An adumbration on African land rights

Apr 10, 2016 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
The Chairman of the Reparations Committee Eric Phillips represented a position articulated from the early 1990’s by ACDA, and was argued in Parliament by the late Deborah Bakker. That the Afro-Guyanese descendents through their historical contribution and marginalization do merit land compensations long denied, this is not an issue that can be brushed aside by non sensible preamble. That he drew references to sub- tribes of the Carib group whose presence in Guyana were recent to Africans merely illustrates the case in question and is not competing with what they have benefitted from.
Both the Amerindian and African communities were designated for strategic control during the colonial period. Both communities have a long history of fusions. One example is the township of Bartica,  the 1630’s-onward plantations at  Bartica were serviced by both African and Amerindian slaves, when the French pirates came in 1708 the enslaved having no cause to defend, fled into the nearby bushes, defeated, the Dutch left Bartica and kijk-over-al and as one historian concluded left the then free African and Amerindians to their own whims, those people inherited Bartica, there are no records that the Dutch bothered to reclaim those folks, after all the French pirates had departed with their worth., this mixed population were the foundation of old Bartica.  My patriarchal grandmother, Geraldine Legay was from Bartica, this woman was African and Carib, her clan included the Arthurs, Holders, and Rogers that I know off, the Braithwaite was my grandfather; he came from Friendship-Buxton.  That Madam Teixeira, [Kaieture News March  29, 2016] should attempt to use Eric’s  historical chronology as a political stool, and a wobbly one at that, is pathetic, and she knows better, this Is a long standing issue, and with the evidence of her administrations’ irresponsible and dishonest handling of our national lands of worth, brings added impetus to this matter. I’ll choose the ‘Timeline’ of, after emancipation to expand on what is already mentioned in this petition.
When the first villages [former plantations] that the Africans bought were brought into the colony tax structure, these taxes were intended to facilitate drainage works, instead the Plantocracy used their money to help finance ‘Indenture-ship’ causing the African villages to flood and retrogress. When the indentured arrived here, the wharf they stepped upon was built by African labour, the loogies they entered, was the once abode of then free Africans, yet with all this, they were accommodated economically and some manipulated as allies in the conflict, between the plantocracy  and the ‘will’ of the freed Africans to progress, the intention was to keep the freed African in his place
The letter by the pseudonym M.Maxwell  Thurs March,17 Stabroek News ‘Argument for African land reparation is flawed’ and the editorial also in Stabroek News on Sunday March, 27th consists of flaws and suggestions inconsistent with the cultural and historical facts in the tapestry of old and new Guiana-Guyana, and the archaeological innuendoes made.   To the pseudonym M. Maxwell, A this writer tries to without cause assert that the claim of some late coming Amerindian groups have a different claim to Africans, this is obvious, the African claim is not competing with this other legitimate group, the grounds for the reparations claim is presenting parallels for its legitimacy.
B M. Maxwell erroneously states, while agreeing with the claims of one group, that Eric should not say that enslaved Africans built Guyana, and that this building is an ongoing process, M. Maxwell completely chooses to deceive by not stating that there is only one group who have worked under dehumanising conditions, unpaid across three centuries, from the building of Kijk-over-al to the humanising of the coast lands, then to the  Mazaruni- Canje -Corentyne  river plantations, but the ancestors of Afro –Guyanese, Guyana was founded county by county, Township by Township before Emancipation occurred and modern Guyana began.
The labour that came indentured were twice paid, and lost nothing in the process, this is not an accusation, but merely an indelible fact. C  M. Maxwell asks foolishly about the status of mixed Africans, this kind of discrimination is not within the African psyche, my mother/father’s child is my brother-sister the non African human variation of the relationship does not matter.  M. Maxwell does not seem to know much about this group whose concerns he so much wishes to direct.  D Next, the argument that is endemic to the anti African fringe, is the PNC’S 26 years after Independence,[ M. Maxwell’s count of 26 yrs coincides with the fall out of the PNC-UF in 1968, very revealing]  the  assertion that Forbes Burnham should have fixed three centuries of African  problems in 26 years, is mischievous.   His policies were inclusive in design, Roads, the Youth Corp, Produce what you eat, National Service, GMC, the national motto ‘One People One destiny’ reflected in primary school books, look at the bright youth who perished in the Cubana tragedy, I suspect that M. Maxwell was born before 1970, thus he/she would know that more than a quarter of Georgetown’s mainly Afro-population lived in ‘Nigger Yards’ owned by one group.  Housing, health and job training was Burnham’s agenda and he did well in those areas, across the ethnic variations of Guyana.
None of the nations we define as regions 11-12-13, that we migrate to, UK, USA, Canada.  Took 26 years to reach where they are, their basic stability to progress, was established by methods that can never be attributed to Burnham  . The rest of the Maxell letter is fragmented and exhibits the old myths of spewed contempt, for the collective African group, void of substance, with no relevance to Reparations at home.
The Sunday editorial, fails to recognise that Homo Sapiens to which all modern humans belong are as off- 30.000 years ago. The writer purposely misrepresents Stephen Oppenheimer’s narrative from ‘Out Of Eden’ concerning ‘ Luzia’ the 11,500 year old African skull found in Brazil, that belonged o the present human branch. Her skull was reconstructed by Richard Naeve of Manchester University. There were no definite conclusions as the writer insinuated, to quote Oppenheimer “We all have a claim to be innate experts in such recognition. Negroid, Australian, Melanesian, Liujiang, possibly, but to me she looks just like one of the 3.000-year-old Olmec heads of central America.” unquote [ I’ll email a composite of both, should the editor feel inclined to publish]
The editorial seeks balance without understanding that if Jewish forced labour in Nazi factories for some eight years are applauded for compensation, then on what grounds are the difference of Humanity of African decedents whose ancestors endured the worse of the same, for over two hundred years? I must add on the concept of Africans in Guyana before slavery, by referring to the lore of our Amerindian brothers as reported by Walter Roth, concerning two tribes of spirit beings the Ekkekuli or Manahau and the Mansinskiri , who respectively attacked them,[ when perceptible to human eyes had the appearance of negroes, Africans] stealing their wives and children, at times, assuming the image of tribe’s men to steal their wives.
Barrington Braithwaite

---

---