ACDA applauds and welcomes the Lands Commission

May 10, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
ACDA applauds and welcomes the Granger led Government in establishing the Commission of Inquiry into Lands in Guyana. Since 2004 ACDA has been asking the PPP led Government for a Commission that would seek to remedy the forfeiture of lands bought by our ancestors. In 2008, the late MP Deborah Backer, responding to our pleas tabled a motion in Parliament to address this matter but her motion was defeated by the PPP dominated Parliament. Now in 2017, the Opposition once more seeks to deny African Guyanese land justice.
African chattel slavery has been deemed a “crime against humanity’. The enslaved Africans who escaped this most brutish of crimes were often given refuge among First Nation Indians in many parts of the world. Nicolas de Ovando, Governor of Hispaniola first mentioned African and First Nation Indian interaction in a report, circa 1503. He noted that First Nation Indians generally knew the surrounding areas, avoided capture, and returned to help free enslaved Africans. Europeans feared a First Nation Indian-African alliance. (African- Native American Registry) And it seems so does the People Progressive Party and its leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
Several First Nation Indian- African communities were formed in the Americas and in 1866 the Cherokee Nation signed a Treaty with the US Government that recognized enslaved Africans who escaped and their offspring were full citizens. Closer to home in neighboring Suriname, First Nation Indians similarly rescued and gave refuge to enslaved Africans that escaped.
In Guyana however some First Nation Indians were bribed by Europeans to hunt enslaved Africans and return their body parts for payment. One of the reasons for this action by the Europeans was to keep the two peoples separated in Guyana and mutually hostile. ACDA views the recent announcement of some of the First Nation Indians reactions to the formation of the COI into land as part of a sinister PPP instigated ploy to continue the slavery era European agenda to keep the two groups from uniting.
ACDA calls on the First Nation Indians in Guyana to unite with African Guyanese to bring land justice to its African Guyanese family, to resist the retelling of lies and misinformation told to them by the Opposition and to say yes to land justice for all Peoples of Guyana. Finally, ACDA believes that all Guyanese must share justly in the patrimony of the country and firmly reiterates that at no time has the PPP Government given any lands to the African Cultural & Development Association (ACDA)
Eric Phillips
ACDA

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