why was he assassinated, and who was responsible? After years of stops, starts, and inaction on this issue, in 2005 it seemed as though an international inquiry into Rodney’s assassination was finally on the cards.

The Guyanese Parliament on June 29 2005 passed a unanimous resolution authorizing the creation of a commission of inquiry, whose terms of reference were to be ironed out among representatives of the Government, the Rodney family, and others. This year as we mark 27 years since his passing we ask, what has happened to this decision for the inquiry?

It is now 27 years since Walter Rodney “the prophet of self-emancipation” was murdered in a dark corner, at a dark moment of Guyana’s history. That day in June 1980 is arguably the saddest of modern Guyana. I was 22 years old at that time, but my life was already enmeshed in the struggle which Walter Rodney defined in terms of a battle for “peoples’ power – no dictator”. Dictatorial rule was the hallmark of the Burnham presidency which ruled Guyana for more than two decades. Yet, for many years until his death in 1985 Burnham was revered in the corridors of power in the region, in Cuba, the Soviet Union, and all the Eastern Bloc Countries.