– to right historical injustice done to African Guyanese from slavery to the present time

AS the African Day of Holocaust approaches, the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) is calling for the commissioning of an African Land Commission “to right the historical injustice done to African Guyanese from slavery to the present time.”

At a joint press conference between ACDA and the 1823 Coalition of the Parade Ground Movement held at ACDA’s headquarters, Thomas Lands, representatives of the cultural rights body also called for Guyanese of African descent to be given priority in land allocations ahead of foreign investors.
“We also call for an end to the allocation of lands to foreign groups until African Guyanese land allocations have been completed.”
Highlighting the historical context of the struggle for people of African descent in establishing their economic independence, the Association made comparisons of the treatments meted out to Africans in British Guiana as compared to the Amerindians, East Indians and Portuguese.
“Today, by law, 80,000 Amerindians have been given 15% of Guyana for being the First People.” The association further stated that there were approximately 83,455 Africans during the 217 years of slavery who were “given nothing” although they and their families helped and sometimes died while building Guyana’s economy.
They said too that while East Indians and Portuguese were hired as indentured labourers, both receiving wages, the former were “given lands for housing, agriculture and for the creation of villages” while the latter were “assisted by their Government in Madeira and by the British Government to succeed in business.”
All of this, they said, occurred against a backdrop of steady condemnations of the progress of African people by their colonisers.
“Africans were … forced to sell their produce to the Portuguese as middlemen because the British refused to buy from freed Africans as a way of forcing them back on the plantations.”
During the press conference, the groups said that the 2014 observance of Holocaust will be done under the theme “Reparation for African Holocaust” with the subtheme: “Resurrecting the Feminine Energies.”
The groups have joined forces in an effort to “bring the concept of the African Holocaust to a wider audience in Guyana, especially African Guyanese.” To this end, the groups have sought the presence of Anthropologist and Historian, Dr. Runoko Rashidi.
The keynote speaker whose focus rests with the global African presence before and after enslavement will be speaking at the Den Amstel Primary School, West Coast Demerara; New Amsterdam Multilateral School, Berbice; and at Parade Ground (Independence Park) and in the mining town of Linden.

(By Derwayne Wills)