Dear Editor,
The Chairman of the Reparations Committee Eric Phillips represented a position articulated from the early 1990s by ACDA, which was argued in Parliament by the late Deborah Backer. That the Afro-Guyanese descendants through their historical contribution and marginalization merit land compensations long denied is not an issue that can be brushed aside. That he referenced Indigenous nations whose presence in Guyana was more recent than the arrival of the first Africans merely illustrates the case in question and is not competing with what they have benefited from. Both the Amerindian and African communities were designated for strategic control during the colonial period. Both communities have a long history of fusion. One example is the township of Bartica; the 17th century plantation at Bartica was serviced by both African and Amerindian slaves. My patriarchal grandmother, Geraldine Legay was from Bartica, and this woman was African and Carib; her clan included the Arthurs, Holders, and Rogers that I know of; the Braithwaite was my grandfather and he came from Friendship-Buxton.
That Ms Teixeira, (‘President should remove Eric Phillips from Guyana Reparations Committee’ SN, March 30) should attempt to use Eric’s historical chronology as a political stool, and a wobbly one at that, is pathetic, and she knows better. This is a long-standing issue, and with the evidence of her administration’s irresponsible and dishonest handling of our national lands of worth, brings added impetus to this matter. When the indentured arrived here, the wharf they stepped upon was built by African labour, the logies they entered had once been the abode of then free Africans, yet with all this, they were accommodated economically; the intention was to keep the freed African in his place. More Africans died so that modern Guyana can socially exist, than the Afro-Guyanese population alive in Guyana today. These are historical facts, and coupled with what was presented before by Eric Phillips no one should argue with them. In terms of volume of sacrifice at least 20% of land across Guyana should be awarded in respect of our claim as a reparations package.
The letter by the pseudonymous M Maxwell (‘Argument for African land reparation is flawed’ SN, March 17) and the editorial in Sunday Stabroek of March 27 consist of flaws and suggestions inconsistent with the cultural and historical facts in the tapestry of old and new Guiana-Guyana, in addition to the archaeological innuendoes made. Mr Maxwell tries without cause to assert that the claim of some late-coming Amerindian groups is different from the African claim, but this is obvious. The African claim is not competing with this other legitimate group; the reparations claim is presenting parallels for its legitimacy. While agreeing with the claims of one group, Mr Maxwell erroneously states that Eric should not say that enslaved Africans built Guyana, since this building is an ongoing process. He completely chooses to deceive by not stating that there is only one group which has worked under dehumanising conditions, unpaid across two centuries, from the building of Kijk-over-al to the humanising of the coastlands and the Mazaruni-Canje-Berbice river plantations. The ancestors of Afro-Guyanese founded Guyana county by county, township by township before Emancipation occurred and modern Guyana began. The labour that came via indentureship was paid, and lost nothing in the process. Mr Maxwell asks foolishly about the status of mixed Africans, but this kind of discrimination is not within the African psyche; my mother/father’s child is my brother-sister, and the non-African variation in the relationship does not matter.
Next, there is the argument that is endemic to a fringe group, ie, the PNC’s 26 years after Independence (Maxwell’s count of 26 years coincides with the fall-out between the PNC and UF in 1968, which is very revealing). The assertion that Forbes Burnham should have fixed three centuries of African problems in 26 years, is mischievous. The PNC inherited a multi-ethnic colonial state of self-censored apartheid. His policies were inclusive in terms of design: roads, the youth corps, produce what you eat, National Service, GMC. Look at the bright youth who perished in the Cubana tragedy. I suspect that M Maxwell was born before 1970, thus he would know that more than a quarter of Georgetown’s mainly Afro-population lived in ‘nigger yards’. Housing, health and job training was Burnham’s agenda, and he did well in those areas across the ethnic variations of Guyana. None of the nations we define as regions 11,12 and 13, that we migrate to ‒ UK, USA, Canada ‒ took 26 years to reach where they are; their basic stability and progress was established by methods that can never be attributed to Burnham. The rest of the Maxwell letter is fragmented, void of substance and with no relevance to reparations at home.
The Sunday editorial, fails to recognise that homo sapiens to which all modern humans belong originated 30,000 years ago. The writer purposely misrepresents Stephen Oppenheimer’s narrative from ‘Out Of Eden’ concerning Luzia, the 11,500 year old African skull found in Brazil, that belonged to the present human branch. Her skull was reconstructed by Richard Naeve of Manchester University. There were no definite conclusions as the writer insinuated; to quote Oppenheimer, “We all have a claim to be innate experts in such recognition. Negroid, Australian, Melanesian, Liujiang, possibly, but to me she looks just like one of the 3,000-year-old Olmec heads of central America.” The editorial seeks balance without understanding that if Jewish forced labour in Nazi factories for some eight years qualifies for compensation, then on what humanitarian grounds are African descendants different, when their ancestors endured worse for over two hundred years?
I must make an addition to the concept of Africans in Guyana before slavery, by referring to the lore of our Amerindian brothers as reported by Walter Roth, concerning two tribes of spirit beings ‒ the Ekkekuli or Manahau and the Mansinskiri, who attacked them. When perceptible to human eyes they had the appearance of negroes ‒ Africans stealing their wives and children at times, assuming the image of tribesmen to steal their wives.
They mentioned another African people of folklore, the Touvinga, who were familiar to the Amerindians from earliest times, and whatever their story is, will be indicative of that which is beyond what is chosen to be recognised. Modified 19th century pseudo-academic dogma articulated towards the dehumanization of the African collective, despite glaring evidence to the contrary, must be recognised and dismissed. That collective must persist and command the natural rights of its humanity. ACDA have always supported reasonable Amerindian claims. Reparations must begin on the soil nourished by the blood, misery and pain of slaves long perished in unmarked graves; their genocide sealed the right to reparations for their descendants.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
