REAR Admiral Rtd Gary Best in a private capacity, gave his testimony before the lands Commission of Inquiry (CoI), where he suggested that a trust be established for the descendants of enslaved Africans.
Best suggested to the commissioners that the purpose of the trust should vary from providing scholarships to persons who appear to be in a position to fund their studies and so forth. They must however enter a baseline in communities, he said.
“In order to determine how people should benefit from the trust, we must first define who is a descendant of the enslaved Africans,” said Best. Chairman of the CoI, Rev. George Chuck-A-Sang, said they need to define who are connected to enslaved Africans but more evidence is needed. The trust can have many features, but even the commissioners agreed that it would be wise to define who the descendants are.

Best said it would have been easier to define the descendants and their rightful communities if the British had conceded to the alleged request of the Africans for the lands they “humanised.” According to him, if that had happened, there would have been better rules about what makes a descendant qualify to be part of the trust.
Africans instead had to reportedly purchase land which made them disperse to different parts of the country. “After Emancipation, Africans cleared drains and prepared irrigation for 15,000 square miles (9 million miles) of land on the coast…That land is in addition to all the sugar plantations that were cleared and irrigated by the African labour force,” said Best, who was at the time making reference to a study done by Sir Hilary Beckles.
He however pointed out that descendants cannot just return and say they want to reclaim land; instead, it calls for a lot of understanding and involvement of the political parties.
Best told the commissioners that according to this research, African ancestral lands are not protected by legislation, so it needs to be held in a “perpetual trust” on behalf of the descendants for the purpose of productive development and the mitigation of the current and future conditions of Afro Guyanese.

In addition, he pointed to evidence that shows Africans and their descendants occupied land for over 200 years, which should be enough for them to have titles.
Best even went as far as suggesting that because of the evidence of them occupying land for over 300 years, African descendants should consider themselves indigenous. He urged the commissioners to work within the mandate of the CoI to examine and make recommendations to resolve all issues and uncertainties surrounding the claims of Amerindian land-titling and the individual, joint or communal ownership of land by freed Africans.

The commissioners concluded that the evidence presented by Best was solid and he agreed to make another testimony, which they are awaiting.
The Commission includes Mr. David James, Mrs. Carol Khan-James, Professor Rudolph James, Mr. Lennox Caleb, Ms. Paulette Henry and Ms. Belinda Persaud.