The opposition Working People’s Alliance (WPA) recently called for the University of Guyana (UG) to be named after its founding member and academic, Dr Walter Rodney, who was assassinated here 45 years ago.
“The WPA puts on the national agenda, the renaming of our national university, the Walter Rodney University of Guyana. While small steps, mostly opportunistic, have been made to recognize his contributions, his name is not affixed to a visible national institution,” the WPA said in a statement.
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It said that renaming the UG in his honor and memory is a most fitting recognition of a renowned scholar and educator, who was killed in a bomb blast while seated in his vehicle on June 13, 1980.
Evidence later surfaced that his brother, Donald, had minutes earlier collected a walkie-talkie from then Guyana Defense Force (GDF) electronics expert, Sergeant Gregory Smith, who left for French Guiana days after the bombing. Smith worked in the French countryside under the assumed name, Cyril Johnson, until his death from cancer in 2002.
Rodney was killed at the height of a civil rebellion to remove the then Forbes Burnham-led People’s National Congress (PNC) government “by any means necessary”.
The WPA and the PNC-Reform have since formed an accommodation in coalitions in 2011, 2015, and 2025, despite the assassination.
“Although four and a half decades have passed since that fateful night, the wounds are still fresh in the psyche of those who lived through those times, especially Rodney’s family and close comrades,” the WPA said.
It said Rodney’s assassination “brought Guyana and the Caribbean face to face with the contradictions of post-plantation societies, adding “Walter Rodney was a victim of the political degeneracy that accompanied attempts at post-colonial nation-building”.
The WPA has entered into a coalition with the PNCR for the September 1, 2025 elections, saying it “injects the Rodneyite vision of National Unity and Reconstruction or what is today popularly called coalition politics.
“Our unwavering advocacy and struggle for a grand coalition to contest the upcoming election is more than electoral strategy — it is deeply rooted in our historical drive for national jointness. WPA will firmly plant the Walter Roney banner of People’s Power/No Dictator in the imminent campaign,” that party said.
WPA said it regards Rodney as a fighter, visionary and apostle of people’s power. It said it recommits itself to the Rodeyite vision of a free and independent Guyana premised on racial and class equality and equity.
“Walter Rodney confronted our class-race dilemma, not by denial but by active engagement at both the intellectual and activist levels. He reached for a multiracial praxis without denying his own racial identity.
“WPA holds fast to that praxis as we navigate the complex terrain of the post-plantation petrostate.” CMC
