Rupununi gold miners, at the centre of controversy over illegal operations at Marudi, will have to wait a bit longer on a mining parcels allocation lottery, even as negotiations continue between the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and the group.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (NRE), the lottery should have been held last Saturday. However the date has been pushed back and word from a Guyana Geology and Mines Commission official is that there will be no lottery. However, the president of the Rupununi Miners Association says that as soon as paperwork is completed there will be one as promised by the NRE. Sources say it is clear that the GGMC and the NRE have different positions on this matter.
“It isn’t cancelled it’s put off because of further discussions we had…I had to get some paperwork completed and I am looking after that so that 25 miners from Marudi will be given first priority in getting 25 blocks of land out of the 60 that is up for lottery”, President of the Rupununi Miners Association (RMA) Sugrim Singh told Stabroek News yesterday. He explained that the remaining 35 will be put into a lottery pool for others from the Rupununi district.
The RMA President said that as part of discussions the group had with Ministry of Natural Resources officials, including the Minister, that agency would have proposed to the Romanex Company that 15% of their lands be distributed into 60 parcels for miners in the Rupununi. The miners had been operating illegally on land assigned to Romanex.
Singh said that only yesterday he came out of Marudi where he got the targeted 25 persons to fill application forms which he will now take to the GGMC on Wednesday.
However Guyana Geology and Mines Commission officials told Stabroek News yesterday that the agency is not part of a lottery for the illegal miners. “We are not aware of any lottery for the illegal miners…To have a group of illegal miners given preference over residents of the community does not sound like something we will support …ask the Minister” a GGMC official told this newspaper.
When contacted for an update on the fate of the Marudi miners, Minister of Natural Resources Robert Persaud said that he was out of the country and would give one as soon he returned and checked with relevant officials.
In early March the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission swooped on the Marudi area and discovered 14 dredges working illegally. Cease orders were issued to those that were actually operating and the others were told to move on. The GGMC later said that charges were being prepared against the dredge operators.
The raid was later overshadowed by the videoing of the beating of relatives of one of the miners by a policeman at Marudi.
Over 300 persons from the Lethem district later signed a petition to the President asking for him to intervene so that there could be 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.
After the GGMC crackdown, the Government Information Agency had noted that officials of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environ-ment had met with miners and among general concerns raised were efforts to end illegal mining in the Marudi Mountain and access to mining properties by small miners in the location.
It added that it was agreed that through representatives of the Rupununi Miners Association that the GGMC’s efforts to curb illegal mining will be through special planning and land management.
Yesterday Lethem residents told Stabroek News that they were contacted by the miners who asked for donations to solicit the services of an attorney to fight their case. “They showed the tape (of the beating) held a big meeting and last week they were going house-to-house getting money they say for lawyers”, a resident said.
Another miner said that the group which was removed by the GGMC for illegal mining has made it “bad for everybody” since they were wrong to “block the way and sit in the road to protest.”
“They are not the original and seasoned miners who used to work that area.
This whole Lethem knows that everyone is go and raid but when you hear the police coming you have a system where you raise an alarm and operations shut down until they gone…you don’t go and protest in the road because you know you are wrong”, the miner said.
“The police is wrong for his actions too, so they are both wrong but now all the focus is on all of us and no one is benefiting because they can’t work the land anymore and even the planters can’t farm the land…what a waste”, a resident said.
