I WISH to refer to a letter in the Stabroek News written by Christopher Ram under the caption, ‘Serious questions remain about the LCDS including the wisdom of putting Norway funds into the Amaila project’ in its issue of Monday 11 April, 2011. Kindly allow me to raise the following:
1. What serious questions remain about the LCDS and the wisdom of putting Norway funds into the Amaila Project? Mr. Ram definitely has absolutely nothing to complain about the LCDS and the Amaila project and in his frustration at being defeated by Norway is now hell-bent at digging up trash to stop the implementation of Guyana’s LCDS and the Amaila project. But Mr. Ram will fail in his unpatriotic agenda against Guyana.
2. Norway knows better and is aware that people like Ram exists in a society whose objective is to destroy and not to build which was clearly seen in the eight-point letter written by a loose political grouping, calling itself ‘Civil Society,’ to the Norwegian government calling for a delay in funding the implementation of the LCDS. Mr. Ram is a member of this ‘so-called Civil Society Grouping’.
3. Defeated and ignored by Norway, Mr. Ram is frustrated and is now attacking the Amerindians of Guyana and claiming indirectly that they should not receive benefits under the LCDS, since “the LCDS is a Country Project not an ethnic initiative.” Mr. Ram has exposed his opposition to the social and economic development of Guyana’s indigenous people and is definitely a wolf in sheep clothing where the rights of Amerindians are concerned.
4. Yes, Mr. Ram is correct when he said that “Amerindians simply sit back and ask, when is this money coming” (from Norway). The fact of the matter is that Amerindian villages generally support Guyana’s LCDS and are eager to participate in the fight against catastrophic global climate change to save our planet. This is what Mr. Ram and his political clique calling themselves ‘civil society’ is unable to digest. So the Amerindian communities have a right to ask “when is this money coming?”
5. Amerindian land titling is a costly exercise and for Amerindian communities to participate in the LCDS their lands will have to be titled and demarcated. A fraction of Norwegian funds will be used for this purpose. Mr. Ram is apparently a slow learner and needs to study the LCDS document. The MOU and the Joint Concept note signed between Norway and Guyana in Fairview Village on the 9th November, 2011. Mr. Ram is also at sea where the costs for Amerindian land titling, demarcation and extension are concerned. I therefore challenge him to pay the Government of Guyana the cost for the titling of the remaining 11 Amerindian communities, since he claims that Amerindian Land Titling is a low-cost exercise.
6. Mr. Ram opposes the land titling of Amerindian communities and therefore is entirely against the Land Rights of Guyana’s Indigenous Peoples when he said that “land titling is now a Low-Carbon issue.” Can the AFC leader Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan and Dr Bulkan state if they are in agreement with the negative comments made by Christopher Ram against Amerindian peoples in his letter.
7. The Government of Guyana after conducting an open international tender process contracted Synergy Holdings to design, build and improve the main access road to the Amaila Hydro Power facility and to clear vegetation for the transmission line between the Bartica-Potaro Road and the Hydro Power site. Christopher Ram is against Synergy Holdings getting the road contract and is mounting petty claims about the performance of the company. But Mr. Ram is a member of the Political Opposition in Guyana and will oppose everything the government is doing for the people of Guyana. His claims about the LCDS, the Amaila Project and Synergy Holdings are basically political and therefore lack objectivity which does not reach the criteria for any constructive discourse.
8. What is this big and useless noise Mr. Ram is making about the Vaitarna Company? The fact is that the company will have to comply with the forest laws of our country and be consistent with the obligations of Guyana’s LCDS. But poor fellow in his political pursuits, Mr. Ram is complaining about everything. Is he not complaining why he was born?
9. Christopher Ram accuses the government of not being transparent. How did he get on the Board of Transparency Institute (Guyana) Inc, when he is a known political opponent of the Government of Guyana? Certainly, his neutrality and objectivity at the Board level must be questioned, hence the justifiable call by the Government of Guyana for the cleansing of the Transparency Institute Board (Guyana).
10. Mr. Ram must stop fooling or misleading the Guyanese public and the international community that the group of which he is a member that wrote to Norway to stop funding Guyana’s LCDS is a ‘civil society group’. It is not, since the loose grouping comprises of known anti-government political activists who will be contesting the upcoming 2011 general elections. On this basis the claims by this political grouping in relation to Guyana’s LCDS can never be intellectually constructive, but more so destructive to gain cheap political mileage against government for the upcoming elections. But this ‘so-called civil society grouping’ of which Christopher Ram is a member has committed political suicide and now ceases to exist.