THE Amerindian Action Movement of Guyana (TAAMOG), a member of the Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee of Guyana’s LCDS rejects and condemns the Stabroek News reporting on Guyana’s LCDS under the caption: “Disparity seen between Amerindian groups, others in LCDS report’ (Tuesday  May 17, 2011) as politically mischievous and wicked, designed to use the LCDS in its politically partisan agenda in the run-up to Guyana’s 2011 General and Regional Elections.
The Stabroek News in the demonstration of its partisan politics is selectively twisting out of context portions of a report on Guyana’s LCDS commissioned by Norad, the Norwegian agency for Development cooperation to deliberately discredit Guyana’s LCDS and to sow the seeds of division in Guyana’s multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society and even at the level of the multi-stakeholder steering committee of Guyana’s LCDS.
What disparity is seen between Amerindian groups and other groups in the LCDS as claimed by Stabroek News? The fact of the matter is that the Stabroek News is deeply engrossed in its partisan political agenda that it has abandoned fair or balanced reporting on Guyana’s LCDS designed to mislead the Guyanese people and the international community. What the Stabroek News must do is  report to the Guyanese people that the financial returns that come from the state forests will go to the state treasury for use by the state for Guyana’s national development. This means that all the people of Guyana will benefit under the LCDS. The Stabroek News also failed miserably  to inform the Guyanese people and the international community that “there shall be a mechanism to enable the effective participation of indigenous peoples and other local forests communities in planning and implementation of REDD+Strategy and activities” (pg 73 of the 2010 LCDS document). So where is the disparity between Amerindian and rural groups as mischievously claimed by Stabroek News
The Stabroek News is therefore playing a dangerous and wicked political game using Guyana’s LCDS.