Chinese Landing Village Council welcomes discussions with Govt

Dear Editor,
The Chinese Landing Village Council continues to look forward to engaging in discussions with the Government towards implementation of the IACHR precautionary measures request. We take this opportunity to clarify a few points raised in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance press statement of August 2, 2023, in the hopes that this will assist the Government to better act in compliance with the Commission’s resolution.
The facts that we have raised before the IACHR and in our letter to the Government are that we continue to feel unsafe in our own lands because of the outside miners working on Mr. Vieira’s concession. They are armed with high-powered rifles, and they threaten and harass us in our lands. The Commission has accepted our evidence of these facts on a prima facie standard. It is because of this that we have stated, as we have been requesting for years, that this outside mining – which we have never properly consented to – must stop.
We have never asked the Government to stop all mining on our lands. We feel that we must clarify this, as we note that some of our villagers do small mining for their livelihoods, and we hope that the Government will not cut off our source of livelihood and further infringe upon our rights in its attempt to respect our rights.
Should there be any confusion regarding our right to our livelihoods, we are prepared to request clarification from the IACHR regarding our rights.
We continue to believe that a “fact-finding mission” is not what the IACHR has requested that the Government do, but rather that the Government must now work in consultation and agreement with us to identify the targeted measures needed to protect our rights.
We must clarify that our submission of May 22, 2023 to the Commission was merely in response to the various legal and factual arguments raised by the Government in its own report to the Commission (which we had received only on May 15). Our response raised no new substantive facts that require investigation by the Government.
We also appreciate that there has been continued communication between us and the Government. We again offer the reminder that it is the Government’s responsibility to consult and agree with us on the measures to be taken to protect our rights to life and personal integrity. We hope that any discussions we will have together will be in this spirit. We are, however, disappointed that the MPAG chose to use much of its press release to malign the Amerindian Peoples Association. The APA has always supported our village’s struggle for our rights, and we will continue working with the APA, as we value their dedication and support. We respectfully request that the Government focus on addressing the threats to our rights, rather than its views on the APA.
We have agreed to the delayed dates of August 5-6 requested by the Government for an initial meeting, and we have already sent our proposed agenda for that meeting to the Government. We look forward to welcoming the Government team to our village, and to constructive discussions towards the implementation of the IACHR resolution.

Sincerely,
Chinese Landing
Village Council