It is the last-named shock which the government has found it hardest to come to terms with. Since in the PPP’s conception of the universe everything, but everything, is political, they have been looking for political parties concealed under every speck of gold dust, and for rich miners, or in Dr Luncheon’s words, “hidden interests” (who are all presumably ‘opposition’ types), lurking behind every gold-coloured banner. The latter, according to the PPP spinners, are ‘using’ the small miners for their own devious and avaricious ends – a little flight of fancy which completely ignores the inconvenient fact that it is not the rich miners who will be primarily affected by the six-months’ regulation, but the small ones. Freedom House, it seems, cannot believe that the ‘small’ man (or woman) anywhere in this country is capable of working out what is and is not in their own interest; he or she always has to be manipulated by someone with nefarious (anti-government) objectives.
The government, of course, is the victim of its own style of administration. In all of its seventeen years in office, it has never made any attempt to draft an interior policy. Psychologically, it has always been a coastal administration, whose main interest in the hinterland related to votes at election times. In other words, it has allowed various groups with potentially competing interests to operate, without creating an overarching framework within which they should do so, and within which those competing interests could be reconciled and prioritised. Since it never had a coherent hinterland policy, it never had need to set up a land use committee to deal with the practical issues under terms of reference derived from that policy.
But now, all of a sudden, there is a land use committee. (It was set up after a private dinner President Jagdeo had with some miners where he is reported to have first revealed the six-month requirement.) The criticism has been made that the terms of reference for the committee are not clear. Actually, that is probably not strictly true. It has – implied, at least – both terms of reference and a policy framework. To all intents and purposes these have been supplied by Norway. Whatever the merits of the conditions stipulated in the MOU signed between the Government of Guyana and the Kingdom of Norway for the preservation of our forests, one can only regret that we couldn’t have evolved our own clear policy guidelines over the years, which had they been rational and systematically enforced, would have avoided the problems the government is currently experiencing. In such circumstances, theoretically at least, the Norway deal might have required some adjustments to existing policy, but not the institution of an entirely novel one, the consequences of whose provisions have hit the mining community like a bolt from the blue.
Under the new dispensation the environment takes precedence over everything else. It is not that environmental considerations were not reflected in certain agreements before, such as TSAs in the forestry sector, for example; it is more that as suggested above, these were not reconciled with everything else which was going on in the hinterland, and secondly, as also mentioned earlier, there was simply no consistent enforcement of such agreements and regulations as existed. SN’s editorial of Monday, January 11, referred among other things, to the fact that this newspaper over the years had lamented the serious environmental damage caused to rivers and streams by both local and Brazilian miners as well as their “wanton use of mercury,” and commented that none of this environmental degradation and pollution had “galvanized” the government into action. The miners themselves have complained too that on those occasions when cease work orders in the industry have been issued in the past, they have been issued selectively.
In other words, prior to the promulgation of the LCDS and the announcement of the MOU, the environment was a secondary consideration for the government, and all the stakeholders in the interior operated accordingly. The lack of reconciliation of environmental needs with various interests was evident even in the case of the government’s own proposed projects. The environmental consequences of becoming a through-zone for north-eastern Brazil with a road and a deep water harbour, for example, have not been worked out at all (for instance, the road bisects the Iwokrama reserve). One might reasonably ask if the government is now prepared to take some radical decisions where this is concerned. After all, the destruction which roads through forest have wrought in the Brazilian Amazon are well known, so how is any interior road programme to be made compatible with the terms of the MOU?
In addition to the Brazilian artery, there is the proposed road to Caracas, which the Foreign Affairs Minister in one of the rare excursions she was allowed to undertake on her own, zoomed off to discuss in Venezuela last year. One might add to the list in passing too, any transmission lines feeding into the coastal grid from interior hydroelectric facilities (which themselves might be problematic), and Venezuela’s proposed gas pipeline, which apparently we are entertaining – in principle, at least. The public would like some feedback on all of these in the light of our environmental commitments.
The government has responded to the miners’ protest with its usual contumely, highlighting the industry’s destruction of the environment. It is not that this has not taken place, it is just that the administration is being entirely hypocritical since as already mentioned, prior to its recent epiphany in relation to preserving our forest, it was the one which allowed the damage to continue for so long. In mitigation of the miners’ position too, it should be said that the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association has admitted that environmentally deleterious practices cannot be allowed to persist, and has been working to change these.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, the government propaganda machine has to stop treating the miners as if they were little children, and cease the accusations of manipulation by hidden interests or political parties or whatever. For once it should accept the fact that the miners are working adults with genuine concerns which need to be discussed in a sober fashion. Apart from anything else, the industry employs directly and indirectly a large number of people, and its contributions to the economy are very substantial indeed, something which imparts a certain confidence to the sector.
As it is, the administration failed to consult on its proposed changes in a meaningful way. It has touted the consultations for the LCDS, but these had very little significance for the various interest groups in the interior, because first of all, they occurred in a kind of vacuum since they had no precedent, and most important, they did not deal with specifics and simply gave vague assurances to the miners, for example, that their interests would be protected. The problem has arisen because it is only now that the specifics have been revealed, and it is these that the miners perceive as affecting their livelihood.
The next stage is the miners meeting with the President on February 11, when perhaps, just perhaps, he may do his deus ex machina act. Not everything the miners want may be possible, but what they are entitled to at a minimum is respect, a fair hearing and genuine negotiations where a give and take approach prevails.
