Miners cry foul
Former GGDMA President, Patrick Harding
Former GGDMA President, Patrick Harding

–over Govt’s decision to return titled lands to Indigenous peoples

By Vanessa Braithwaite

EXECUTIVE members of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGMDA) have described as unfair Government’s decision to return titled lands to Indigenous peoples.Speaking at the GGDMA’s annual general meeting last Thursday, past president of the association, Patrick Harding, said the Indigenous peoples are vying for lands filled with mineral wealth, agriculture and forestry, and not lands to merely develop their culture.

“They don’t want lands for culture or whatever; they want lands that people mine, and that’s a fact… We are Guyanese just like the Amerindians,” Harding argued.

He noted that the GGDMA has been fighting the issue for a while; has engaged Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman; and, according to Harding, will represent and stand in solidarity with the miners who have been affected by the situation.

Harding pointed out that the decision was made by the previous administration, but was picked up by the now Government, who went ahead and granted the lands to the Indigenous communities.

Harding said he has no personal biases against Indigenous peoples, as they are good Guyanese and are well respected by miners; but the crux of the issue lies in the unfairness of the decision taken by Government.

“Why aren’t we getting the equal treatment? Why aren’t these lands titled and given to us? Miners have been there before; it is on their strength [that] the Amerindians [have been] settling on the lands. We are the ones who developed those lands; we put infrastructure on those lands, and to say you are taking it away from one Guyanese to give it to another Guyanese is totally unacceptable.”

One miner operating in the Region Seven mining district has said some Indigenous folk presented to miners documentation which claims they are the legal owners of vast plots of land in the Imbaimadai/Kurupung area. These lands, the miner claimed, are untouched and have vast mineral wealth; and according to him, the claimants cannot work the land.

The miner has also opined that the documents of the claimants are fake, because they were given out by the previous administration close to elections.

“I feel those documents are false, and [this is] is nothing else but a political sting so as to gain votes,” the miner affirmed, and called on the executive members of the GGDMA to make representation on the matter.

GGDMA executive member Andron Alphonso was also unhappy with the Government’s decision. “You have families of miners who are living on some of these areas longer than any Amerindian ever set foot on these lands,” he claimed.

An Indigenous miner who identified himself as Hopkinson, after listening to the deliberations, said that though Indigenous peoples may be given titles to the lands, they do not own the minerals in the land, but have only surface rights.

He revealed that miners would have to pay the Indigenous peoples royalty for the land, since the only Indigenous peoples who own the mineral wealth of lands are those in possession of titles before 1908.

“I have some land like that, and even if I want to buy the sand, I have to get permission; and the Commissioner can give permission to miners,” he said, noting that it is mandated in the Amerindian Act.

Though there have been calls for the Act to be revised in order to give Amerindians sub-surface rights to the lands, Hopkinson said, this is impossible, as those calling for such a move will have to change the entire Constitution.

 

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