Denying the people of Plaisance their long-given rights

Dec 17, 2014 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Since early October there have been reports in the media that residents of Plaisance  have been  barred by force from land they began to occupy or  planned  to occupy, and to utilise  for livelihood purposes.
Plaisance and other post-emancipation villages set an example  of saving, cooperation, investment , and self help, that defeated the laws  passed by the colonial government aimed at keeping  them landless and ready to sell their labour  cheap to the employers of those days including  the sugar estates.
Today, it is the Guysuco that is reported as one of the parties interested in grabbing the land, competing with the poor villagers, who have for years helped  to feed the cane mills. Guysuco has proved beyond doubt, especially in the last seven years, that  it is one of the most inefficient land users, if we are to  judge by its  performance.
We must not forget that for some years,  President-in-waiting  Mr. Donald Ramotar, sat on the Guysuco Board representing the PPP,  which is not a share holder.   Guysuco is therefore a target of suspicion.   Plaisance and Sparendaam residents  claim  that Guysuco has said  it wants   the land  for cultivation.
The residents suspect  that the usual pattern will be applied and that the land will end up being  sold to a favourite  developer.   Who can blame them? One single clique controls the Cabinet, Guysuco, the state lands and all there is to control.
In the past decade I visited Plaisance only once, on June1, this year, to stand in silence at the resting place of a villager of conscience, Laurence Clarke. But I used to be engaged with its cane farmers in matters of representation since the late forties.
The villages like Plaisance are laid out from north (Atlantic Ocean) to south. (Lama Canal).  Far north are dwelling houses, common lands for recreation and sports, for some places of worship and some schools, and cemeteries. In some villages lots are held in reserve for the purposes of the community.   Where the dwelling houses end, the owners’ farm beds  begin, running in succession southward.  There would be “cross dams “ separating  one type of land use  from  another or one form of title  from another.
South  of  the owners’ private  beds, there there is  more agricultural land. These  began as   “grants” under Crown  Lands regulations to  those who had occupied the “first depth” beneficially.   Each title was in the form of an Absolute Grant handing over an “empolder”  or “Polder  or Pola . In the villages the grant was vested in the Village Council. The last Pola  extended to the dam  on the right bank of the Lama Canal or Conservancy  or Service Canal on  the East Coast of Demerara. On  the West Coast it would be the Boerasirie.
The Empolders are the common property of the villagers. Some are held as pastures. If the Plaisance land in dispute is part of the village resources as described, Guysuco will not have the right to occupy.
If Guysuco  has dreamed that it has  rights and is not in occupation it seems that it has used the police through the government which is not  neutral in Guysuco matters. Few people now, including this writer, expect impartial advice to the government in Guysuco matters seeing that they have been joined in blundering for years.
It seems that a chosen few with bags of money can walk into Guyana, not as equals, but with privileges and buy anything they want.  Guyanese cannot expect such privileges in foreign countries.
The people know those who are high and above the law, and are called oligarchs. Plaisance residents  are  neighbours of Pradoville One and they have seen  Pradoville Two  rise like jumbie  umbrellas.
Eyewitnesses have  seen the  meanest of it;  part of the cemetery seized, graves violated  and plots seized  by business enterprises.  Wilson Harris   put a certain question to a character in an early forgotten  poem
“O man going home .”
Within the last two years there was  a similar cry  from villagers of Sheet  Anchor, Berbice, where transports going back to  the 1890s were ignored. In Plaisance transports  go back the 1840s .
A formal official statement from the authorities, naming persons,  areas and prices nd has not bee made although the law requires it. Land transactions have always been very public and any concealment  or vagueness is ground for concern and  investigation.  The growing habit  of secret  land deals and hiving  off  resources in secret  should have no place  with a decent government   It is a long  time  since we heard government leaders complain that the rich are getting  richer. That concern seems to be out of fashion.
Still there must be an open social policy regarding  use.
The old villages made a major leap into the future but money limited their land holdings. They were hemmed in without room for expansion  Now if there is a vacant space  without houses  villagers who in  previous times  allowed their  land to be used for national not village purposes (magistrate’s court, police  station,   transmitter) deserve  grateful consideration in their time   of need
The  plantations  and their government  must  withdraw from the  people’s land, must end  their  old habit of land  grabbing, and  abuse of neighbouring villagers.
Eusi kwyana

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