– hoping for ‘amicable settlement’ of longstanding boundary issue

A TEAM of government officials will this week be heading to the Rupununi to address a demarcation issue involving the Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) villages of St. Ignatius and Moco Moco.

According to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples Affairs, the team will be led by Special Assistant on Legal Affairs to the Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs, David James, and that the matter under investigation dates back to between 2004 and 2007, when both villages applied for an extension of a portion of land, known locally as ‘Moco Moco Horse Shoe to Matapee Creek’.

It says that during discussions held recently between a visiting land titling team and the St. Ignatius Village Council, the issue was brought to the fore, and the villagers were promised that immediate steps will be taken to have the matter addressed amicably.
The visiting land titling team, the ministry said, was at the time led by Special Assistant to the Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs with responsibility for Projects and Community Development, Martin Cheong.

It quotes Cheong as saying: “We have dealt extensively with Moco Moco extension, and now we are made to understand that St. Ignatius also has interest in that particular piece of land, so that is an issue that has to be dealt with.”

He also said, “In fact, the ALT (Amerindian Land Titling) investigation team will be coming to meet with all the communities before the end of the month, and that issue will come up. And so both community leadership will have representation at this meeting, along with all the other agencies that help with this project.”

Both Moco Moco and St. Ignatius, Cheong said, “will have to come up with a Memorandum of Understanding where they can actually share the land, so that both communities can benefit. So we hope that we can be able to come up with a very amicable conclusion to this whole issue of the competition for land.”

The ministry says that in 2017, the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM), a component of the ALT Project, was operationalised with the aim of adequately addressing land issues affecting Indigenous Peoples.

The GRM is now headed by Director Orinthia Schmidt, and during a recently conducted Communications Workshop held in four villages in Deep-South Rupununi, the GRM process was presented and embraced by the respective villages.

Schmidt indicated that she was extremely pleased with the response received.
The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples Affairs, which is the executing body for the ALT Project in partnership with the UNDP and other key stakeholders, has been actively engaging and working with villages to address their issues, since land ownership is paramount to a sustained livelihood for the Indigenous Peoples.

According to Cheong, “The ministry has a mandate, and we are working feverishly in this last phase of the project to ensure that we do all that we can. But I would also like to say that when this project comes to an end, this means that Amerindian Land Titling will come to an end.”

He said that the ministry has undertaken to “set up a structure, so that when the project would have come to an end in December 2021, there will still be a unit that will deal with issues that may not have been dealt with under this project, and others that may come up in the future.”

Also on the team headed to the Rupununi are ALT Technical Manager Enrique Monize, and representatives from key entities such as the National Toshaos Council, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC).