Rodney’s death was state-sanctioned – Jocelyn Dow asserts

Jocelyn Dow, an associate of historian Dr. Walter Rodney, has described her friend’s death as a “state-sanctioned” act in a time when she and several others feared for their lives daily.

Dow made the declaration during yesterday’s Walter Rodney Commis-sion of Inquiry (CoI) hearing at the Supreme Court Law Library. In her testimony, Dow described an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, which led to Rodney’s death. She explained that she, along with others, had thought that they could be “killed at any time” and, when she learnt of Rodney’s death, she had instantly believed that he had been murdered by the state. Though she had not been a member of Rodney’s party, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Dow said she was nevertheless subjected to victimisation.

Like most things Guyanese since the end of colonialism, the testimony at this C.O.I.does severe injustice to the memory of the historian Dr. Walter Rodney. His scholarship was based on facts and his opinions rooted in commonsense. This inquiry has descended into the depths of one of our numerous pit latrines and hopefully the odourous stink of innuendo, assumption and outright delusion will soon come to an end.