Dear Editor,
THE National Toshaos Council (NTC) has threatened the President and State of Guyana that Amerindians will not vote for them in 2020, unless the government immediately repeals the Commission Of Inquiry (CoI) on land. Vice-President Lennox Shuman of the NTC even went further by indicating in his defiant speech to the President that ACDA has received lands from the Guyana Lands & Surveys Commission. He is therefore indicating that it’s a cultural issue and not an issue of land and Guyana’s national security.
ACDA categorically denies it has applied for lands at the Guyana Lands & Surveys or received any. This is a blatant lie for which the NTC should apologise. This lie shows the racist influence Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP has brought to the land-titling process as the PPP again desperately tries to divide the country racially as a strategy to win the 2020 elections, so they could continue to plunder and steal our oil revenues as they have done to other assets over their 23 years in government.
I personally know Toshao Lennox Shuman as we both serve on two committees and I have to conclude Toshao Shuman is totally incorrect, because Jagdeo has been purposefully lying to him, the NTC and to American communities across Guyana as he continues to be the most bigoted and dishonest President the Caribbean and Latin America has ever seen. History is repeating itself.
We now have a second Rupununi Uprising. This second uprising has been nurtured by Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP in similar manner to the Melvilles who convinced the Wapishanas on January 2 , , to rise up in treasonous form against the government over land in 1968. The Melvilles and their group of conspirators wanted to create the Essequibo Free State, because they did not want to be ruled by the PNC government that had won independence just 32 months ago from Britain in 1966. Now Amerindians are being told by Jagdeo to rise up against another PNC government, because only Jagdeo and the PPP should rule Guyana.
But what are the facts? Why are Amerindians resisting the Land CoI? And why is Jagdeo again creating racial insecurities and promoting such? There are three reasons why Jagdeo is leading Amerindians to a second Rupununi Uprising. The first reason is that, Amerindians want more land that they have been legally granted. Amerindians have been quietly but forcibly holding the government hostage for an additional 10% of Guyana through the LCDS GRIFF-funded Land Titling Programme to provide titles to 161 communities covering 13.8% of Guyana. By having a formal CoI, this demand for a total of 24% of Guyana will become publicly exposed and they do not want that. But is there any legal, moral or just claim for 24% of Guyana. The answer is no.
Parliament in 1976 through The Amerindian Act legally gave 13.8 % of Guyana to nine (9) Amerindian tribes as reparatory justice for being the First People of Guyana. This was considered more than fair compensation for lands lost during occupation by the Dutch and British from the 1600s until independence in 1966. Amerindians have been rightly called “The First Peoples of Guyana. Indeed, six of the nine tribes can be truly called First Peoples, but three, the WaiWais, the Macushis and the Wapishanas, arrived in Guyana from Brazil 200 years (WaiWais) and 100 years (Macushis and Wapishanas) after enslaved Africans were brought to Guyana.
In 1838, there were 6000 –7000 Amerindians in Guyana and 84,035 freed Africans. The Wai Wais, Macushis and the Wapishanas of the Rupunini Uprising fame were not here. A September 17, 2010 article in the PPP-controlled Guyana Chronicle, in discussing the Indigenous groups of Guyana, stated the following: “They (the Wai Wais) seemed to have moved into Guyana from Brazil during the early 19th century and occupied the Upper Essequibo River.”
The same article pointed out: “The Wapishanas are recent migrants to Guyana, who are known to have arrived early in the 18th Century from the Rio Negro area in Brazil. Located in the Rupununi, they are described as the most reliable and industrious of all the Guyana tribes.”
In 1994, Mr JorgVereecke, UNDP’s Associate Expert on Indigenous Peoples, indicated there were “nine indigenous tribes living scattered all over Guyana. These were the Akawaio (3,800); Arekuna (475); Arawak (15,000); Machusi –Brazilan Macuxi, 7,000); Wapishanas (6,000); Patmuna (4,700); WaiWai (198); and Carib (2,700)”. A total of 32,873.
In 2002, the Guyana Census found that the Amerindian population numbered 68,675 and was the fastest growing in comparison to other ethnic groups, with a population increase of 47.3 per cent from 1991 to 2002 and representing an annual growth rate of 3.5 per cent. Based on these facts, it is unlikely there could have been more than 4,000 Indigenous Peoples in the entire Guyana in the year 1630, or more than 7,000 in 1838, when at that time there were 84,075 freed Africans. The claim that 4,000 people in the year 1630 or that 7,000 people in the year 1838, were “stewards” of 83,000 square miles of Guyana, lacks historical validity. Lacks fundamental truth.
Do Guyanese believe the Amerindian Act should be modified to give 24% of Guyana to Amerindians, when indeed 472,000 Africans died during 200 years of slavery to build Guyana and having cleared 15,000 square miles or 18% of Guyana, they still have received no reparatory justice as have the Amerindians through the Amerindian Act of 1969? In another submission to follow shortly, Mr Editor, I will cite the other two reasons.
Eric M Phillips
Executive Member, ACDA
Chair, Guyana Reparations Committee