Some of the miners being evicted from Marudi Mountain, in Region Nine, have payment orders for selling raw gold to the Guyana Gold Board, challenging a claim by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) that none of them had declared a single gramme of gold and that there were no records of production.
The miners are now looking to have an audience with President Donald Ramotar, who they say received their complaints during a previous meeting and promised to look into them. Shortly after, the GGMC went into the area and closed their dredges.
The GGMC on Monday announced that it was preparing to file charges against “raiders” engaged in illegal mining activities in the Marudi Mountain, where its operation to shutdown illegal operations has generated outrage after a member of the supporting police team was caught on video brutalising persons. The operators of the dredges in the area, the agency claimed, extracted minerals, illegally sold their yield and evaded payment of royalties and taxes.
But Stabroek News was shown Guyana Gold Board orders for payments to some of the miners, dated as recent as last month, for quantities of burnt raw gold it received from them.
Among them is Errol ‘Michael’ Prince, the husband of Verona Prince, the woman that was beaten at Marudi by police along with her sons.
Prince, who was one of the 22 dredge owners that the GGMC claimed were mining illegally on the land at Marudi Mountain licensed to Romanex, rejected claims by the GGMC that he did not pay royalties. “I don’t want them to feel that we have a problem with them or want a story but they saying that we never paid or declared a gramme of gold is just a lie,” he told Stabroek News.
He also pointed out that the GGMC had partnered with the miners in workshops about safe mining practices, with the most recent one being staged a few months ago to address mercury-free mining. “You cannot encourage by your actions and then now totally dislocate us,“ Prince, who was also beaten during the police confrontation, said.
Another miner, who asked not to be named, told Stabroek News that claims that Romanex was carrying out operations on its concession were lies and charged that it had abandoned the area for many years.
The miner said that the Marudi Mountain area has always been abandoned and it was residents from neighbouring communities that took to the lands to seek gold. “My grandfather worked on this area since before excavators and now I’m working here and you now hear that Romanex had the lands… In the 90s, we heard they get the area but they never do a thing on it from then till now… It is my view that only now they hear that we striking that they want to take it,” he said.
The miner also explained that contrary to reports that most of the miners in the Marudi Mountain area were Brazilians, about 85% are Guyanese and the others are what he called “GuyBraz”—Brazilians who have gained citizenship here through naturalisation.
“They are trying to paint us bad and turn the public against us. We are Guyanese who just want to work for money. We don’t want to do anything illegal… We Amerindians were there for a long time and made it our home, now where will be go?” he questioned. “I am saying okay, if you are saying the land is Romanex own, then so be it but what about us? We want land to work too and not anywhere where you spend $1M on an excavator, $400,000 on ration, another half million on fuel and making four or five ounces,” he added.
According to the miner, while no one knows what is in the earth, there is general knowledge about the prospect for gold output. However, he opined that these days when the GGMC is allocating land, it is in gold-barren territories, which is frustrating to many potential miners. “They have surveyors and prospectors who show them ‘this get this and there get that,’ but you know they save that for the big money investors and the small man like you and me, they send ‘behind God back’ that ain’t get nothing,” he added.
He also believes that the miners carrying out alluvial or open cast mining at Marudi Mountain do not affect the operations of Romanex, which has proposed to have deep earth or underground mining operations. As a result, he thinks that there can be a compromise and agreement by the two parties that sees them working in unison.
Last month, the Ministry of Natural Resources directed the GGMC to review the mining licence held by Romanex Guyana Exploration Ltd for land at Marudi Mountain, after a site visit revealed no mining or exploration on behalf of the company was ongoing.
The Marudi Mountain Mining Licence was granted to Romanex Guyana Exploration Ltd. on April 17th, 2009, after being held as a Prospecting Licence (large scale) from 1990 to 2009 by the company. The GGMC said that the company had earlier committed to carrying out exploration activities within the early part of 2013, but it was evident that no work is expected to commence on the property in the near future as no mining plan has been submitted.
Small miners in the Rupununi had petitioned the Ministry of Natural Resources to be allowed to mine on the Prospecting Licence of Romanex, saying that the company is occupying state lands while failing to execute the terms of its mining licence.
Over 300 persons from the Lethem district had signed a petition to the president asking for him to intervene so that there is an amicable resolution to the problem. They said the evictions would affect miners, shop owners and the producers of crops, such as bananas, cassava and plantains, which would strip them of commerce and some of their food supply. They also said that the crop cultivation is evidence that they have lived on the lands for many years. Some of these persons are now seeking legal representation to fight their removal.
