LAST week, I was scrolling through my newsfeed and I saw an article that restored my faith in humanity (okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but you get my drift). The Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman visited 87-year-old Mamai Lucille Williams, who lives in the Karisparu village in Region Eight, and provided her with groceries and other essential items. This donation was part of a larger commitment being made to the elderly woman; the Minister promised that he would rebuild her home which had been wrongfully destroyed by a miner, who forcibly evicted her off the land in November 2018, just about one year ago.

As the article noted, the Patamona woman had been living in this village on the same plot of land since she was a little girl. Unfortunately, she was evicted from her home and forced to live in a camp of some sort- a makeshift shed, not fit for any residence.

This incident is just one of those small things in society I believe that we easily overlook, but they are microcosmic of the wider deficiencies that exist within our society. Indigenous rights, particularly, are rights that should be given much more consideration.

I have been asked before, what makes Indigenous people so special that we have to focus on giving them so many “rights”? I was baffled that someone, my fellow Guyanese, who I expect to be at least minimally aware of our history, would ask a question like this.

When we speak about Indigenous people, we speak about people whose populations have been decimated; their culture, lives, and livelihood desecrated; and forced to live in less than desirable circumstances. Resultantly, when we talk about disadvantaged, marginalised groups, Indigenous people are high up on that list. The reason why we ought to respect their rights now is that their rights were not respected before and their contributions as the guardians of this sacred space we call our home was overlooked.

It is widely recognised that in the Caribbean the enslaved Africans faced the worst kinds of treatment any human being could ever experience, to the point where they were treated as mere chattel and not living, breathing human beings. And recognising this, Caribbean scholars have been pushing for reparation, as part of the global thrust for reparations for Africans. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has a 10-Point Action Plan which outlines the 10 demands for persons who were affected by the perils of native genocide and enslavement. It is by no pervasion of history that the third point of this plan directly focuses on the injustices meted out to the Caribbean’s indigenous peoples and calls for an Indigenous Peoples Development Programme to rehabilitate survivors.

Last year, I had written an essay for the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs (MoIPA) on the topic: “The Amerindian Act No. 6 of 2006 and current its relevance to Amerindian Villages and Communities”. That Ministry has been seeking to revise this act to make it more relevant to indigenous communities today, and this essay competition was just one of the ways public opinion on the act could be garnered.

Through the research done for this essay, I found a study conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with the MoPIA. It was not surprising when that study (which was 12 villages on nine of the 10 administrative regions) highlighted that indigenous communities are still the poorest and most vulnerable. The study revealed that for most indigenous communities, poverty was not only due to the lack of monetary resources but also limited access to land, medicine, food, education, culture, and safety.

Land rights and Indigenous Peoples are a topical conversation locally, and rightfully so. At a recent public forum, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo said that it is not about “giving away” lands to these people, but it is about “giving back” these lands to the group of people who have occupied the space for centuries. And, in light of what has been occurring in neighbouring Brazil with the devastation of the rainforest, he reminded that Indigenous Peoples have generally saved the natural patrimony from indiscriminate destruction.

I was overwhelmingly pleased to see the Minister pledge to give back Mamai her home, and once he is held accountable I know that she will be in her place of comfort once more. Now, I only hope that this action can be multiplied and intensified so that Indigenous Peoples receive the rights they are so deserving of.