I READ the letter of Alliance For Change (AFC) Member of Parliament Valerie Garrido-Lowe in the Stabroek News of Thursday, April 17. It was published under the caption, “AFC has approved all the allocations for the Amerindian Ministry’s current Budget and has asked Government for discussions only on the YEAP Programme in the capital Budget”.Kindly permit me to state the following:

It seems as though it is only now that few of the Opposition Amerindian MPs are regaining consciousness from a blackout caused by a massive and explosive three-day picketing demonstration by hundreds of Indigenous Peoples outside of Parliament Buildings, in response to the unjustified and deliberate cutting of the $1.1B Amerindian Development Fund (ADF) by the Parliamentary Opposition (PNC/APNU & AFC).

Garrido-Lowe’s letter was a shameless and baseless attempt at excuses for her AFC Party denying the Amerindian Communities of Guyana their absolute right, through the ADF, to engage in their own social and economic development, which is a contravention of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

What Garrido-Lowe downplayed in her letter was the AFC party’s voting against the allocation of $18.5B for the initiatives of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which was done when her party sided with the PNC/APNU.

This means as well that the Amerindian Land-Titling project, the Community Development Plans (CDPs), and the Micro and Small Enterprise Development (MSE) plans have all collapsed.

The Amerindian demonstrators outside Parliament Buildings were therefore correct to have chanted that the Opposition Amerindian MPs are useless and incompetent to represent Amerindians at the highest level of decision-making, which is the Parliament. They even chanted that both the AFC and PNC/APNU are a waste and that they must go.

Isn’t it a real shame on the part of the Parliamentary Opposition to use its one-seat majority in Parliament to deprive Amerindian communities of social and economic development on the basis of racial discrimination? This was where the Opposition Amerindian MPs could have used their status to effectively represent the peoples they belong to; but this never happened, which reminds me of the famous saying by an Indigenous Elder who once said: “Not every Amerindian is an Amerindian.”

Are the Opposition Amerindian MPs, including Garrido-Lowe, guilty of this saying?

Garrido-Lowe, in her letter, wants to know about the $500M the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs received in supplementary funding in December 2013. The answer is simple: Garrido-Lowe needs to do her work as an MP, visit the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (MOAA), where she will get all the information she needs. She will not find it in the Stabroek News!

I think this is where the Speaker of the House needs to conduct training for the Opposition MPs where information gathering is concerned. When last did Garrido-Lowe visit the MOAA?

Garrido-Lowe said in her letter that the $796M allocation to the Youth Entrepreneurship and Apprenticeship Programme (YEAP) is “far too much to be spent on this Programme.” This is absolute balderdash! The Budget’s estimates of expenditure are the Minister of Finance’s estimates, and it is only he who can determine if the allocation is too high or too low, not Garrido-Lowe, the AFC and the PNC/APNU!

Garrido-Lowe further said that the AFC wanted to hold discussions with the Government to reduce the YEAP Programme to $200M. Absolute trash! The Minister of Amerindian Affairs provided all the answers and explanations to questions in relation to the YEAP, and still the AFC and PNC/APNU voted against the Amerindian Development Fund, which the YEAP falls under.

It was therefore a recklessly anti-Amerindian position taken by the Parliamentary Opposition, of which Garrido-Lowe is a part.

Garrido-Lowe, in her letter, now seems to be lecturing to, and advising, Amerindians on the AFC’s role in cutting the Amerindian Development Fund. I wonder why she and the other Amerindian Opposition MPs did not instead brave the storm by leaving the Parliament to speak to the Amerindian demonstrators? I guess they were ashamed of their betrayal, and did not have the speed to get back into Parliament.

But quite noteworthy, the Opposition Leader David Granger and three of APNU’s MPs were all booed by the Amerindian protest demonstrators when they were seen. The Ministers of Government were all welcomed by the demonstrators, who joyfully chanted: “We love you”; and this included Mr. Harripersaud Nokta, who is well known to Amerindians.
PETER PERSAUD