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Latin America Weekly Report June 20, 1980 Rodney's murder plunges Burnham regime into gravest crisis With international condemnation joined to domestic unrest, Guyanese prime minister Forbes Burnham faces the most severe crisis of his 16-year-old regime as a result of last Friday's car- bomb assassination of Walter Rodney, the historian and leading) member of the opposition Working People's Alliance (WPA). The murder has alienated allies of Burnham in the Caribbean, and damaged his reputation in the Third World, especially. in Africa, beyond repair. In the hours following Rodney's death, Grenada declared a day of national mourning, and prime minister Michael Manley of Jamaica condemned the 'brutal murder', From Zimbabwe, where Rodney had very close connections (see profile, page 6), prime minister Robert Mugabe sent a personal message of condolence to his family, saying he was 'upset and shocked'. In Georgetown, the government claimed that Rodney was killed by his own bomb, with which he intended to attack the prison and release those recently arrested on treason charges (WR-80-23; RC-80-05). The security forces have kept up an intense level of activity involving searches of opponents' homes -- including those of Rodney's family and that of Cheddi Jagan, leader of the People's Progressive Party. Students who marched from the university to the WPA office in central Georgetown on Tuesday were attacked by riot police using teargas and bayonets. Protest rallies and all-night vigils have taken place, involving PPP as wel} as WPA supporters. With Rodney's funeral due to take place this Saturday, 21 June, the WPA was warning that the mood of the people was that 'Rodney's murder should not go unpaid.' The party also released evidence supporting its charge that the murder was organised at the highest government level. Rodney's brother, Donald, who was in the car in which the bomb exploded and is now in hiding, issued a statement explaining Small reports Burnham as warning WPA: that the bomb was concealed in a radio given to him by Sgt Gregory Smith of the Guyana Defence Force, who said he wished to help the WPA monitor the security forces' surveillance of its members. He had urged them to test it in the open air near the prison, but they had suspected a trap and instead tested it in the car, where it had blown up. The statement added: QO The bomb was an anti-personnel weapon which exploded upwards; the main damage to the car was to its roof. 'The bomb which we are told Walter Rodney intended to use to bomb the massive Georgetown jail would not -seem capable of destroying the car or a second person a foot away.' 8 Two vans carrying death squad men were parked near the spot 15 minutes before the explosion. O When the police were claiming that they did not know the victim's identity, GDF chief of staff Norman McLean was overheard at a party 45 minutes after the explosion saying that he had to leave for a security meeting with Burnham, because Walter Rodney had been killed. © Initial statements by the regime, apparently prepared before the event, said Rodney had been killed while walking beside the jail fence; only later did they admit he had been killed in a car a block away. 0 The latest blow to the government has been the release by the Barbados- based Caribbean News Agency of a statement made to the police by Pamela Beharry, a Georgetown woman who knew Sgt Gregory Smith, the man ac- cused by Donald Rodney of giving his brother the fatal bomb' disguised as.a walkie-talkie radio. The Guyana Defence Force has denied any knowledge of Smith; but Ms Beharry's statement said that she visited him last December at Ruimveldt, south of Georgetown, where he was stationed in the GDP marine section. Ms Beharry also said that bet- ween January and April this year, Smith installed radio receivers and a telephone recording device at the apartment of a friend, Gwendoline Jones. 3 Wi ITE YOUR Jamaica Daily News Witt Chairman of the Jamaica Council for Human Rights, attorney Richard Small has said that the Prime Minister of Guyana, Forbes Burnham has publicly said that the leadership of the Working People's Alliance (WPA) should write their wills and also that revenge will be his. Mr. Small was speaking on. Thursday at a press conference of the Jamaica Committee for Human Rights. and Democracy in Guyana at the offices of the Jamaica Council for Human Rights. The conference was called to discuss events subsequent to the assassination of Walter Rodney and treatment. of in- ternationa) delegates attending his funeral services. Also speaking at the conference was Rupert Lewis, who represented the Workers Party at the funeral and Clarenot Kirton: of the Committee. Mr. Lewis said that on arriving at the airport in Guyana it appeared as if the immigration police were expecting them. Delegates to the funeral were given 24 to 48 hours to leave Guyana and all documents relating to Rodney were con- fiscated. Mr. Small endorsed what Mr. Lewis said about the treatment of delegates to Rodney's funeral. He said that George Lamming (noted Author and Novelist) was almost refused entrance because he could not give the name of an July 8, 1980 "PEACEFUL REVOLUTION", AND Wit BE CRUSHED?" employee and that Mr. Lamming had to write the titles of all the books he had ever written before. Mr. Small also said that Dr. Rodney-was almost certain to have been acquitted of the charges against him. | AND QvESTION 4 - RECONCILE THESE Two STATEMENTS : (@) © "Alt GounreR eee (TS VOT ALWAYS POSSIBLE te AvoID Latin America Weekly Report June 27, 1980 GUYANA VOVTUO AE TUNTERT ESCA OUTED ODOUR Thousands defy regime in Rodney funeral march Defying government pressure on them not to attend, thousands of people walked 12 miles in pouring rain on Monday in the funeral procession for Walter Rodney, the Working People's Alliance leader killed by a bomb ex- plosion on 13 June (WR-80-24). The moumers, who carried banners and shouted slogans accusing the govern- ment of murdering Rodney, made their way from his native village of Buxton to the cemetery in Georgetown. In the days before the funeral, students and staff at the state-run University of Guyana had gone on strike, virtually closing it down, while the police banned a public meeting of the opposition Van- guard for Liberation and Democracy. The government, which employs 80 per cent of the workforce, had ordered state employees not to go to the funeral, and the large attendance was a further blow to its authority. Following Rod- ney's murder, security guards and government agents in shops and other public places attempted to prevent people from even discussing his death, threatening them with arrest if they did not keep quiet. These tactics had little effect, as people were discussing nothing else. Condemnation of the murder has been virtually universal throughout the Commonwealth Caribbean, with left- and right-wing politicians for once united; the large Guyanese communities in Britain, Canada and the United States, together with political and aca- demic associations in several European and African countries, have swelled the volume of protest. The tightly- controlled state radio and press have done their best to conceal this from the Guyanese population, but a strident radio attack on the world press last week by former information minister Shirley Field-Ridley shows that the message has still been getting through to the public. Theinfluential Guyana Human Rights Association has been joined by 20 Church, trade union and professional groups in calling for an international inquiry into Rodney's death, and an immediate return to democracy and the rule of law. The groups, which include the Bar Association and the associations of architects and doctors, warn that this could be the last chance to 'reconstruct a peaceful society'. 0