– Toshaos Council calls for urgent corrective action
The Guyana Government has to “take corrective steps to address this grave wrong that they would have done us.”
Vice Chairman of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) Lennox Shuman, on Wednesday made the demands known in face of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) established by Head of State David Granger on March 10 last to look into
Members of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) addressing the media
outstanding Amerindian and African land issues in Guyana.
The NTC has in recent weeks been raising its voice against the CoI established by Granger, pointing firstly to the fact there was no free, prior or informed consent by the Amerindian Peoples of Guyana, as is enshrined in the Amerindian Act.
Shuman was joined by NTC Chairman Joel Fredericks, who called on the Administration to demonstrate a willingness to engage elected representatives of the Indigenous peoples of the country or face the consequences.
According to Fredericks, the NTC does not support a single CoI to deal with Amerindian land issues in addition to that of the freed African slave lands, since the issues are completely separate.
With regard to the specific fears of the lands issues being dealt with by a single CoI, the NTC Vice Chairman said Amerindians are wary of the motives behind the move on the part of the President.
According to Shuman, the land issue holds the potential to have a profound impact on the livelihood of the country in general and further, could in fact incite race fears.
He suggested that among the fears held by the Amerindian people is an attempt to dispossess them of lands, for which they have already been titled or are seeking extensions.
Shuman recalled that there have been attempts in the past to have Amerindian lands be addressed by the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC), despite the fact that the treatment of Indigenous peoples’ lands are catered for in the Amerindian Act.
He said there is a real fear on the part of the Amerindians that the CoI could very well suggest that both the African and Amerindian issues should be dealt with by the GLSC.
“There are forces in GLSC who do not want to see Indigenous people get anything,” he said and pointed to communities still waiting to receive extensions and other land certificates.
According to the NTC Vice Chair, should Government refuse to engage the Amerindian communities, then they will have to re-evaluate their participation with the Administration and could in fact seek to influence other developmental partners.
He used as example the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and said many of the grants and loans coming to Guyana include components that are directed towards the development of the Indigenous communities and they will make their concerns known.
Seeking to illustrate their fears with regard the separate treatment of the two peoples by the Administration, it was pointed out that the African Cultural Development Association (ACDA) recently acquired a plot of land for its use while the NTC would have been literally begging the Administration for a plot of land to establish its secretariat for several years now.
NTC Treasurer Nicholas Fredericks who was also on hand to air concerns, pointed to the fact that the Toshaos Council which was elected to represented Amerindians living in villages across the country, is in fact being sidelined more and more from the decision-making process.
He pointed to a recent forum held by the United Nations which has traditionally seen a representative from the NTC participating.
It was pointed out that at the last such confab, the NTC was in fact uninvited.
According to the NTC Treasurer, the constitutional body is currently finding it difficult to make proper representation for Amerindian peoples in Guyana since the relevant Ministries and Government agencies have been sidelining that body.
He said the NTC was never even consulted on the formulation of the Terms of Reference of the lands CoI set up by Granger.
Shuman told reporters that the NTC did seek legal advice challenging the President’s CoI but was told this could not be done in the courts.
He said should Government continue to fail to engage the Amerindian people then its last resort will be felt at the polls come 2020, even as he reminded that Indigenous peoples vote have traditionally determined which political party is in power.
