Dear Editor
I AM certain that I heard correctly, via the Tuesday evening NCN news telecast, part remarks made on the work of the National Relief Council (NRC), by Mrs. Yvonne Hinds, wife of former Prime Minister Samuel Hinds. From all appearances, she was speaking on the sidelines of a fund raiser, it would seem.

Editor, while it is true that the funding has always been a challenge for this laudatory organization in its work of bringing relief to persons affected by varied disasters, it was her comments that also alluded to plans by the Agency to take its humanitarian [work] to the Hinterland, pointing out that it took the agency six years to acquire a bus for such a purpose that drew attention. Even more interesting were her extended comments that the Amerindians are the ‘poorest of the poor’ and that even though ‘they do not complain, they need many amenities’. I am certain that is what I understood from her comments.

My remarks via this letter, therefore, are specifically confined on what she said about the Indigenous peoples. Her statements are an indictment of the former PPP/C regime, of which her husband served as prime minister – the longest in the history of CARICOM. If there were anyone who, in my opinion, had an opportunity to become an advocate for Amerindian socio-economic development, it was Ms. Hinds. But Editor, since we are all aware of the dismal treatment record of Guyana’s Indigenous peoples at the hands of the former PPP/C regime, there will be no repeat, which has been ad nauseam. Besides, one must readily ask – with all that dough at the then PPP/C regime’s disposal, why did Mrs. Hinds not petition for a bus, for access to Hinterland community? Was such an important facility not needed then, as is still the case now?

Except that it must emphatically be mentioned that it was because of this criminal abject neglect and abuse of our Indigenous peoples, a fact not lost on President Granger, whilst campaigning as Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition in the run up to the 2015 elections, that would have influenced his government’s socio-economic development programmes which, since 2015, have been changing the lives of our indigenous peoples and their communities, via empowerment and other ground-breaking self-sustaining initiatives; critical social infrastructure that makes for livable and viable communities; and above all, recognising the rights of these well deserving, of having a voice in their daily affairs. Ironically, in the very telecast in which Mrs. Hinds made her statements, there was a segment in which Amerindians were voicing their needs, during a ministerial outreach to their communities. The latter nails the lie that Indigenous people do not raise concerns/complaints about what affects their daily lives, if one was to accept Mrs. Hinds contention that they do not. The fact that they can do so since 2015, points to the new found confidence/lack of fear that these people now have, unlike during the PPP/C regimes when they were treated like children, cursed, and ordered to ‘shut up’. In fact, they were threatened into silence.

The indigenous peoples are better respected since 2015; genuinely accepted as part of the Guyanese family, and part of the national development process, and with a voice in matters relating to their communities.

Much has been done for our Indigenous communities and their people since 2015; yet there is still much more to be done, as evidenced in the ongoing process of hinterland development, with the gap between the hinterland and coastal Guyana beginning to narrow. After all, this is about lifting whole communities from a state of nascent living, arming them with the social necessities of acceptable living standards and empowerment. However, since Mrs. Hinds may seem to believe that more should be done for her brethren, she should demand of her husband, in his former capacity as prime minister, what were his specific efforts in the development process of Indigenous peoples and their communities.

Regards
Earl Hamilton