THE APNU’s cutting of the budgetary allocation for Amerindian empowerment and development should have been expected, given the PNC-led government’s history of suppressing Guyana’s First Peoples in multiple ways,
Yet, every year, nearing elections, PNC/R political configurations target the Amerindian communities, attempting to convince them that a PPP/C Government would neglect them.
The Amerindian vote is perceived to be facilitators to shifting the ‘balance of power’ to a third force in the local political arena so, regardless of the well-documented and highly-visible reality that successive PPP/C Governments have sustained an unprecedented dynamism in the provision of services and social enhancement interventions in Amerindian communities, the PNC-led coalition politicians and their allies in the media continually attempt to mislead them into believing that the opposite is true by obfuscating the facts and presenting false promises of caring for their welfare, when in essence, their manipulations and strategising always led to a derailment and/or an inhibitor of PPP/C administrations’ hinterland development drive.
One such instance was when the APNU-affiliated APA, the head honcho of which was a candidate on a APNU electoral list, along with other protagonists, brewed a concoction of nefarious arguments and strategies to stymie the momentum of Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which was programmed by the PPP/C administration to benefit Amerindians in very tangible ways, because the funds accrued therefrom was projected to impel development in Amerindian communities at a highly-accelerated rate.
The APA and other protagonists, who were supporters of a political party in opposition to the former PPP/C administration, had hoped their false narratives would have been the catalyst that would have led to the removal of the PPP/C Government at the 2011 General Elections.
This was the agenda behind their prognostications, strategising, and protestations of caring for Guyana’s Indigenous Peoples.
It is a sad reality in this country, and in many other developing nations, that individuals representing funding agencies arrive in the host countries, either with pre-conceived ideas from false information fed to them by opportunistic lobby forces with agendas; or, upon their arrival, they immerse themselves in the socialising cocktail circuit and, without doing any comprehensive, non-prejudicial ground assessments, they join with self-serving individuals and organisations to direct funding whereby monies meant to help the disempowered and the vulnerable find itself into the pockets of a few persons who term themselves administrators of skillfully-concocted ‘programmes,’ and organisations, ostensibly established to provide assistance to the needy.
On the basis of political affiliation funding agencies deny the WPO any type of funding, but they should examine the agenda of the APA and then determine whether it is representing the rights of Guyana’s Indigenous Peoples or pursuing the duplicitous agenda of the political party of which it is seemingly an arm.
After much effort by the PPP/C administration, the Norwegians recognised the solid case Guyana has to benefit financially from its rainforests through the Jagdeo-led Government’s LCDS, and, much to the credit of that country, they acted upon that recognition. The APA and political parties, then in opposition to the President Bharrat Jagdeo administration and other detractors went into a frenzy to deny the First People and other communities the benefits that eventually accrued from the Norwegian deal by attempting in various ways to sabotage the deal; and one could justifiably question the agenda and ask why they wanted to deny the Guyanese people badly-needed funds to mitigate the effects of climate change that is devastating our agricultural sector and our hinterland communities, in particular, and the Guyanese nation in general. On the other hand, Jagdeo-conceptualised and driven LCDS generated the funds from the Norwegian deal that enabled the creation of the Presidential Grant, which boosts and drives hinterland village economies.
This beneficent largesse to Guyana’s First Peoples on the part of Guyana’s former Head-of-State has gone largely ignored by the hostile media, while their anti-PPPC/anti-people frenzy escalated daily.
The greatest betrayal to Amerindians, and all Guyanese, however, was that of the establishment by the ACDA-affiliated coalition government of the Lands Commission of Inquiry, which has been denounced by the PPP/C and other relevant bodies, especially the National Toshaos Council (NTC) as being divisive and a potential threat to Amerindian land and socio-economic rights, as well as the rights of other Guyanese land owners as the ‘Pradoville’ homes, for instance; and the lands one trade unionist is usurping from legal owners on the basis that they were Guyana’s first peoples and therefore entitled to all “ancestral lands”, regardless of legalities, which called into question the relevance of the former PNC-led government’s ‘social cohesion’ construct, which was clearly failing in its mandate.
The United Nations has unequivocally supported Guyana’s Amerindian Act on the basis that Guyana has the second best Indigenous Act in the world, and the PPP/C Government is keeping faith with this Act.
The former PPP/C Government addressed the issue of Amerindian land rights when no-one else cared, with millionaire logging families grabbing Amerindian lands and mining companies destroying Indigenous survival systems, including vital water sources.
While everyone is pursuing agendas inimical to the welfare of the Amerindian peoples, including funding agencies that support these individuals and bodies, the current Ali-led Government continues on its path to provide relief to Guyana’s first peoples and to create systems and drive programmes that continually empower the Indigenous Peoples who, for decades before the advent of the PPP/C administration, were a marginalised, almost forgotten people in this land.
The developmental imperatives of this nation were greatly accelerated with the government’s LCDS-generated income it won for this country; but in whatever way funding is generated, the Amerindian people’s welfare would always be given priority by the Irfaan Ali-led administration, because their contribution to the national development paradigm is always given due recognition and respect by successive PPP/C administrations.
