Did Burnham kill Dr. Walker?

Scholarship must never be put to serve the purpose of propaganda. Recently, one learnt of the sudden death of Dr. Tyrone Ferguson in Trinidad. Dr. Ferguson, as many readers would know, was the predecessor of Dr. Roger Luncheon in the Presidential Secretariat under the presidency of Desmond Hoyte. Ferguson's appointment showed the extent to which Hoyte was prepared to go to diminish the influence of the PNC in his new government.

One must erase the belief that the Hoyte period was an era of the democratization of Guyana by the PNC. The PNC as a party was virtually side-lined from 1988 up to when Hoyte lost power in 1992. It was Ferguson himself, writing an eulogy on Hoyte in the Stabroek News days after the death of Hoyte, who pointed to the fear among Hoyte supporters that his life was in danger.

Ferguson went on to add that indeed there was a plot to harm Hoyte for his sustained manoeuvres in the direction of both glasnost and perestroika after 1988.

Hoyte's appointment of Ferguson demonstrated some fine qualities Hoyte had. Ferguson was given one of the most crucial roles in the state without him having any meaningful party connection. It was a master stroke by Hoyte even though some of us, including this writer, believe that Hoyte was never good at practical politics and strategic thinking in political policy-making. Since Ferguson was raw, then his only loyalty would have been to Hoyte.

A Burnhamite in the position of Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) could have undermined Hoyte's power-base. Of course, there is a counter-argument to this that says Hoyte was concerned with the professionalization in the public service so he needed non-political personnel in the essential services. So he elevated Goolsarran to Auditor-General, Ragubeer to Police Commissioner, Singh to commander of the army, and Ferguson to HPS. It was certainly a retrograde step when Cedi Jagan appointed Roger Luncheon, a party leader to HPS.

Ferguson did not live long enough to face academic grilling from Guyanese intellectuals on a piece of analysis of Forbes Burnham in his book, “To Survive Sensibly or to Court Heroic Death,” (Guyana National Printers, Georgetown, 1999). I did critique his book for the Kaieteur News and the Chronicle. I was severe on him for his interpretation of the murder of Walter Rodney. Here is a typical advantage of scholarship serving the interest of propaganda. On page 297, Ferguson pontificating on the character of Burnham when looking at the possible motives for the assassination of Walter Rodney, wrote, “Burnham would have been acting uncharacteristically to have given the go-ahead for such a politically costly act.”

This is either propaganda posing as scholarship or it is poor intellectual analysis. Without dwelling on the topic of who is to be blamed for the riots and mayhem of the sixties, the X-13 plan puts Burnham as one of the central plotters in the conspiratorial obsession to use violence to burn and kill in the sixties as part of a Western plot to destabilize the Jagan Government. Burnham's political direction in the sixties was characterised by the massive use of violence in which lots of people were killed. Who was Ferguson trying to fool when he speaks of the uncharacteristic style of Burnham if he had consented to kill Rodney? On the contrary, this would have been very characteristic of Burnham.

Ferguson omits vital facts of the seventies and eighties when assessing Burnham in his flawed book. For example, there is no attention paid to the cause of Vincent Teekah's death. There are two explanations for Teekah's death. I offered one of these theories in a Kaieteur News article of August 6, 2001. One of Teekah's very close relatives told me that it was in fact Burnham who ordered the liquidation of Teekah because Teekah was a high-level agent of the Cuban Government. The other story is that one of Burnham's deputies murdered Teekah in the knowledge that Teekah was about to be elevated as second to Burnham. The latter position is inflexibly adhered to by devout Burnham fan, and former advisor to Desmond Hoyte, Halim Majeed. (See Majeed's article on Teekah's death in Kaieteur News of Feb 26 - March 4, 1999)

Whichever of these competing formulations you accept, Burnham was undoubtedly involved in Teekah's murder. Teekah was done away with before Rodney was blown up. To secure Burnham's credibility, Ferguson chose to ignore the death of Vincent Teekah in his book and speculate widely on Rodney's death because he was a propagandist for the PNC. I am absolutely sure that had he remained in Guyana, he would have faced extensive questioning of his unashamed support for Burnham in his book.

But leaving aside the academic failings of Burnham, what about Burnham's role in other killings? According to Majeed, a person who wanted to succeed Burnham organised the destruction of Teekah. The principal plotter was Dr. Oswaldene Walker. She came to Guyana, became a confidante of the government and befriended Teekah. The conspiracy was indeed sophisticated. Dr. Walker would become the lover of Teekah, he would be killed, then it would be fixed to look like a tragic triangular love affair. Along the way, some changes were made. Dr. Walker ran out of her car during the uncivilised hour of a morning in the Industrial Site area of South Georgetown, crying to a security guard that her lover (Teekah) was robbed and killed.

According to Majeed there was no blood in the car. Majeed who remains an unapologetic supporter of Burnham to this day, believes Burnham's closet trustee killed Vincent Teekah. Ferguson, Burnham's propagandist, remained silent in his book on the fate of Dr. Walker. Vincent Teekah's brother told me that Dr. Walker was smashed to pieces in a strange car accident in the US shortly after she left Guyana. The long arm of Burnham could not have reached anyone he wanted to kill. Time for an inquest into Rodney's and Teekah's tragic murders. Time to unmask Forbes Burnham as a deadly killer.

Friday - May 27, 2005