Plight of our fisherfolk

Jan 11, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Guyanese just cannot win, get a fair share. They get shafted at home by their own, and they get taken advantage of beyond our shores. In addition, outsiders come inside our borders and treat us with contempt, dismiss us, as though Guyanese are to be pushed around, kicked around, and then jumped upon, without any regard for law or rules, or those in charge.

The newest version of Guyanese to hit the news involves our fishermen. The latest development in the media is that “Guyanese fishers to pay $1M to rent license from their Surinamese counterparts” (KN January 9). So that readers fully appreciate the hole in which our fishers are forced, $1M is to rent the licence from others, a kind of subletting arrangement, and not actually to own an instrument in their names, as issued by the proper Surinamese authorities. It could be that our oil has prompted some envy across the river, or it could be that Guyanese are just viewed and discarded as doormats over which all and sundry can walk to their hearts content. It would be interesting to observe how the nation’s two top leaders, the President and the Vice President, react to this latest abomination, this punishing practice that has nothing to do with good neighborliness and trusted partners, but is of what continues the exploitation of Guyanese in many walks of life.

Right here in Guyana, our workers in the oil and gas sector are treated like dogs; or if a gentler description is found more palatable, like second class citizens and beggars. Foreigners come here to explore our opportunities, and they are many and rich, yet they find satisfaction in treating locals who work for them, as though they are lepers. Therefore, they can be treated in any manner that pleases the whims and schemes of those who plant roots here to make money hand over fist. It does not matter that some of the foreigners are from the ancient CARICOM brotherhood, for Guyanese workers are still abused and subject to contempt and ongoing humiliation. It is where Guyanese workers are shortchanged with overtime, through a slew of clever concoctions that are supposed to be honest calculations. Then, some are left exposed and stranded without insurance coverage, when they are temporarily off the worksites and under approved conditions.

In the mining sector not too long ago, there were reports that the Chinese were mistreating and abusing Guyanese citizens who worked for them, with complaints lodged about different treatment, different reception and recognition. In the struggling bauxite industry, the Russians had seen it fit to extend hostility and vulgarity to Guyanese workers, even locking them out from the job sites, as if in total disdain of our labour laws, and simple respect for our government. The Ministry of Labour has been called upon to intervene, and it has to some limited extent, which leaves a lot to be desired. Somebody at some level in the official realms of Guyana need to manifest the sharp anger, the zero tolerance, at what has been the repeated experiences of Guyanese workers in one field after another. Guyanese trade unions have carried on with their fights to represent workers, but they are still grappling to get the kind of satisfactory results that are the birthright of local workers.

Our governments have treated Guyanese in a manner not too far from garbage. Now, as if on cue, foreigners come here and behave in the same manner, confident that they will not be called to account, and that they can continue with their exploitations and the excesses meted to local workers. Taking the records of all this together, it does not surprise that the Surinamese have gotten into the game of taking advantage of Guyanese fishers to extract their pound of flesh. It is a huge amount of money for the mere renting of a fishing licence, that $1M. The reaction of those who feel the brunt of this latest brutalization is best summed in a single sentence by the fishermen themselves: “ah done we done hay now.”

There is a certain grimness to that hopeless declaration. The sad reality is that it is truth for our fishers.

CARICOM, Editorial, fishermen, licence, Surinamese

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