We’re not very good at running bureaucracies with any efficiency in this country, and our failings are particularly on display when there has to be co-ordination between more than one agency. Whenever that is required, no one entity seems to know what the other is doing, no one accepts responsibility for undesirable outcomes and no decisions are taken on the basis of reliable information. The latest people to fall victim to Guyana’s own special brand of bureaucratic muddle, are the Warraus from Venezuela.
While they are described as coming from Venezuela, the Warraus have occupied land in parts of Region One as well as in our western neighbour for millennia, and even in modern times they have a tendency to come and go across the border at will, since like many indigenous people they are no respecters of international frontiers. The late archaeologist Denis Williams who excavated the sites of the very first indigenous people who came into our corner of the world many thousands of years ago, considered that these were the ancestors of the Warraus. This is a people, therefore, who very much could be regarded as having some special ancient attachment to parts of our land.
In Dutch times the Warraus could be found far more dispersed than they are today, and they probably disappeared from Berbice after the planters started to move from upriver down to the coast at the end of the 18th century, although there are still some of them in Orealla on the Corentyne.
They were the coastal swamp dwellers of the country, and built their homes on stilts. Not surprisingly given their preferred habitat, they were known as master boatbuilders, and their canoes were traded among the nations far inland. The Dutch themselves regarded their vessels as the best of all those made by the nations, and they fetched a higher barter price at the trading posts than any others. The Warraus’ great speciality, however, was ocean-going piragas, which were highly prized by those nations like the Arawaks and the Caribs, among others, who did not always restrict themselves to the river systems but at one point or another ventured out to sea.
More especially in earlier Dutch colonial times given the distance from the metropolis, the authorities were partially dependent on the Warraus to supply protein for the plantations. In Berbice they caught fish on the Canje by poisoning the water with the hiarri root, that was then salted, but in Essequibo their fishery was on the lower Orinoco until the Spaniards destroyed it in the mid-18th century.
The latest Warrau story involves their forcible removal from the village of Kabakaburi in the Pomeroon, Region Two. Given the critical economic conditions in Venezuela, the Warraus have been coming here for about five years. We reported that some had relatives in Guyana, while others had set up camps in villages like Yarakita, Whitewater and Smith Creek. In addition, the government had set up refugee camps for them in various villages, and it is the conditions in these which have attracted criticism.
It would seem that 125 Warraus who had already arrived in Region One, moved to Region Two towards the end of last year. One Kabakaburi resident, Mr Carlyle Lowe told this newspaper that they had started arriving in the village on November 14, 2021, and that an initial 25 migrants were followed not long after by others. The journey took them more than eight days. “They … even partook in the Christmas celebrations and they have been grooving in … we were teaching them to become independent and how to do stuff and had jobs for them in the village, and now they are taken to Wauna with no jobs and no way to be independent,” he said.
Chairperson of Region Two Vilma de Silva said that the arrival of the Warraus had been reported to the RDC by the village police, and a medical team had visited them to assess their health. Mr Lowe for his part said that the officials arrived while they were building houses for them in an area called Arpiaco. They took their names and the Immigration officers granted them three-month permits, telling Mr Lowe and other volunteers that they should ensure that these were renewed on expiration. He also said that officials from the Major Crimes and Trafficking in Persons Units were there and questioned the refugees on how they came.
That, recounted Mr Lowe, was a Saturday (March 5) and then on Monday morning the Charity Police Station Sergeant arrived to tell him to go and explain to the Warraus what was happening. He went on to say that he was caught off guard, because after arriving at Arpiaco the refugees were then forcibly removed. The authorities didn’t ask the Toshao’s permission, he said, “They just came and move them out which is wrong.”
The indigenous migrants were removed by the Coast Guard, not the police, to Khan Hill in Mabaruma, where the government already has a refugee centre, and Mr Lowe told this newspaper that the Kabakaburi residents were baffled as to the rationale behind the eviction when the villagers had welcomed them. Clearly the GDF had acted under instructions from some other authority since they couldn’t take that action on their own, but the question is, whose instructions.
The Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai in a none too lucid response, was quoted as saying, “The Warraus that I understand was occupying a portion or area in the Pomeroon River was removed having found that they were not at risk but their situation is a bit vulnerable.” She said they had been relocated to where they had “friends and relatives.” One can only enquire why they did not take themselves to Khan Hill in the first place if they had friends and relatives there. Be that as it may, she could not say what the circumstances were surrounding the removal, and she did not admit it was done on her authority. Significantly, too, she would not accept that the refugees were moved in a context where they were being helped by the community. One wonders what kind of position she is in to maintain that Kabakaburi was not offering assistance when the residents had publicly indicated no objection to them staying.
Chairperson De Silva of Region Two claimed no knowledge of why the Warraus had been deported, and told this newspaper she was in her office when she heard about it. Stabroek News has been told that persons working with migrants have been informed about an internal policy whereby refugees are not allowed to move between regions. Minister Sukhai denied this is so, however, and Foreign Affairs Minister Hugh Todd was unavailable to make his comment. If it is the case, was it the police who asked for the relocation with the sanction of Minister Sukhai? If so, why was the GDF involved? One might have thought it would be the Immigration Department, although they seemed to have no problem issuing three-month visas in Pomeroon.
What brought all this to public attention was a Facebook post by Lorraine Gilkes of Mabaruma with a photo showing the Warraus scavenging through trash in the township. “In all my life in Mabaruma I have never seen a site [sic] like this …” she wrote. Mr Lowe has added his voice saying some of the refugees had been complaining to him about the conditions under which they were living. Added to that, he said, “The Warraus are normally known as the canoe people; they dwell over the water and they are not people who live on the hilltop. So, in our village here, we had given them a place along the riverain area to build their house, which we had already started to do before they were removed…”
Minister Sukhai was having none of it, maintaining that details surrounding the plight of the Warraus had been sensationalised and that government was doing everything to support those who were vulnerable. One would think that in her position she would at least say she would investigate, but her immediate retreat into defending the government might seem to suggest that she might be the prime mover in this whole saga.
Region One Chairman Brentnol Ashley told this newspaper that Khan Hill had currently over 200 migrants. One does not have to live in the North West to know that Guyana does not have the organisational resources to manage a camp of that size effectively. The Amerindian People’s Association described it as being overwhelmed. What kind of decision-making is it, when people who are being accepted and accommodated in a Pomeroon village, are relocated to an overcrowded situation where they are dependent on government hand-outs? Mr Ashley itemised everything that was being done for the refugees, and said the authorities were looking for a suitable plot to establish a permanent settlement.
In the meantime, the APA has called on the government to provide increased humanitarian support to the indigenous migrants. Additionally, perhaps, the authorities could look at the possibility of returning some of the Warraus to Kabakaburi, with the agreement of the residents, and afford the village some help in integrating them if the villagers are amenable. Minister Sukhai should understand that sometimes in certain situations private citizens can be more effective than governments.