Appealing to the President for land for agri. purposes

Aug 30, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
This letter here was sent to President Granger for his consideration. We have forwarded to your newspaper for publication. Only the other day we learned about our ancestors, the former enslaved Africans’ monumental contribution to the earlier development of Guyana. We never in our wildest dreams expected that such voluminous works were done by humans, and to add salt to the wound, for no pay, money wise. All for free and being brutalised in the process.
In the fact that our ancestors suffered the most gruesome of human and economic exploitation, we the descendants of the enslaved wish to declare that, it is important to go back and take back that which is forgotten to increase our awareness of our struggles and to strengthen our resolve to resist all oppression.
A people who have driven back the sea, cleared, drained and reclaimed the equivalent of nine million acres of land, installed two million five hundred and fifty miles of drainage canals, trenches and inter-bed drains, three thousand five hundred miles of dams, roads and foot-paths, two thousand one hundred and seventy six miles of sea and river defence, and moved one hundred million tons of earth without machinery; we who are those people’s still poor descendants deserve to be compensated, even in the name of our ancestors.
In light of the above, we are resolved to being settled in the peri-urban areas of Georgetown on land with which to form our community, where we would be engaged in working for ourselves. We have lived all our lives in the city and its environs, as such we have built up all sorts of relationships, including familial, church, sports, school for our children, business and yes jobs among others.
Herein we submit some ideas which can serve as primary focus for constructing our community.
– There is significantly abundant land in the Mocha area.
– We want to engage in agriculture.
– All items we produce we shall market them as fresh produce in the markets in the city and elsewhere.
– We will endeavour to transform all excess produce into preserves for the local market, and beyond.
– In livestock production we will be self sufficient in milk and such milk products that can be produced.
– In pig production we would resort to products from pork that can be manufactured in our community.
– All rural households keep chickens, goats and sheep, along with kitchen garden, flower plot and a few fruit trees.
– All other matters which can earn our community an income thus sustainability.
There are matters of housing to suit our communal needs. IT IS A WELL KEPT SECRET in this Guyana society, as to how we the citizens of Tiger Bay, Turning Point, and the sides of trenches and main road ways have lived for decades and generations. We at Turning Point were moved from Tiger Bay fourteen years ago by the Janet Jagan government with the promise that we would be resettled elsewhere, perhaps the elsewhere could not be discovered. We who live on the sides of the roads in Georgetown had no where else to go. It is time for us to reap the bounty of our ancestors’ unpaid toil.
Some matters in regards to housing, land, crops, equipment, all matters dealing with an established community, we leave to your goodness to determine in discussion with those who would be selected to represent us. We have waited all our lives for this chance, and we expect resolution of our expectation.
We could muster resources such as concrete block making machinery, work force to make the blocks, other resources to display our zeal and abilities. There will be the need to established at Mocha cum annexis, a Land Grant School/ College , as was done in the USA in the 1800’s to teach their European immigrants all the aspects of farming. Who knows what would become of this experiment in the future. All actions taken now will determine the outcome of our endeavours.
We make this bold suggestion, that when all the matters of our resettlement as dedicated Guyanese, in finding favour with your good self are accepted, that you would see the wisdom of setting up the African Land Commission as is being suggested in certain quarters. Time Mr. President is not on our side, we have lived under inhumane conditions for decades, now is the time for our final emancipation.
Hafiz Rahaman on behalf of group

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Appealing to the President for land for agri. purposes

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