Dear Editor,
Since early October there have been reports in the media that residents of Plaisance have been barred by force from land they began to occupy or planned to occupy, and to utilise for livelihood purposes.
Plaisance and other post-emancipation villages set an example of saving, cooperation, investment and self-help, that defeated the laws passed by the colonial government aimed at keeping them landless and ready to sell their labour cheap to the employers of those days, including the sugar estates.
Today it is GuySuCo that is reported as one of the parties interested in grabbing the land, competing with the poor villagers, who have for years helped to feed the cane mills. GuySuCo has proved beyond doubt, especially in the last seven years, that it is one of the most inefficient land users, if we are to judge by its performance. We must not forget that for some years President-in-waiting Mr Donald Ramotar sat on the GuySuCo Board representing the PPP, which is not a shareholder. GuySuCo is therefore a target of suspicion. Plaisance and Sparendaam residents claim that GuySuCo has said it wants the land for cultivation. The residents suspect that the usual pattern will be applied and that the land will end up being sold to a favourite developer. Who can blame them? One single clique controls the cabinet GuySuCo, the state lands and all there is to control.
In the past decade I visited Plaisance only once on June 1 this year to stand in silence at the resting place of a villager of conscience, Laurence Clarke. But I used to be engaged with its cane famers in matters of representation since the late forties.
The villages like Plaisance are laid out from north (Atlantic Ocean) to south. (Lamaha canal). Far north are dwelling houses, common lands for recreation and sports, for some places of worship and some schools, cemeteries, and in some villages lots held in reserve for the purposes of the community. Where the dwelling houses end, the owners’ farm beds begin, running in succession southward. There would be ‘cross dams’ separating one type of land use from another or one form of title from another. South of the owners’ private beds, there is more agricultural land. These began as ‘grants’ under Crown Lands regulations to those who had occupied the ‘first depth’ beneficially. Each title was in the form of an Absolute Grant handing over an ‘empolde’ or ‘Polder’ or ‘Pola.’ In the villages the grant was vested in the Village Council. The last Pola extended to the dam on the right bank of the Lamaha Canal or Conservancy or Service canal on the East Coast of Demerara. On the West Coast it would be the Boerasirie.
The Empolders are the common property of the villagers. Some are held as pastures.
If the Plaisance land in dispute is part of the village resources as described, GuySuCo will not have the right to occupy. If GuySuCo has dreamed that they have rights and are not in occupation it seems that they have used the police through the government which is not neutral in GuySuCo matters. Few people now, including this writer expect impartial advice to the government in GuySuCo matters seeing that they have been joined in blundering for years. It seems that a chosen few with bags of money can walk into Guyana, not as equals to but with privileges and buy anything they want. Guyanese cannot expect such privileges in foreign countries. The people know those who are high and above the law, and are called oligarchs. Plaisance residents are neighbours of Prado One and they have seen Prado 2 rise like jumbie umbrellas.
Eyewitnesses have seen the meanest of it – part of the cemetery seized, graves violated and plots obtained seized to business enterprises. Wilson Harris put a certain question to a character in an early forgotten poem, “O man going home.”
Within the last two years there was a similar cry from the villagers of Sheet Anchor, Berbice, where transports going back to the 1890s were ignored. In Plaisance transports go back the 1840s. A formal official statement from the authorities, naming persons, areas and prices has not been made, although the law requires it. Land transactions have always been very public and any concealment or vagueness is ground for concern and investigation. The growing habit of secret land deals and hiving off resources in secret should have no place with a decent government. It is a long time since we heard government leaders complain that the rich are getting richer. That concern seems to be out of fashion.
Still, there must be an open social policy regarding use. The old villages made a major leap into the future but money limited their land holdings. They were hemmed in without room for expansion. Villagers who in previous times allowed their land to be used for national not village purposes (magistrate’s court, police station, transmitter) deserve grateful consideration in their time of need.
The plantations and their government must withdraw from the people’s land and must end their old habit of land grabbing, and abuse of neighbouring villagers.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana