Resilience of Amerindians buoyed by Government support

DURING Budget 2014, as Guyana’s First Peoples turned out in their numbers to protest the Opposition combo’s heartless slashing – once again – of budgetary allocations with which Government, in collaboration with village Toshaos and elders, had estimated would catalyse the developmental trajectory of Hinterland communities to levels that would enhance their individual lives and communal lifestyles. 

One has to ponder on the betrayal of their people by Opposition Amerindian MPs, for whom it seems their parliamentary pay, benefits and power supersede the mandate provided them by their people’s votes to represent their interests in the highest national forum for justice.
But justice is only given to living beings, while Opposition MPs see Guyanese only as ‘collateral damage’ in their pursuit of self-empowerment and self-aggrandisement.
The combined Opposition’s ruthless and inexplicable $1.1B cut to the 2014 budgetary allocations to advance Amerindian development resonates in their historical contempt for Guyana’s First Peoples. They cut away $796M provision for YEAP; $12M for construction of village offices and multi-purpose buildings; $5.6M for the purchase of sport gear and musical instruments; $30M for implementation of drip irrigation systems and purchase of tractors; $1.5M for eco-tourism facilitation; $200M for 2014 Presidential Grants; $5M for the Secure Livelihood programme; $4M for the language revival programme, among other developmental programmes to enable the socio-economic growth and development of Hinterland communities and the long-suffering Amerindian peoples.
Despite promises by Opposition parties in efforts to inveigle Guyana’s First Peoples to vote them into office during elections campaigns, PNC coalition parties (including the AFC) which are perceived as mere satellites hanging on to the PNC’s coattails, have historically betrayed the Amerindian people’s trust, time and again, treating them with utter contempt.
The disdain that Opposition leader David Granger showed in dismissingly giving the media nebulous and scurrilous explanations for the cuts, blaming the PPP/C Government for all their contemptible actions toward all the Guyanese people in general, and Guyana’s First Peoples in particular, is a replication of their treatment of indigenous people’s dating back to decades of PNC in politics.
But, conversely, the PPP/C has never seen Amerindian peoples as separate from the Guyanese nation and has always been instrumental in the development of Indigenous communities – in or out of office.
Since Dr. Cheddi Jagan decreed September to be Amerindian Heritage Month in 1995, there has been projected into the national and psychological psyche that Amerindians are no longer going to be a marginalised people subsisting on the crumbs of developmental initiatives within the national construct, but will be fully integrated into the holistic national programme for development by the PPP/C Administration; and one of the basic components of this new paradigm is the Amerindian Act.
The Amerindian Act, 2006, provides for, inter alia:
1) Grants to communal land: Unlike the old Act, the new Act includes a process for the granting of land. For instance, a community can apply for land once they can prove that they have been living there for at least 25 years and the Minister must commence an investigation and make a decision within 6 months.
2) Leases: The Minister is not required to approve leasing of titled Amerindian land, as opposed to the 1st. Act where the Minister is required to approve it. In the new Act, the communities are only required to seek the advice of the Minister.
3) Intellectual Property Rights: With respect to the use of scientific research, the Researcher will, among other things, have to submit to the Village Council a copy of any publication containing material derived from the research.
4) Environmental Protection: The Amerindian Act supports the need for the communities to use their natural resources in a way that lends support to the concept of sustainability: Impact Assessments will have to be completed in accordance with the Environmental Protection Act.
5) Mining and Forestry: Amerindians will have a legal right to traditional mining with the consent of the Village Council and they must comply with the relevant legislation. With regard to forestry, the Village Council plays an integral role in determining who is allowed to use their land and on what terms.
6) Governance: The Village Council is empowered to establish rules for their communities and set fines within the legal confines of the law. Notably, the money received due to the non-adherence of the rules, goes into the Village Council’s account, not the Government’s.
7) Consultations: More than half of the recommendations are reflected in the Act. These inclusions were as a result of recommendations from the communities and other stakeholders. The process lasted two years and is an unprecedented one in this part of the hemisphere.

In November 2010, The Amerindian Act 2006 (Commencement) Bill 2010 was passed in the National Assembly, with the new legislation correcting an oversight that saw the Amerindian Act 2006 failing to come into force

The Bill was piloted by Amerindian Affairs Minister Pauline Sukhai, who explained that the Bill validated the commencement of the Amerindian Act 2006, with effect from March 14th 2006.
The Amerindian Act brought before the National Assembly in August 2005, was debated in October of the same year, and was sent to Select Committee, thereafter being subjected to another round of debates, and finally passed in February 2006. Then President Bharrat Jagdeo assented to it sometime after and it came into effect shortly after in 2006.
According to Sukhai, a Commencement Order was signed by the then Amerindian Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, but a Gazetted copy of the order was misplaced, hence the necessity for the new Bill.
The Amerindian Affairs Minister said the Amerindian Act 2006 is a product of the Amerindian people’s intelligence and testimony to the “free, prior and informed consultation” approach that the current administration advances in development.

The Amerindians of Guyana are given equal status within the landscape of Guyanese citizenhood, while yet being encouraged to sustain their cultural and traditional norms, which far surpass the treatment meted out to indigenous peoples of even first-world countries. The Amerindian Act is merely one component of the holistic approach successive PPP/C governments have taken to enhance economic growth and social development in Amerindian communities.

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