The Trouble is Silence: Notes of a Guyanese Daughter

For the past few weeks I’ve been wrestling my conscience about engaging with what’s happening in Guyana. I know I’m not alone. I have felt the kind of paralysis no writer should overindulge. This is because there is always criticism about outside ‘interferences’ by Guyanese who live in the diaspora engaging in its affairs. If we say pleasant things, it’s cool, but raise the dirty rug, call out the blights, historical or contemporary that everyone knows exist and we’re spurned as not knowing what we’re talking about, or not having a credible voice because we no longer live there. But some writers can’t be easily silenced because part of our effort is to observe, participate and contribute to a meaningful manifestation of the national consciousness, which we feel duty bound to attempt. We no longer have to reside in the nation, since history has intervened and because the ‘nation’ from whence we were sprung resides in us, come what may. The conscientious writer, I should have said, and activist too knows her role, as Albert Camus tells us ‘is to stop civilisation from destroying itself.’ At least the intent is there.

My quandary may have started when I shared a short story titled ‘Watermamma and the President of The Republic’ with a few Guyanese, many living in the diaspora and was told it would not be published (or well received) in Guyana. This because its content portrayed a fictional president as being compelled by his secretary, with whom he was having an affair, to rethink prospecting for oil as an economic venture. The actual theme about the environment was missed. Scandal (the affair), instead was isolated as controversial. The secretary (the story’s protagonist) – Cybelle – is a manifestation of watermamma whose primary concern is about the way humans preserve the environment; she judges and rewards them accordingly to the harm they do to her and her children. This central motif for the story was missed. This I feel is because any reflection on Guyana comes with the debilitating caution – whose side is the view espousing? Impartiality and objectivity have no place.

Worse, this debility is race precious as opposed to humane. Rightly, I’m not in favour of cold objectivity, but my subjectivity should not be forced upon me either. We all have agency. We all can speak and make our voices heard because there is always a wider angle from which to see things. When we’re cornered by fear we repeat the same foolishness time and again. What has been startling me is this sense that one cannot speak without being accused of betrayal when the only loyalty we should have is to justice, freedom and the will of the people en mass not to the wiles of politicians who flout the responsibility of their office often with callous disregard for the ordinary people who’ve empowered them. So now is hardly time for silence and the kind of faux-chess playing we’ve been detrimentally witnessing the last few weeks (dare I say much much longer than this). I doubt any Guyanese witnessing it now will ever get over this period in our history, just as past experiences continue to haunt the present and are the reason we are once again right here.

I recently wrote that Guyana is ‘both my heart and its ache.’ I don’t mean this to be interpreted as pretentious nostalgia. That is always tempting, given again the intervening history and migration experiences for many of us. Truly it is impossible to disregard the place where one was born. A real malady of the heart, permissible or insidious would be the consequence of trying. I do not feel nostalgic about a once wonderful Guyana when all was utopic. Nor do I desire to will it to become the same. Having been removed when I had not yet completed Common Entrance I don’t have such a rosy image of Guyana as some of my elders will – save the affections of my grandparents and the quaint village (Seafield) living I experienced during school holidays. The rest is a complex and brief history.

Outside of that time in Berbice I lived in Linden. Bauxite mining ordered our lives, since it was the reason people like my uncle migrated there. It promised, but did not quite deliver economic prosperity for its workers. Instead it saw my uncle dead before he reached 50, leaving my aunty and a whole lot of children to fend for life without any kind of insurance and other means to feed the many mouths. Bauxite left many of us battling respiratory problems; I attribute my asthma to it, currently flared in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic (as I’m now writing this). I have not seen, but would welcome, any cost-benefit analysis about the quality of life rendered significantly better because of the bauxite industry in Guyana, and especially Linden. I would welcome too any study of the continuing ecological impact of bauxite mining on the local population. I recall the all-day round dust clogging everything, especially our lungs. Where I lived – in Silvertown, we were surrounded by grit and sand; and dirt tracks for road. All seemed accidental rather than well-organised, civil-engineering and town planning. That area hasn’t changed in 50 years. There are some flashy concrete houses but the ‘streets’ are no different; dishevelled and pot-holed; the market building still drab and depressing. All seem to be in the same posture of arrested development and retarded expectation. I know development is a long bitter process but I wonder - did Forbes Burnham, the demi-god of the region (10), after whom Linden was named, dream that this would be the amalgam of his pride? He may recently have quivered in his mausoleum at Russian company RUSAL’s attempts in February this year to stop its bauxite operations. I don’t know the ins and outs – but the eye-pass is evident – especially the easy disregard for Guyanese workers, when they could so readily try lay off 326 of them. One wonders too how they have 90% of Guyana’s bauxite. And does the meagre 10% enable real development of the local (let alone national) economy? Who has the answers and where are the figures? The scrupulous figures, I mean. The game to me (an overseas ‘Guyanese daughter’) is so fine –tuned, you see, because this occurred weeks before the election which final results (at the time I started writing this) we’re still awaiting.

The same inquiry is warranted about the hallowed new oil and gas sector. All kinds of unexacting promises, figures and potentialities are bandied about in the local and international presses about the oil production: most recently - ‘Guyana paid US$55 Million for first oil Cargo’ (Stabroek News 21st March) – subtitled – ‘royalties paid next month.’ The money is, however, being held in the National Resource Fund (NRF) that’s in the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Given that for the past 3 weeks there has been an impasse over the election, held on 2nd March, coupled with the current pandemic of Covid-19 (the Corona Virus that started in China at the end of 2019), what does this really mean? I ask this because international observers to the election have called into question the credibility of the tabulation process; and particularly region 4’s results. Consequently, the US has threatened Guyana with sanctions – a word that spells terror to any developing nation with a small , struggling economy (no matter what we’re reading about the oil) – knowing as we all do that US foreign policy makers are odorous bullies, who care only for their multi-national corporate interests. We know they are the least reputable country when it comes to equity in electoral process and world affairs generally but the world jumps when they threaten sanctions as they have done with Guyana. It’s acute for Guyana because its neighbour Venezuela is tragically staggering under such US enforced measures – not least that of destabilisation and deliberately recognising their sweet boy Juan Guaidó over Nicolás Maduro. Perhaps those who think overseas Guyanese ought to keep out of the country’s affairs might reconsider the extent of the influences such ‘outsiders’ as multi-nationals and the international community generally have and have always had in Guyana’s politics, economy and social affairs.

Here’s what US Secretary General Mike Pompeo said: “The United States is closely monitoring the tabulation of votes in Guyana ….we join the OAS Commonwealth, EU, CARICOM and other democratic partners who are calling for an accurate count. We commend CARICOM’s role in seeking a swift democratic resolution and it is important to note that the individuals who seek to benefit from electoral fraud and form illegitimate governments/regimes will be subject to a variety of serious consequences from the United States” (Stabroek News: 21.3.2020). It seems it doesn’t matter what the organisation is called, US is its bad cop mouth piece. Furthermore, Guyana has a constitution that, to my understanding, gives the overriding powers to GECOM (the Elections Commission) to declare the outcomes of the elections.

So this looming threat does not only come from the US, but those international observers that are relied upon interminably to oversee that our elections are ‘free and fair’ as there’s all are ‘free and fair’ no doubt! We’ve seen political theatrics that many of us are too mindful to say are embarrassing and belittling to the people of Guyana whose general voices throughout have been largely silenced. Except for the way each know that they voted. When violence broke out - especially by PPP supporters - those hypocritical observers were silent. Just as there is silence about that US threat that should bother all of us at a time when Guyana needs compassion. But first order business has no time for compassion. If a country is battling a pandemic amidst electoral disturbances how helpful to its people is it to be faced also with world condemnation and the terror of sanctions? Why doesn’t the US general Secretary bully China to abandon its ‘wet markets’ that are purported to be the cause of this current pandemic and previous animal to human transferred diseases? We know the answer – bullies don’t pick on anyone bigger or the same size as them. There was eerie silence when school children were attacked in the David G school buses, again by PPP supporters. It’s not the point here to argue about the sadly named buses – though I don’t know why they were not called something generic like Guyana’s national school bus so that whomever is leading the country, the buses will evidently still belong to the nation to ferry its school children. The digression is over, only to add that I feel the same about the crass renaming of the previous Timehri airport to Cheddi Jagan International. Maybe there is a bit of nostalgia, after all!

I felt compelled to write – notwithstanding the fact today is Walter Rodney’s birthday and to whom I dedicate this effort because no writer should ever be stunned into silence. I was also inspired by a young woman in tears in a WhatsApp post yesterday. She was distressed by the impasse on the elections and was colourfully cursing both party leaders in an impassioned plea for them to sort out the mess. It seemed she wanted Granger to do something more than he is, though who could say what she meant. And after all, whatever the ‘game’ GECOM has the ultimate role to play. Yet I think she was expressing the frustration of all Guyanese – say what you will – at home and abroad. The frustration and even the disruptions are not really new and I fear may be incurable. Certainly now is not the time to stay silent – especially not for writers, artists, the people on the whole – given that interferences in our history has blighted our struggles for nationhood for as long as many of us care to remember. Most fair minded Guyanese would support any conscientious call for national unity, since no one wants to invoke that bitter 1960s past – or before then. Trouble is the wounds of that past are painfully deep and too many silences (involuntary and imposed) thus far have enabled the continuing stand-offs.

I write this in the hope that whoever takes that unenviable seat as the country’s leader will use this diabolical period as an opportunity to revisit the constitution. I feel that had this been done previously there could be no room for Bharrat Jagdeo to have such a presence in the current election process. Impishly, he is at the forefront of crossfires and confusion, leading the ‘opposition’ while not a ‘presidential candidate.’ I don’t know how this is possible, but can only surmise as others do that Irfan Ali is equally corrupt. This begs the question – rather than silence - of who can legitimately become president of Guyana if those who are obviously of ill repute can to all intents and purposes ‘run’ for third terms by some kind of proxy. A silent beat is hidden in this, the history needs evoking.

I hope too that teaching of the constitution, human and civil rights would become mandatory in schools in Guyana, along with financial literacy and far reaching humanities subjects, aimed at promoting critical thinking, creativity, as well as subjects that enable better understanding of history; if history itself is not properly being taught. That is - if these are not happening already. To be and feel Guyanese is as precious and necessary as other patriots feel about their homeland. Silences that shut out truth, understanding, clarity and the wider angle through which we see ourselves do no one any good in the long term. What we bury will always come to light. We cannot afford to consider the non-resident Guyanese irrelevant, not least now when in the height of international threats of isolation we will need each other as we have always needed each other. We need also to be aware of who we really consider as ‘outsiders’ and how these forces have powerful influences and yet have no consideration for the lives and experiences of the ordinary Guyanese who comprise the body and blood of the country. Power-sharing has been suggested as a possibility for a long time. I'm not sure how this would be seriously achieved given those wounds that resurface so fiercely. It’s not so much about who has the power, but how well they handle the responsibility that it comes with; their integrity and will to remember and protect the people's interests. This responsibility must be taken seriously if we are to evolve the country in a healthy, economical and socially productive way. Some are calling for a ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ process, as we’ve seen in places like South Africa, that they feel might help cure the deep wounds that get reopened over and over at pivotal times in Guyana. But in a land of many waters, the largest of which is muddy, and with very little that’s horizon blue, for that light of truth and awakening to take place there needs to be a lot more well-constructed and well-maintained bridges.

Are You Walter Rodney? By Olatunji Heru

June 2020 marks 40 years since the assassination of Dr Walter Rodney. The following blog post formed the basis of an interview with Donald Rodney (brother of Dr Rodney's brother) and Eric Huntley (who with is late wife Jessica Huntley published How Europe Underdeveloped Africa) aired

on Galaxy Radio, December 9th. The words herein expressed are those of the author's, Olatunji Heru of Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement, and are thus copyrighted.

Way wive Wordz Admin.

​
In his Letter From A Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr, mused that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” (1)  But when denial is the prevailing modus operandi of an oppressive system, even long delayed justice needs to be pursued.  A case in point is the recent announcement of the quashing of the convictions of the ‘Oval Four’, wrongly imprisoned on the basis of a corrupt police officer’s evidence back in 1972.  (2)  However, the pursuit continues in the case of Mark Duggan where they are striving to overturn the “perverse” inquest verdict that exonerated the police in his 2011 shooting.  (2)  Now there are calls for the case to be reopened following groundbreaking virtual modelling of the scene by Forensic Architecture, a London-based research organisation that uses modern technology to search urban areas for evidence.  Their technology cast serious doubt on the version of events advanced by the police and the conclusion arrived at by the jury. (3)
 
As we know the pursuit of justice is a global issue and one the continuing fights concerns legendary warrior scholar activist Walter Rodney and also his brother Donald Rodney.
 
For those unaware, Dr Walter Rodney was a prodigious intellectual powerhouse, author of, among other important works, the seminal 1972 book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, published jointly by London based Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications and Tanzania Publishing House, which transformed the analysis of the relationship between Afrika and the west.  At age twenty-one he gained a first-class degree in history from University of the West Indies (UWI) and three years later he attained a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.  However, his immense academic prowess never prevented him from “grounding” with his brothers, whether it was teaching in Tanzania between 1966 and 1974, a tempestuous semester at UWI in Jamaica in 1968, or organising in Guyana from the mid-seventies until his untimely death in 1980. (4)
 
His time teaching at the UWI Mona Campus in Jamaica, ostensibly with a view to establishing a faculty of African History is particularly illustrating.  (5)  While there, as as advocate of Black Power, he mobilised among “Rastafarins… urban youths (including youth gangs) and a heterodox religious movement led by the Rev. Claudius Henry.”:(6)
“At an exploratory gathering at UWI, he reportedly outlined four aims of Black Power: creating an awareness of blackness, mobilizing black people ‘to act in their own interests,’ rejecting ‘white cultural imperialism,’ and ensuring ‘the rule of blacks in black society.’ He demanded ‘a complete break with the capitalist system,’ and rejected the official Jamaican creed ‘out of many, one people.’ Jamaicans, the report quotes Rodney as saying, are ‘predominantly black and not a multiracial community. Therefore they should be governed only by black people.” (7)
 
He was subjected to extensive surveillance and eventually barred from the island by Prime Minister Hugh Shearer, sparking widespread protests involving students and many in the grassroots community.  According to eyewitness accounts, the police acted with violent repression and in the aftermath, there were three fatalities, fifty buses and $2 million worth of property damaged. (8)  To help raise awareness, of Walter Rodney’s case, Eric Huntley, his wife Jessica Huntley and others founded Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications and released The Groundings with My Brothers, a collection of his lectures that the Jamaican government sought to censor.  The publication was the beginning of a fifty plus year journey they would have with the esteemed scholar. (9)
 
Government intervention also lead to lecturing posts being rescinded in 1968 and 1974 in his native Guyana where he had relocated after his Afrikan sojourn.  He engaged in community politics and emerged as the most well-known spokesperson of the newly formed Working People’s Alliance, which aimed to resist the increasingly violent, authoritarian and corrupt regime of Forbes Burnham.  Indeed, Rodney was garnering international support from as a far afield as Zimbabwe and was feted as an honoured guest at their independence celebrations in 1980 even though the People's National Congress government had withdrawn his passport. (10)
 
All of this meant that the he was seen an ever more dangerous threat to the status quo and he remained undeterred even by his 1979 arrest on spurious charges.  After an international campaign the charges was dropped.  (11)
 
Less than a year later, Walter Rodney was killed in an explosion.  Few doubt that the government of Forbes Burnham was responsible.  In fact he was on public record exhorting WPA members to “make your wills”, perceived by many as death threats. Yet they came up their own, bizarre version of events – and implicated Walter Rodney’s own brother, Donald.  In many respects this is consistent with repressive regimes.  Not satisfied with extinguishing the physical life of those that oppose them, fearing a spirited rebellion, they go after those closest to the martyr – even across generations.  Advocates of this view point to examples such as:
·        The deaths of Rev Dr Martin Luther King’s brother A.D in suspicious circumstances and the murder of his mother Alberta one and six years respectively after his assassination. (12)
·        Fred Hampton Jr, the son of revered Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, murdered by Chicago police fifty years ago this week, framed and locked up on spurious charges. (13)
·        The alleged FBI plot to frame Omowale Malcolm X’d daughter Qubilah for planning an assassination attempt on Min. Louis Farrakhan as well as the FBI targeting of her son Malcolm and his subsequent murder in Mexico in 2013. (14)
 
Thus, in the case of Walter Rodney, the government blamed his brother Donald who survived the blast.  Bro. Donald gives “a narrative of injustice” of what happened next in his own words:
“When Walter Rodney was killed by a concealed bomb on June 13 1980, the government of the day claimed he was killed accidentally whilst on his way to bomb the Georgetown prison:
1.      Days later Donald Rodney, an eye-witness and injury victim of the killing was arrested from a hospital bed and taken to the Magistrates’ Court to face a change of unlawful possession of explosives. He was convicted therein in February 1982 and gave notice of appeal to the court of Appeal immediately.
2.      Inexplicably, 26 years later, at a week’s notice, on August 6, 2010 a two-judge bench of the High Court, chaired by the then Chief Justice, called Rodney’s appeal and purported to throw it out for non-appearance of Rodney or his Attorney.  However, Rodney never filed an appeal with that particular court, nor was he notified of the hearing beforehand.
3.      Move forward 9 years later, Rodney filed an appeal for leave to appeal out of time in the Court of Appeal. In the process the Court of Appeal, on May 23 2019 ordered the application to be, technically, an appeal against the High Court dismissal and allowed said appeal, on the ground that the High Court no jurisdiction, thus paving the way for the substantial appeal to proceed in the Court of Appeal, which it also ordered. To date that substantial appeal to proceed in the Court of Appeal, which it also ordered. To date that substantial appeal is still to be heard…
4.      But before moving on the order that the High Court lacked jurisdiction is significant, since apart from that unlawfulness, neither Rodney nor a representing Attorney were present, yet the two senior judges, in the presence of the prosecution, staged a secret hearing and dismissal of that appeal.  In the Court of Appeal hearing Rodney denounced this process as a “farce.” Previously in 2018, Rodney had written the Court Registrar requesting the name(s) of those purporting to file the appeal, but had no response.  Thus no explanation has ever been offered by the Courts or the DPP for this extra-ordinary episode, which therefore stands as a glaring parody of judicial integrity.
5.      It is against this background that the present stalling of Rodney’s substantial appeal in the Court of Appeal is narrated:
·        On September 10, 2019 on enquiry at the Appeal Court Registry Rodney was told that no hearing date could be set as the trial transcript was not available.
·        Next day he wrote the Chancellor of the Judiciary, through the Registrar, pointing out the document’s existence since he, Rodney, already had court certified copies of the trial transcript and written decision.
·        On October 14th 2019 he again enquired and was informed that the Registry now had a copy of the documents but was “not satisfied” with said copy.  This is baffling, Rodney was told he would be contacted the same or the next day, after this was done.
·        To date the Registry has made no contact as promised.  On October 24, 2019 Rodney wrote pointing this out, and gain asked for a date for this appeal but has had no response.
·        It is now public knowledge that Donald Rodney’s main ground of appeal is that his evidence at trial was substituted with fictitious material stating that he knew he had a bomb and was on his way to the prison when it exploded.  Apart from its falsity, the material matches the story of the government, and is opposite to what Rodney related to Guyana and the world, thus seeking to portray him a deceiver.
·        This falsity was also meant to portray Walter Rodney as a criminal as a cover to the assassination, the sustained court action against Donald is merely collateral damage.”
 
As shown above the government account stretches the limits of credulity yet Donald Rodney is still subject to its subterfuge nearly four decades on. However, in 2014, then president Donald Ramotar of the People's Progressive Party appointed a commission to “enquire and report on the circumstances surrounding the death in an explosion of the late Dr. Walter Rodney on thirteenth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and eighty at Georgetown.” 
 
The commission delivered its report to new President David Granger of the People's National Congress (party of Forbes Burnham) on February 8th 2016.  To the dismay (but perhaps not surprise) of many the president dismissed the report as “deeply flawed” and does not reflect “the truth.” He further indicated that he would challenge the Report’s findings and “the circumstances under which that Report was conducted.”  He also faulted the Commission for letting in much hearsay, but in this regard, he named only one witness whom he described as a “convict.” (15)
To date, President Granger has yet to release the report but it is available online  and its finally brings some sanity to the accounts of the assassination of Walter Rodney, vindicating Donald Rodney in the process.  Chapter 8 is worth quoting at length as it provides “Critical Findings and Summary on Gregory Smith”:
“8.1 - We accept that Gregory Smith gave Donald Rodney an anti-personnel device namely, a remotely controlled explosive in what appeared to be a walkie-talkie, a communications device.
8.2 - At the time Gregory Smith was a sergeant in the Defence Force in the marine department.
8.3 - We accept, too, that Gregory Smith was encouraged in providing that device by prominent members of State agencies.
8.4 - We find on the balance of probabilities that Walter Rodney had intended the walkie-talkie to be a communications device which would have permitted him to be in relatively easy contact with fellow WPA activists and for no sinister purpose. The point must be made at this stage that telephones were not easily available and there was discrimination in the distribution which was controlled by a State agency and which, in all likelihood, would have been denied the WPA.
8.5 - We find, further that Donald Rodney, whose testimony we accept, was on the night of 13th June, 1980, doing no more than accompanying his brother, Walter, to collect what they thought would have been a walkie-talkie.
8.6 - There is no evidence before us to suggest that the reason for collecting the device was other than indicated by Donald.
8.7 - Further, we are satisfied on the evidence presented that Smith was protected by the State and this inference is strengthened when it is borne in mind:
1. That within a matter of hours after the explosion and resultant death of Walter Rodney, Smith was taken to Kwakwani in a Defence Force aircraft.
2. He was given a passport, not in the name of Gregory Smith which name he carried as a member of the Defence Force, but in the name of CYRIL MILTON JOHNSON.
8.8 - We hold that the change of name was intended to conceal the true identity of the killer of Walter and that it could only have been achieved with the cooperation and support of the Passport Office which was part of the Police Force.” (16)
 
The report lays bare the government role in the murder of Walter Rodney and the framing of his brother Donald, carried out by Gregory Smith, Sergeant of the Guyana Defence Force, who facilitated the execution of the plot and his escape.  (17) President Granger’s reluctance to accept the Commission’s findings may be explained by the fact that he was commander of the Guyana Defence Force at the time of the killing.  We can only speculate on whether he had some involvement in the scheme. (18)
 
Bro. Donald Rodney continues to pursue his campaign for justice, “particularly in the face of these lame excuses and non-responses of the various court officials”, in local and global ways.  Locally as of Thursday November 21, 2019 he has mounted a vigil outside of the Court of Appeal building in Georgetown.  This vigil will be continued for one day per week.  During the vigil, an ‘I am Walter Rodney’ hardcopy petition will be launched in Georgetown for presentation to the Chancellor.
 
Globally, friends and well-wishers are encouraged to show resistance to the cover-up by writing to the Chancellor, through the Registrar, asking for two things an early date for the Rodney appeal, and an investigation into the unlawful High Court hearing. A sample letter is included at the end of the synopsis.
 
The government of Forbes Burnham ultimately failed in their attempt to extinguish the message of Walter Rodney but to be sure that campaign went far beyond the shores of Guyana, or even the Caribbean and continues up to this day.  Few could query his accomplishments as an academic yet his books are nowhere to be found on any higher education reading list in the UK, including his alma mater, SOAS “the most left-wing university.” (19)  One also wonders what impact an Afrikan history faculty at UWI headed by him would have had, given his living example of an academic grounded in grassroots activism.  These are some of the concerns that prey on the mind of independent scholar, writer, editor and publisher, Dr Michelle Asantewa:
“I wonder where we might be if every Black intellectual was prepared to forgo the privilege afforded them in society and abandon the prerequisite of ‘joining the establishment’ as Rodney did.  What if they were prepared to to the gullies and ‘dungles’ and to the ‘rubbish dumps’ where the people are forced to live out of poverty? What if that particular class saw their responsibility they way Rodney did – and wanted to contribute something of what they had learnt about life not just to the willing students who populate the university campuses but to those who didn’t have those kind of opportunities?  Successive governments would have to ban them without end.  But the responsibility to give back the way Rodney saw it would have phenomenal impact, were those intellectuals prepared to organise with the masses, bringing conferences to the people in the ‘low places’ too so that those governments that crush rebellions and kill revolutionaries would find it impossible to also kill those ideas with each one teaching one and saying that I too am Walter Rodney. ” (20)
 
REFERENCES

(1) Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr (16/04/63) Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.
(2) Florence Snead (05/12/19) 'If you are innocent, don't give up': Wrongly convicted man jailed as part of 'Oval Four' has name cleared after nearly 50 years. https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/oval-four-winston-trew-wrongly-convicted-overturned-court-appeal-1333683
(3) Stafford Scott (09/01/14) This perverse Mark Duggan verdict will ruin our relations with the police. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/09/mark-duggan-verdict-relations-police
(4) Eric Huntley (2018) Come Lehwe Reason: A Journey of 50 Years with Walter Rodney. Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications Ltd. passim.
(5) Huntley.p. 54-5
(6) Michael O. West (2006) ‘The Targeting of Walter Rodney. https://solidarity-us.org/atc/120/p136/
(7) Ibid.
(8) Huntley. p. 57-65
(9) Huntley. p. 8
(10) Huntley. p. 88-93
(11) Huntley. p. 91-2
(12) CBN News (15/01/18) What You Might Not Know About MLK’s Family History. https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2017/january/what-you-might-not-know-about-mlk-rsquo-s-family-history
(13) Sarah Downey (11/06/98) Hampton's son's backers protest his incarceration.  https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_QeOp6D4dcYJ:https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-06-11-9806110160-story.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
(14) Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka (2014) Countering the Character Assassination of Malcolm Shabazz Jr. The Whirlwind, Edition 11, p. 6
(15) Justice for Walter Rodney Committee (02/05/16) Justice for Walter Rodney Committee: Release inquiry report. https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/justice-walter-rodney-committee-release-inquiry-report
(16) Sir Richard Cheltenham, Seenath Jairam, Jacqueline Sameuls-Brown (08/02/16) The Report of the Commission of Inquiry to enquire into and report on the circumstances surrounding the death in an explosion of thelate Dr. Walter Rodney on the thirteenth day of June one thousandnine hundred and eighty at Georgetown.  p. 100-1. https://radar.auctr.edu/islandora/object/coi%3Arodney_report
(17) Femi Harris-Smith (21/05/19) Donald Rodney’s appeal of 1982 explosives conviction to be heard by appellate court. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2019/05/21/news/guyana/donald-rodneys-appeal-of-1982-explosives-conviction-to-be-heard-by-appellate-court/
(18) Staff Reporter (17/01/19) Granger to lead coalition.  guyanachronicle.com/2019/01/19/granger-to-lead-coalition
(19) Julian Lahai Samboma (14/04/19) On Walter Rodney: Pan-Afrikanism, Marxism and the next generation.  https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/walter-rodney-pan-afrikanism-marxism-and-next-generation
(20) Michelle Asantewa (2018) Reflections on Walter Rodney’s Grounding fifty years on in Eric Huntley, Come Lehwe Reason: A Journey of 50 Years with Walter Rodney. Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications Ltd. p. 86-7.



You may be interested in attending the 15th Annual Huntley Conference, which theme is: Rodney's Enduring Legacy; Saturday 22nd February 2020.