Dear Editor,
The Amerindians dwell in the interior of the country in places endowed with the natural beauty of mountains, savannas and rivers, and are most of all friendly and welcoming people. In the interior the majority of us don’t even show an interest in the dirty politics happening on the coast because of our work on the farms, etc, to provide a meal for the family.
Is this something good or bad? It could be negative because we should be up to date with politics and the leadership of the nation, so when politicians come to our communities we will know what is going on, especially when they fill our naïve and uninformed heads with their propaganda, and brainwash us with their own biases and superficial messages.
We Amerindians have a population of approximately 70,000. However, this figure is difficult to verify because members of the various communities travel frequently between neighbouring countries and also create satellite communities both close to and far from established villages.
Our presence has been the longest one in Guyana and, therefore, as the indigenous people, we have helped to forge a nation out of an untamed land to create the foundation of what is now Guyana. As the communities interact more and more with other cultures we have redefined ourselves and are finding new roles in this multicultural and pluralistic society.
Over the years the Amerindians, many of whom are still vulnerable, are prone to exploitation and easy manipulation from the powerful in society, because they lack proper education and also are more limited in terms of their opportunities than what exists on the coast.
This unfortunate reality is caused by the coastal hegemony over the population of the interior, where political leaders can’t see beyond their noses and have helped to stifle the recognition and rapid integration of the Amerindians. However, thanks should be given to the United Nations for recognizing Indigenous people some time back, where they sanctioned the call for the integration of our people into the wider society.
It would be thought that any government in Guyana at the time would have executed the United Nations appeal to integrate Amerindians. Fortunately, the current administration caught hold of this opportunity and thus used the same to help Amerindians, but with a hook to it involving its political agenda, and not out of a profound motive in relation to us. The same strategy would have been used also I am sure, by the opposition towards our people if they had been in power, to manipulate and divide us in order to control us from forming an Amerindian third political party.
However, as a people we still have the ball in our court, because we are third in terms of population size in this country, although we are at still at a disadvantage because of our material poverty which makes us weak. And this is where any strong and dominant group in society can control and manipulate us quite easily, by giving us hand-outs and brainwashing us. This is a sad reality which results in us being divided and caught in the web of the dominant governing PPP and the opposition, where most times they use us by trampling on our backs thus making us go nowhere.
In conclusion, the two dominant political groups know that they cannot win an election with an overall majority without the Amerindian votes in Guyana, so they will try hard to divide once again the downtrodden vulnerable population in the country. But what if the Amerindians could be united and form their own political party to have a strong voice in parliament? In some other countries in Latin America the population of Indigenous peoples is relatively small and cannot make possible the formation of a political party to represent them at the highest decision-making levels, but in Guyana it is the contrary. We Amerindians could definitely have strong representation for the advancement of our country, rather than being caught in the web of the two rival parties, the governing PPP/C and the opposition that trample on us.
Yours faithfully,
Medino Abraham