…to host Holocaust/Maafa Memorial Programme today

THE African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) and other African-centered organisations will today commemorate and host a Holocaust/Maafa Memorial Programme at the Seawall Bandstand. The programme is scheduled to commence at 13:30hrs. High tide is at 15:41hrs. Floral tributes are encouraged.

In a release, ACDA said the Holocaust/MAAFA refers to the largest mass murder and the largest economic genocide of African People. “We gather on October 12 to remember our ancestors that died during the more than two centuries of brutal removal of African people from their lands, their subjugation, the heinous acts committed against them during chattel slavery and the decimation of their families and cultures. The African Holocaust/Maafa has been described by the United Nations as “the greatest crime against humanity”.

ACDA believes that it is important for African Guyanese to be reminded at this time that “while we are heartened by the many discoveries of oil, in the oceans in which thousands of our ancestors’ bodies lie in unmarked graves, during slavery and colonisation, foreign investment was often a major contributor to the African Holocaust and while others and the economy were doing well, African Guyanese were languishing in despicable conditions and abject poverty.”

Today in Guyana the economy is doing well while African Guyanese are still at the margins of the economic life of the country, ACDA said. “Just recently, when it became known that some persons of African descent had applied for oil concessions, it became apparent that there are still persons and organisations that are of the mindset that African-Guyanese must remain at the fringes of the economy.”

According to ACDA, African Guyanese enduring legacy of land and infrastructure development, mineral prospecting, nation-building and defence of Guyana’s territory are worth too much to let others succeed in continuing their efforts “to keep us marginalised and economically unequal in the country that over 473,000 of our ancestors died in the process of building.” “ACDA rejects the call by those groups that advocate for revised and more costly conditions for the granting of the oil concessions to African- Guyanese.

We believe it is tantamount to the immoral colonial practice of flooding African lands, changing the conditions of land acquisition and raising land prices to prevent our ancestors from owning lands as they adjusted to their freedom and sought to create wealth for themselves while the colonials and slave holders were given reparations.”

Further, ACDA repeats it call for the development of a full local content policy in which Guyanese are allowed to own the resources of Guyana as a means of partnering with foreign entities for the development of business. Now that the oil resources to a large extent have been de-risked, it is time that the APNU/AFC Government stops giving out oil concessions to foreign companies. Enough is enough.

Secondly, ACDA calls for an Ancestral Rights Bill similar to the Amerindian Act of 2006, which involves a Ministry of African-Guyanese Affairs and Land Justice. Thirdly, the organisation demands justice for the hundreds of young African-Guyanese men executed by the PPP’s state-sponsored phantom squads. “Until justice is done the blood is on the hands of those who orchestrated these heinous crimes and those with the power to address this matter but refused to act,” ACDA said.

ACDA also reiterates its support for direct cash transfers to Guyanese households derived from the wealth that will accrue from the oil and gas revenues and also supports the establishment of a national income threshold that could be used as the determining factor in the distribution of the cash transfers. “We call on African Guyanese not to abandon the political process since this will determine who govern and the way the country’s resources are distributed in the society,” the ACDA released ended.