Dear Editor,
There is confusion about the term “Ancestral Land” which is now ignorantly brandished by politicians misleading Afro and Indo-Guyanese folk, especially Afro-Guyanese.
The term “Ancestral Land” is only applicable to land occupied by Indigenous peoples, such as the Amerindians of Canada and the USA, and Africans of countries like Ghana and Nigeria. In Guyana, the only Indigenous people are the Amerindians, and they are the only ones who could own Ancestral Land.
The other groups – Europeans, Africans, and Asians are immigrants. The Europeans were the first, and it was they who brought the Africans and Asians here. Africans, until 1833 when slavery was abolished, were regarded as property, and property can’t own property. It was only after Emancipation that Africans could own property. From 1848 to the 1850s, African groups began to purchase abandoned sugar estates and set up villages such as Buxton and Victoria. The first such village was Queenstown in Essequibo.
In all these sugar estates, the Crown, or State, always reserved ownership of part of the land for drainage, railways, or roads, and for soldiers and Police to move rapidly from estate to estate without hindrance. In the Demerara Slave Rebellion, the colonial soldiers used these reserves to move to the villages.
It should be mentioned that the Portuguese started to buy land just about the time of the Village Movement and Indians from the late 1860s, but none of these groups could claim that the land they bought was any kind of “ancestral property”. In Guyana, when you buy land, you are given transport by the Deeds Registry, which attests to one’s ownership. Such property is said to be in freehold, and Freedmen bought the such property in freehold.
In Mocha, being a former estate, the State has the same reserve as it has everywhere else. Though squatters may have gone on the Reserve, the State still owns it, and could order the squatters to remove themselves and their structures at any time. The time has come for the squatters to remove, since the State is building a road on EBD that would traverse the reserve.
The State is under no obligation to compensate squatters, but probably because of humanitarian considerations, the squatters were able to negotiate a victorious, once-in-a-lifetime agreement, whereby each would be given a new house, a free house lot, 5 acres of agricultural land, and millions of dollars of hard cash. Over 80% of the squatters took the opportunity and are now settled in surrounding areas.
Five squatters, however, were misled by politicians to hold out and demand $100 to $150 million. This ridiculous demand made them the laughing stock; for, with less than $100 million, one could buy the best properties in Queenstown and Bel Air Gardens.
The work on the Road became very urgent, and the five squatters could no longer be allowed to hold up the economic and social development of the East Bank, and this forced the State to eject them and their structures, and the politicians are rejoicing, since they could now attack the Government.
But the poor five squatters have been ejected, and the politicians have left them high and dry, and will finally abandon them in a few months, when there is no more political juice to squeeze.
They have no claim for anything, but we understand the Ministry of Housing will still offer them the same compensation. It may be wise to take it like the vast majority of the others, or the offer may fade away.
The part of this letter dealing with Ancestral Land was from a discussion with a UG Professor of Law.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Validum
Ramlochan
