Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 15, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
The mix-up over the handing over of the report the Rodney Commission of Inquiry is just that: a mix-up. It was due to a failure of communication that resulted in the report not being handed over at the designated time because of difficulties with the administrative arrangements.
These difficulties were either not known about by the administration or not appreciated and therefore certain impressions mat have been drawn that did not taken them in account.
Now that the situation has be explained, it is time for bygones to be bygones. This is how mature people should behave.
The report has been submitted. It will be a quarter –baked report because the Commission was clearly not able to get anywhere near the completion of its work.
The Commissioners acted as professionals and should not be shouldered with blame for what the government perceives as the politically-tainted terms of reference of the Commission of Inquiry.
Those terms of reference have been defended in the past. It was argued for example that this was a COI and not an inquest and therefore could not have been restricted to finding out that a man named Rodney was indeed killed and that he was killed by a bomb blast and died from hemorrhaging.
These facts are indisputable. What the Commission was primarily concerned about was determining who was responsible for killing him and the persons that were the intellectual authors, if any, of the crime. Implicit in this is a determination as to whether Rodney’s death was related to his political activities.
This particular aspect was criticized the then opposition, APNU which is now in power. The felt that the terms of reference were politically contrived for narrow political purposes but as was explained to remove certain terms of reference would have degutted the examination of Rodney’s death. A half-truth would have emerged and the whole truth was necessary.
The Commission ran into problems. The first was that the opposition which was in opposition when it was launched became the government and it was clear that they would halt it one way or the other because they were opposed to it and were becoming increasingly embarrassed by some of the testimony that was being given.
The second hurdle was the cost incurred. The Commission’s costs exceeded three hundred million when it was halted.
These costs were seen as prohibitive. Clearly, costs became a factor or an excuse in the eventual decision to shut down the work of the commission.
The question, however, is not whether the costs could have been afforded but whether Guyana could afford not to pay these costs. Bringing closure to the death of Rodney must be seen as part of the overall efforts of promoting reconciliation to a part of Guyana’s history that was dark and dirty. If there can be no acknowledgement that the past was indeed so tainted then there should be no talk about reconciliation.
Guyana must never again go down the route that it went in those days when political opponents were hounded and murdered.
There should also be a Commission of Inquiry into that other dark period in our country’s recent history when crime took on what many believe to be a political character.
Money should not have been the problem with the COI because the international community is keen for Guyana to set aside its differences and could have been approached to provide funding to continue the work of the Commission. The government of course had problems with the terms of reference of the COI and therefore was not interested in sustaining the work of the Commission.
It should be noted that the Linden Commission of Inquiry which covered incidents that occurred over a period of a few days and which involved local Commissioners also cost a hefty sum and therefore the price tag of the Rodney Commission, relatively speaking, was not that prohibitive even though it could be argued that it was unaffordable.
The big loser in all of this is national reconciliation. There was an element in the terms of reference of the commission of inquiry that did help to encourage witnesses to come forward and clear their consciences. That element was a legal provision which granted a pardon to those who came forward and told the truth. They were absolved from prosecution.
That same provision was instrumental in the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa and is now being used in Columbia.
The amnesty has been controversial about when examining historic events which have taken place a long time ago, it is difficult to get witnesses to come forward unless there is some incentive for them to bare their souls about the wrongs they did.
Amnesty is the incentive that was provided in South Africa, in the Rodney Commission of Inquiry and in Columbia at present.
The Rodney Commission of Inquiry should not be closed. It should be put on ice. Costs should be renegotiated. If this cannot happen, then a fixed, affordable sum, say $200M, should be allocated each year for the work and the Commissioners asked to do work to that extent.
The work of the Commission does not have to be completed in a year or more. It can take ten years. There is precedent for this. This approach will ensure that costs are not a problem.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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