Fifteen points in the argument for ancestral lands

Apr 16, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
M. Maxwell continues to promote the economic genocide of Africans that has resulted in today’s glaring economic inequalities among the various ethnic groups in Guyana. This is the main reason he cowardly hides behind an ethnic mask and  promotes the continuation of a historic process of racial thinking, injustice and discrimination most Governments of Guyana have implemented against Africans in Guyana.
President Jagdeo oversaw the “greatest transfer of wealth from a sovereign state to an ethnic group in the modern era of Latin America and the Caribbean”. He did this by affirming his Indian constituency while denying the Africans equal access.  Maxwell has never said anything about this criminality.
As Professor Clive Thomas highlighted over a decade ago:
“There is the existence of a cabal or coterie of persons comprised mainly, but not exclusively, of selective crime bosses, state officials, security personnel, elements of the criminal justice system and political bosses, advisors and other insiders. The combination is unique and derives from the particular historical antecedents as well as social, economic and political circumstances in Guyana. This group as identified wields enormous power as well as commands considerate economic wealth. As the ruling elite this group has placed itself above the reaches of domestic law while at the same time leading the political charge in Guyana for law, order, public safety and human security”. M. Maxwell knows very well what he is doing and whose interests he is promoting. He is indifferent to the genocide of 450,000 African lives to build Guyana.  He is totally indifferent to the 200 years of enslavement in what the UN describes as a “crime against humanity.”These figures are clearly grounds for reparatory justice.
Maxwell is unrepentant in his quest to deny Africans reparatory justice through land or equal access to government procurement which has been another area of African economic genocide practiced by the last government.
The inequality of Africans in Guyana is because they have not been given justice. But all others groups have. The inequality of Africans is the result of centuries of discriminatory practices by Governments of Guyana, both during colonialism and after Independence. Discrimination underpinned by ethnic supremacy and the practice of racism which as Dr. Kean Gibson has correctly defined “is itself a political system, a particular power structure of formal and informal rule, socioeconomic privilege, and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties”.
Maxwell now has a new guise. He argues, quite unconvincingly that the justifiable claim for land by Africans in Guyana will undermine CARICOM’s claims from Europe. It shows how little he knows or understands about the CARICOM Reparations Movement which is now a global movement. The UN Human Rights Commission recently called for reparations in the USA. Bernie Sanders just did a few days ago.
One of the TORs from CARICOM is “Linking past discrimination to today’s inequality”. The Guyana Reparations Committee found the 15 reasons and all were driven by the State. Here are the reasons why Africans are unequal in Guyana.
1.    The criminal enslavement of Africans in Guyana from the 1600s to 1838. Dutch and British Governments passed laws to legitimize and institutionalize slavery which the UN has defined as a “crime against humanity”.  Governments did this for their own criminal enrichment and for the criminal enrichment of their Private Sector, the Church and even ordinary citizens.
2.    The complete denial of the human rights of Africans for over 200 years during enslavement.
3.    The purposeful creation of the institution of racism to justify slavery. This is one of the greatest negative legacies of slavery. Racism was systematically created by Western philosophers, clergymen and scientists to give credence to their criminal enrichment.
4.    The annihilation of African culture as a complementary and historical strategy to slavery.
5.    The creation of African Guyanese pauperism through free forced slave labour for over 200 years.
6.    The British Government’s denial of justice and reparations to freed Africans in 1838 while empowering the 2,761 British owners in Guyana through a reparation payment of £4. 281 million of the £20 million awarded to 46,000 British slave owners. Freed Africans in Guyana therefore accounted for 21.8% of the total compensation to all British slave owners. Incidentally, this sum paid for free Africans in Guyana, in today’s value, multiplying by the objective factor of 839, amounts to £3.59 billion.
7.    The refusal to pay freed Africans fair wages after Emancipation and hence destroying their ability for generational wealth creation.
8.    The importation of indentured servants to break the economic backs of freed Africans. Had there not been indentureship, Guyana at Independence would have been owned by Africans and Amerindians and the existing racial economy of today, which gives preferential treatment to Indians, would not have materialized.
9.    An unrelenting attack on the Village Movement by the British Crown (Government) to destroy African Guyanese wealth.
10.    The granting of free lands to Indentured Indians in Guyana and not granting any to freed Africans whom had worked free for over 200 years. This “land” wealth gap and the multiplier effect still exists today.
11.    The purposeful financing and nurturing of Indentured Indians into the rice industry while burning the rice fields of Africans whom were in rice decades before Indians arrived in Guyana. Wealth was therefore encouraged for one good but destroyed for the other.
12.    The forcing of Africans by the British Crown to sell their produce at low prices to the Portuguese who would then re-sell to the British at great profit.  Portuguese merchants, who were financially helped by Madeira and the British crown, were granted licenses to operate in African Villages, when Africans were not.
13.    The splitting of Africa among European powers in 1885 at the Berlin Conference and the subsequent Colonisation of Africa for more than 100 years. Unlike Indians and the Chinese who can easily network with India and China, there are no historically intact relationships or processes for Africans in Guyana to obtain products, finance, trading arrangements and business networks from Africa.
14.    The British and Guyanese governments did not offer lands to Africans at Independence but promoted and ensured Amerindians received lands. Today, Amerindians in Guyana own 13.8% of Guyana’s land mass regardless of the fact, the , Wapishana, Machusis and the WaiWais were not in Guyana during enslavement and only came her from Venezuela and Brazil in the 17th and 18th century. This is a gross injustice. The State therefore owes Africans lands as a form of reparatory justice
Africans Are due lands as reparatory justice in Guyana. All other groups have been paid.
We in the African community are not surprised by Maxwell’s views of Africans. We are also not surprised that Stabroek News has not published his name. We in the African community see this as an attack by Stabroek News on our community through the corrupt practice of proving a platform for a racial entrepreneur
Eric Phillips

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