If reparative justice is needed in Guyana, it is for poorest communities

Dear Editor,

Eric Phillips, Chair of the Guyana Reparations Committee, failed in his bid for a land grab by trying to make Africans an indigenous people of Guyana. But he is at it again and this time he is staking his grab on a rewriting of history which denies truth and recorded historical facts.

In a letter to the press, Phillips wrote: “Emancipation is why Guyana is celebrating itself as a nation of 6 Peoples. Without the humanisation of the swamps of the Guyana coastlands for over 200 years and with the loss of 450,000 African lives, there would be no Guyana of 6 peoples. As a matter of fact, if the British had treated the freed Africans with dignity and fairness in 1834, the Guyana of 1966, the year of Independence would have seen a nation of 3 Peoples and with a fundamentally different ownership of the economy. In essence, Guyana today would be essentially a nation of Amerindians and Africans who would have owned most of the businesses and who today would be the inheritors of oil and all the wealth in this beautiful nation of ours.”

He goes on to state that denying Africans “just reparations in terms of lands is simply another ‘crime against humanity’ by those who came after them and by those who disproportionally benefit today from the murder of 450,000 Africans.”

His words rise to a dangerous level of rhetoric that could inflame and incite. This is beyond race-baiting and, perhaps, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo could say something to rein him in?

Phillips bootstraps the Amerindian community in his spurious “what if” argument but Amerindian leaders are quite capable of thinking and speaking for themselves and hardly need Phillips to speak on their behalf on any matter.

Wanting “reparation” means that Phillips views that an injustice has been done to Africans by history itself. His solution is to lay out a “what if” scenario then proceed from that point with a “truth” and “justice” that has no basis in fact.

Portuguese, Chinese and Indians came and laboured and helped to build this country. That is fact and it cannot be written away by anyone. Africans were educated and became professionals and took jobs in the public service including the police force. They are still there and the Granger Government has even gone further and remade the public service completely in their image. Boards, management, staff – the optics bears out the racial prejudice clearly.

Indians having rejected conversion to Christianity were shut out of any higher education and job prospects. They stayed on the land and went into commercial business and agri-business like cattle rearing and rice farming on a large scale, and, of course, stayed on as the bulk of the sugar estate labour.

These are all facts and truths that are also well known. Most of the large Indians businesses – like Gafoors and Muneshwers – started out as countryside shops before they expanded into the city. Even so, rural Indians are still today, like Amerindians, among Guyana’s poorest.

If any reparative justice is needed in Guyana, it is to these poorest communities especially now that the Granger Government is refusing any aid to the rice and sugar industries which are the livelihood of a large sector of the Indian community.

In making his case, Phillips unmasks what is already well known – that Africans are told by their leaders that Indians have stolen what is rightfully theirs. From this hateful “logic” have sprung the African cry of marginalisation and racial violence against Indians that target Indian businesses, homes and Indians themselves.

Human rights activists in Guyana have always stated that the physical and cultural violence against Indians is to make Indians disappear. Phillips brings the violence to another level by “disappearing” Indians from the scene altogether with his “what if” take on history.

In his letter, Phillips said that the Guyana Reparations Committee has forwarded its claim and a request for a parliamentary resolution to Attorney General Basil Williams.

Since Phillips sits as a Presidential Advisor, there is every reason to believe that he has Government support for his land grab.

But who is Phillips’ constituency other than the African government leadership? I asked African neighbours, friends and a few strangers on the streets about Phillips and his claim for land as “reparation” and they mostly sucked their teeth before a few of them gave me an earful about how much they are struggling under the Granger Government. On the whole, they said they had no time for Phillips and his nonsense.

Phillips wants a big chunk of Guyana for himself. He alone knows what he will do with it.

Perhaps the legal minds of Ram, Ramkarran and Ramson can look at his claim which is based on a rewriting of all known history. That Phillips can only make a case by invalidating facts should, in itself make the case invalid.

But perhaps, the legal minds can tell us whether such a case has any legal precedence and whether the Attorney General should even entertain Phillips’ current nonsense.

Sincerely,

Shanie Jagessar