Questions about changes to the Amerindian Act

Aug 06, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
I am not convinced that the Parliamentary Natural Resources Committee and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples Affairs will be able to work together for the betterment of Indigenous communities if they can’t find a common ground to facilitate the revision of the Amerindian Act.
The subject of mining has always been a matter of serious concern for Indigenous communities. It has been raised many times by representatives of various communities of the Middle Mazaruni, Upper Mazaruni, North West among many others.
In fact, most of these meetings were tightly controlled by the former Ministry of Amerindian Affairs who promoted their party political agenda and sidelined many vocal village leaders for those who offered praises and political support towards the former administration.
The current Executive body of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) must not continue to allow political interference. Put that aside, the NTC must be a strong and independent organization. Editor, where mining is concerned Indigenous communities like Isseneru, Kako, Micobie, Chinese Landing, Arau and many others have the experience of how adverse the Amerindian Act can be when it comes to mining and Indigenous land rights.
Politicians are influential people who resort to political games to make the revision of the Amerindian Act looks like it was only being done for a handful of villages. This is not true; many communities have been demanding the revision of the act.
However, village leaders, Indigenous advocates and organizations must take a stand to represent and show the realities of situations in Amerindian communities. Editor, I disagree with these politicians when they based the questions and answers segment of large scale mining on villages that support their respective political parties to justify that there is no present form of large scale mining on Amerindian Lands.
The truth is not being told, the Indigenous Peoples Affairs is well aware that the GGMC had granted prospecting licences to a company to do uranium drilling in the Mazaruni area including on Amerindian lands.
If mining is to commence to extract the uranium, specialized equipment are to be used, is that not termed large scale mining? Yes it will be.
Will the Amerindian Act have the power to protect if the government gives the mining rights to the conglomerate? The answer is NO.
There will be no exception of Amerindian communities under the current Amerindian Act to safeguard themselves from large scale mining.
However, more details have to be provided by the Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs to persuade the opposition that it will be in the Amerindians best interest or else the opposition will always have an excuse to play political games.
Editor, if these two politicians had taken time to visit the Middle Mazaruni, they would have realized that the issue of large scale mining may not be in Regions one and nine and the foreign countries where they frequently visit but in an area which do not support government policies that work against them.
As Indigenous peoples, we look forward to the betterment of our communities. Political, racial and economic barriers are being broken and should remain in the past where Guyanese politicians hope to keep us divided based on ethnicity.
Dwight Larson
Isseneru Village.

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