The Guyana Government values the role played by Indigenous Peoples in Guyana’s national development efforts highly, and Guyanese should be considering how to balance the traditionalist views of them with their desire to be integrated into the socio-economic, cultural and political life of the country, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) Ambassador Riyad Insanally said last Thursday.
“Whilst we rightly celebrate our indigenous heritage, we should also be considering anew how we balance traditionalist views of our Indigenous Peoples with their own desire to be fully integrated into the socio-economic, cultural and political life of our country. After all, they are the people who started Guyana,” Insanally told a Special Meeting of the OAS Permanent Council, which met as part of the commemoration of the First Inter-American Week for Indigenous Peoples at its headquarters in Washington DC. The week was observed from August 6 to August 10, 2018, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs release said on Friday.
The week’s activities and the special meeting were to recognise the contributions made by Indigenous Peoples across the western hemisphere and to promote dialogue on forward-looking policies regarding the protection of their rights and the advancement of their social inclusion in the Americas.