The Justice Institute Guyana (JIG) has written the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warning it that the Request for a Thematic Hearing set for today “contains a number of factual and legal errors with respect to Guyana including misrepresentations on the land rights of indigenous peoples in Guyana.”
A press release from JIG said that “By misrepresenting the law the Request undermines the position of Amerindian peoples in Guyana and makes it harder for people to use their rights and remedies to protect themselves.”
The hearing titled `The Impact of Extractive Industries on Human Rights and Climate Change in the Caribbean’ was requested by Malene Alleyne, Jamaican human rights lawyer and Founder of Freedom Imaginaries, and Esther Figueroa, Jamaican environmental filmmaker supported by nearly ninety organizations and individuals across the Caribbean who co-signed the request.
A release from the two groups said that the hearing will focus on the impact of the mining and fossil fuels industries on the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights of women, Indigenous, Afro-descendent, and rural communities in the Caribbean.
Melinda Janki, Executive Director of the JIG in a press release on the letter of October 25th to IACHR said, “The Amerindian Act 2006 gives Amerindian communities absolute and collective landownership, ownership of forests and the carbon extracted by those forests, control of mining and control of resources. Yet this Request claims the opposite. It even misrepresents the Upper Mazaruni land claim as a constitutional claim for collective title when it is a land claim by five Akawaio communities and one Arecuna community who already own around 1,500 square miles under collective titles.”
Janki noted in the release that the government has also announced possible collaboration with Brazilian agri-business in the Rupununi despite Brazil’s record of abuse and exploitation of its indigenous peoples.
“The Wapichan in Brazil do not own the land they have occupied from time immemorial. In contrast the Wapichan in the Rupununi, who came to Guyana at the end of the eighteenth century, own land under absolute collective titles guaranteed by the Amerindian Act 2006”, Janki said.
The JIG press release said that the letter to the IACHR summarises the Amerindian Act 2006 as it applies to land and natural resources and refers the Commissioners to published articles including one by Dr Arif Bulkan which dismisses as ‘blatantly false’ claims that the Amerindian Act 2006 does not protect traditional rights.
The JIG press release quotes Janki as saying, “Elements within civil society have persistently spread misinformation about the Amerindian Act 2006. When people believe this misinformation they don’t use the law. Then we hear that the problem is the law, not the misinformation about the law.”
The Amerindian Act 2006 is the one law that protects Guyana’s Amerindian peoples from abuse and exploitation, the letter to the IACHR said.
Janki added in the press release: “There is a serious risk that the government will prioritise business over Amerindian rights. Amerindian communities need to use this law now before it is dismantled.”
JIG’s letter to the IACHR stated that “Fossil fuels threaten Guyana, the Caribbean and the rest of the world. The Request does not reflect in-country opposition to fossil fuels and is both misleading and unhelpful.
“The Amerindian Act 2006 and other national laws provide legal rights and remedies for Amerindian peoples in Guyana. However the Amerindian peoples do not use those their rights and remedies. In many cases they do not know that they have those rights and remedies and they believe the misinformation about the Amerindian Act 2006.
“The Request ignores the successes of the Amerindian peoples who have successfully used their rights. Perhaps the best example is the WaiWai who have absolute title to 2,300 square miles and have used their legal power to make their territory a protected area that they own and control”.
