Dear Editor,
I have licensed, from the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission (GGMC), for river claims in the Mazaruni area. A foreign mining company has control and “ownership” of the road leading to my Claims. This company has denied me access to my Claims – not through instruction from GGMC or an order of the Court, but simply because they are of the opinion that I should not have been allotted these Claims. In this letter I will not deal with the vulgar attempt at bullyism and the vile, wicked, evil and barefaced plot concocted by this said foreign mining company and a member of a famous Guyanese mining family (that will be reserved for a massive local and international PR campaign which will be launched soon). Today I will seek to get the authorities to publicly state what the government’s policy is when it comes to private entities controlling “private roads”.
And there is a precedent. In the late 1990s there was a local company whose security guards were in the habit of physically assaulting miners caught using a stretch of road controlled by this company. There was a particular miner who got such a cruel beating that he was hospitalized and his case was made public resulting in President Janet Jagan remarking that she was not aware that AK47s were in the hands of private security forces. More than that, I was told that Mrs Jagan summoned the relevant regulatory bodies and there and then the “PRIVATE ROAD, PUBLIC LAND” policy was resurrected. Thus the law is clear that private individuals/companies cannot make an exclusive claim of ownership over any road in Guyana – since this is public land. Of course they are free to charge a toll and carry out the necessary security checks but definitely they do not have the authority to put restrictions on anyone. I respectfully request of the relevant authorities that they make public the law governing this matter.
Sincerely,
Trevor Charles
