Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 08, 2014 News
Labour Minister and former General Secretary of National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial
Employees (NAACIE), Dr. Nanda Gopaul, told the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the death of Dr. Walter Rodney, yesterday that he had never known of any plan by the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) to overthrow the Government.
This was in response to questions posed by Attorney -at- Law Basil Williams, who is representing the interest of the People’s National Congress Reform PNC/R.
Dr. Rodney, a scholar, social activist and founder of WPA was killed in an explosion on June 13, 1980. Following his death, there was speculation that the killing was set up by the then Prime Minister and leader of the PNC, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham.
Yesterday, Dr. Gopaul said that he was not aware of any actions taken to overthrow the PNC government or of any alliances between the WPA and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) to do so. The witness said that nothing Rodney said gave any impression that the WPA was planning a violent overthrow.
“ I came here as a trade unionist who is aggrieved that Walter Rodney was killed in this manner…I want to bring closure to this commission and I want people to understand.”
Gopaul refused to answer certain questions posed by Williams. He said that he believed that the questions had nothing to do with Dr. Rodney’s death.
The witness claimed that during the period under review, Guyanese were under severe oppression by the government; State workers were coerced into going to PNC meetings and the public was not free to travel because of the shortage of foreign exchange.
He said that foreign exchange had to be released by the government of the day, and many persons who would not have had foreign currency, would have difficulty in purchasing tickets to travel.
In his evidence before COI on Wednesday, Minister Gopaul, recalled that there was a constant fear of victimisation among workers during the period 1978-1980.
Dr. Gopaul told the Commission that it was a “bitter period” when the Government headed by Burnham literally declared war against anyone who challenged the “status quo”.
Dr. Gopaul’s book ‘Resistance and Change: The Struggle of Guyanese workers in 1964-1994’ was also admitted as evidence in the Commission of Inquiry, in which he outlined that legislation was also introduced to victimize and oppress workers.
According to Dr. Gopaul the State did not hesitate to introduce the National Security Act and Summary Jurisdiction Appeals Act, which were used as instruments of oppression against working people.
The amendments to the Labour Act, he said, met with heavy criticisms and condemnation from several organizations, including the Guyana Bar Association.
He noted, too, that at the time, the working conditions for sugar workers had deteriorated and that several workers were dismissed from the State Owned Guyana Stores. The Minister noted that 95 per cent of the strikes between 1978 and 1980 came from sugar workers.
He recalled one incident where striking workers joined in protest in front of the Guyana Stores building.
The Minister said, that members of the security forces attacked and ruthlessly beat workers.
Gopaul said that the workers were protesting peacefully with placards when they were beaten, for asking for their payments to be restored.
He said that persons carrying out the beating wore police clothes, but while some had badges others had no form of identification.
He said that they were beaten on their backs. Hamilton Green who was the then Labour Minister watched on along with Senior Police Officers. He stated that Green was furious and made comments that people wanted to overthrow the government.
“I have never seen ruthlessness of that nature before…in the presence of policemen with badges.
Dr. Gopaul said he confronted some of the policemen who stated that even though they worked with these men in police clothes without badges, they did not know who they were.
He said that the policemen claimed that they were apologetic about what was happening to the workers.
Dr. Gopaul said that some of the men without badges were later identified to be affiliated with the House of Israel. He explained that fear stalked the police force and many policemen were subdued in the performance of their duties.
He told the commission that some of the workers managed to keep their jobs, but nevertheless suffered some form of victimization; some of them received warning letters while others were on probation and fired after that period had expired.
The former Union representative outlined that workers were denied the right to bargain collectively since centralized bargaining was enforced by the Government.
He recalled that some time back then, the President of the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union, Gordon Todd, was placed into a helicopter and taken on a ride to an unknown location. After hours of his disappearance, they were informed that he would be at Ogle.
Dr. Gopaul said that Todd told them that he was taken by military personnel on a helicopter ride over the Atlantic Ocean where there were sharks and he was warned that if he persisted in the strikes he would end up in those waters.
He however, stated that he could not recall whether the PNC Government had denied Todd’s allegation.
“I can’t recall anyone in the government or any statement anywhere denying that Gordon Todd was held…and taken over shark infested waters,” he said.
On Thursday, Gopaul spoke about workers struggling for livable wages under the repressive People’s National Congress (PNC) administration, being engaged in industrial action and not political activism. That same Thursday he was involved in a clash with PNC Counsel, Mr. Basil Williams at the Rodney Commission.
Under cross-examination by Williams, at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry, Dr. Gopaul insisted that crippling labour strikes in Guyana in 1977 and 1979 stemmed from the resentment and hardships of workers against the harsh economic policies of the PNC Government.
Williams suggested that the two strikes paved the way for the tense social atmosphere that resulted in Dr. Rodney’s demise. He said that the unions engaged in political action and created the platform for countrywide instability.
But Dr. Gopaul rejected this. He contended that the unions only focused on industrial action.
The Commission is seeking to establish why and how Dr. Rodney died and if who might have been responsible.
Williams suggested to Dr. Gopaul that the strikes of 1977 and 1979 had more to do with the trade unions attempts to engage in political action to unseat the PNC Government. Dr. Gopaul denied Williams’s suggestion.
He said that the unions only focused on industrial action as a strategy to mobilise workers to protest against the PNC Government’s economic policy of freezing wages of workers in the sugar, bauxite and other PNC State-controlled sectors.
Under the PNC Government, the State practised paramountcy of the PNC Party over the Government, and also absolute State control of the national economy.
At the period in question, Dr. Gopaul was head of the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE).
Dr. Rodney, a world-famous scholar and historian, and strong opponent of the PNC Government dictatorship, worked closely with Dr. Gopaul at NAACIE’s headquarters on upper High Street, Kingston in the struggle for democracy.
Williams sought to suggest that the two strikes paved the way for the tense social atmosphere that resulted in Dr. Rodney’s demise, and kept insisting that the unions engaged in political action, thus creating the platform for countrywide instability. But Dr. Gopaul rejected this, claiming that the unions only focused on industrial action.
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