In the darkness of that fateful June 13, 1980 night Gregory Smith chose to commit a crime that qualifies as the highest form of political violence. He and his cohorts in the People’s National Congress (PNC) have attempted by various subterfuges to deny culpability. First, in face of evidence produced by the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), through the auspices of an eminent Attorney at Law, sought to distance itself from Smith and his nefarious activity by denying his enlistment as a soldier. That fact was readily proved and his connection with the GDF established.

A number of other events have taken their toll in the sage of who is Gregory Smith and who were his cohorts, accomplices and, more importantly, on whose orders was he acting on that fateful night? The Guyanese public, the WPA, the wife and family of

Dr. Rodney, his colleagues in academia and friends, stood dumbfounded as the PNC regime attempted to manipulate public opinion, poison political sentiments and blunt dissent by outright falsehoods and half-truths. There was even mounted a campaign to associate Dr. Rodney with leading a misguided band of activists determined to remove the PNC/Forbes Burnham regime by use of arms.

That subterfuge also fails. And the reason is simple. The political consciousness of the Guyanese having being raised by political teachings and ideas of Dr. Rodney quickly unraveled the deceptions. Today there is represented yet another unverified piece of information, the intendment of which is obscure and malicious. .

What is to be made of this new information. There is outstanding a warrant issued for the arrest of Gregory Smith for the murder of Dr. Walter Rodney on June 13, 1980, contrary to section 100 of the Criminal Law (Offences) Act. A senior member of the Guyana Police Force, Superintendent Frederick Caesar, swore to those facts before the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court on November 28, 1998, only after the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government came into office and the campaign for an enquiry into Dr. Rodney’s assassination was renewed by his son, Chaka.

There has, however, been little movement towards securing the return of Gregory Smith from French Guiana where he fled and eventually settled, seeking asylum. The pretext upon which Smith and the PNC seeks to defend his flight from justice is absence of an extradition treaty between Guyana and French Guiana.

During the presidency of Dr. Cheddi Jagan, and following his death in1991, that of Mrs. Janet Jagan, there was developed in the PPP/C a policy that all reasonable efforts shall be made to extradite Gregory Smith from French Guiana and to have him stand trial before a court in Guyana. Feverish efforts were made by the PPP/C government at both the diplomatic and judicial levels to secure Smith’s return. Those have either petered out or found subsequent PPP government lacking the will to engage the issue of political violence.