-foreign minister tells UN rights council
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett says if any discrimination is being practiced here with regards to indigenous peoples, it is “positive”.
“If discrimination can be used in the positive way, this is how we have used it in terms of our indigenous communities”, she said as the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) examined Guyana’s human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland on May 11. The minister led Guyana’s delegation and one of the issues raised was discrimination against members of indigenous communities.
In relation to indigenous peoples, Rodrigues-Birkett pointed out that there is a specific ministry and legislation and government ensures that all policies incorporate indigenous people’s issues and the peculiarities of indigenous groups. She cited the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and Amerindian Act consultation processes which she said they ensured took a longer period to cater for translation into some of the indigenous languages and translators were also provided when the consultations were being done. “Indeed there are some sections of society that believe we are doing too much”, the minister said adding that there is a delicate balance in that regard. In terms of the government and its policies, because of historical neglect, if there is any discrimination, it is positive discrimination to close to gap, she said.
Earlier, she had said that the protection of rights of indigenous peoples “is of paramount importance to our government and this is why certain rights are recognized in the Amerindian Act including that of land and the procedure to deal with land claims”. The minister said that many governments prefer to have policies to deal with land claims but Guyana decided to enshrine this in law so that it cannot be easily changed. She said that the procedure has been working as land owned by indigenous peoples has increased from 6.5% to 14% in the last four years or so.
On the issue of political representation of indigenous women Rodrigues-Birkett said that this is an important area and pointed out that of the six women in the Guyanese cabinet up to December 2009, three were indigenous women but one died. There is also representation in parliament, she said adding “I’m an indigenous Arawak woman as well”. At the level of Regional Executive Officers for the ten administrative regions, one is a woman and she is indigenous, Rodrigues-Birkett said. “We believe that we have made great strides in that area and we would continue to do so”, she said.
On the quality of consultations on the LCDS, she said “since it is an innovative approach to dealing with climate change in part and also using our resources in a sustainable way one would imagine that consultation has to be an ongoing process in this regard”.
The minister said she was part of several consultations sessions especially in indigenous communities and a lot of comments, questions and support were received. The indigenous people were the first to indicate their support in principle for the LCDS but the consultation is an ongoing process and the government believes that this is a model to be repeated, the Minister added.
Meantime, with respect to discrimination in employment and the economic activity of Afro-Guyanese, she asserted that the delegation and government do not accept this. “While we do not keep ethnic data with respect to employment and so on, if you come to some of our ministries and our agencies it would be clear what our employment practices are like”, Rogrigues-Birkett declared. She pointed out that she is the head of a Ministry and said the majority of employees in her ministry come from this particular group. “We don’t have a policy of discrimination against any particular group in terms of our employment practices. I’m speaking here of the government of Guyana”, she said.
On Guyana’s rejection of a report from the United Nations Expert on Minority Issues, the Minister said that the government has submitted a comprehensive response to that report to the UN on the reasons for rejecting it. ”We believe both the process and content were flawed and we state our reasons therefor”, she said.
