This is the fourth entry in a series on civil society
Apart from an introductory meeting when this government took office in August 2020, the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) has been unable to meet with the Minister of Amerindian Affairs to discuss a number of issues pertaining to Indigenous Peoples’ rights, policy and legislative reform, says Governance and Rights Coordinator, Laura George.
“Minister Pauline Sukhai is either too busy or is not available for one reason or another to meet with us in spite of several requests,” she said.
George is the APA’s representative on the Multi-Stakeholders Steering Commit-tee of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and the focal point for Indigenous Peoples organisations on the National Implementation Working Group of the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA).
The minister is a key government representative, she said, the APA should be speaking with on Indigenous affairs and rights issues including support for Indigenous communities on advocacy.
“A major land titling project [activity of the APA funded by the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility]* that began during the APNU+AFC government and which is supposed to be continued in partnership with this government is being stymied because we cannot discuss with the minister what either of us is doing. We have to work with government agencies like the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC).”
Orealla, which had issues relating to logging and forestry recently, she said, completed redefining its boundaries and the GLSC now has to send that completed information to the lands registry so a certificate of title can be issued to the village.
When Sukhai met with the APA in August 2020, George said, the minister declared she had followed the APA’s work and was aware the association was working to support communities and gathering recommendations for the revision of the Amerindian Act which she felt was good.
However, the minister also reportedly said the previous ministers and staff had left no records on the work they did for a revision of the act so she was not aware what documents were submitted.
Because it was a joint activity with the National Toshaos Council (NTC), George said, “The secretary of the NTC executive at the time resubmitted the documents. During a recent consultation with civil society led by the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira, Sukhai said she had not received the resubmitted documents.”
At present, the NTC is without an executive since the term of the last one expired and new elections were not held because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The APA, which provides a platform for collective representation of Indigenous Peoples, she said, is repeatedly questioned about its membership by governments. “When the APA, a legal body, is advocating for rights protection, justice, environmental, for the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and to be respected, we are not advocating only for our members but for all Indigenous Peoples in Guyana. The APA is important in lending support to communities to build their capacity to obtain information, raise awareness on national issues and building their capacity for representation.”
The office being in the city, she said, provides access to policymakers, the internet and the media to make representation based on communities’ engagement, priorities and concerns.
The APA is aware that toshaos and village leaders are being asked by government and opposition politicians about their association with the APA, George said. “That is disrespectful. It shows that politicians, regardless of who is in power, do not respect Indigenous Peoples right to decide to what organisation they should belong. Toshaos and other individuals have the constitutional right to belong to any group of their choice.”
Noting that during the height of the pandemic the leadership of the Upper Mazaruni District Council which comprises eight villages, decided not to take the COVID-19 vaccine because of trust issues, George said, “I explained in both our language and in English the reason they objected to the vaccines was because decisions were being made without them being consulted.”
Emergency measures were put in place without consulting them, she said, questioning how could Government expect the people to run with their mandates when they were not properly informed or consulted. “A large section of the people was not vaccinated. Based on their understanding they collectively decided not to be vaccinated. They refused to travel to Georgetown because they were required to produce a vaccination card.”
She said when ministers go to the people, they have advisors, lawyers, engineers, among others to provide them with information. “Indigenous Peoples have the right to seek support and guidance from other groups or technical persons. The APA has been providing that support.”
Among the support the APA provides, she said, is environmental monitoring in the Upper Mazaruni on the impacts of Indigenous miners and non-Indigenous miners in the rivers because their activities impact the environment and the villages’ right to clean and healthy waters.
While consulting with the grassroots is important Government does not provide adequate and timely information for Indigenous communities to caucus and understand the issues among themselves, George said adding they also do not have access to the internet and technical support to make timely and effective representation.
“Unless it is the intention of the PPP/C administration to continue practising their habit of not respecting independent voices. If Government is talking about good governance and the rule of law, part of the rule of law is that independent bodies should have oversight to hold them accountable.”
LCDS
In 2009 when the first LCDS steering committee was launched, George said, there were no terms of reference and the APA did not sit on the committee to rubber stamp a process that did not respect Indigenous Peoples. “We continued working from the outside to ensure our voices were heard on the development of the LCDS land titling project at that time.”
When the coalition government took office they invited the APA to meetings of the project board. The APA was able to make recommendations to improve the process of the Amerindian Land Titling Project, she said.
The APA, she said, also developed guidelines to support a process that respects the rights of Indigenous Peoples, to ensure that land titles are free of encumbrances, free of third-party interest or ownership or where there are third party issues, how these would be addressed under a grievance redress mechanism.
“Officials of the current administration say there was no work done by the previous administration but I am aware we tried to put guidelines in place so that when the titling is completed it respects the rights of Indigenous Peoples. I am not batting for any government.”
She does not know what has become of the guidelines. “Perhaps they are being looked at but we have not been included in meetings. We attended one meeting that was done virtually but since then no other meeting was held. We are aware Government is spending funds on some activities. As a project board member it would be important for the APA to be included in discussions on the way forward.”
Rolled out
The LCDS strategic document was launched by the current government during the second quarter of 2021. At the second meeting of the steering committee, George said, she found out that consultations were being rolled out. She made several recommendations on how the consultations should be held. Her concern was that the steering committee was holding the two-to-three-hour-long meeting in which presentations made by a government minister and technical persons took up most of the time. The remaining time was too short for residents to fully understand the presentations.
“Prior to the consultations I recommended the documents be sent to the communities with user friendly guides to give them time to understand it. I suggested that the train-the-trainers workshops for the Regional Democratic Councils to help with the LCDS consultations be extended to include resource persons including interpreters of Indigenous communities to understand the document. In some of our villages English is not our first language. So instead of just sitting and identifying someone on the spot to do the translation have them trained in understanding the technical jargons. That did not happen.”
At the level of the APA, George secured some copies and distributed two copies to each village in the Upper Mazaruni and a few to the Moruca District Council. “Without us going through it and breaking it down, it is difficult to understand. I am not pleased with the way it was rolled out.”
The President and Vice President are telling people at the consultations that this was not the first time Government was talking about the LCDS and they do not understand how the toshaos are saying the villagers do not understand or the time was too short to make decisions, George said. “If they did not understand how their concerns and rights will be addressed in this whole national strategy and its implementation in the first go round, they will never understand if they are not given the time to understand it”, George asserted.
She said it was difficult to understand because their concerns and rights are not contained in the LCDS because it was drafted without their input.
The APA, she said, had similar experiences with the APNU+AFC Government on the design of the Green State Development Strategy.
“They designed a strategy that affects Indigenous Peoples and then they come and expect us to endorse it. There is a lack of willingness to respect that we need time to understand it independently among ourselves”, she said.
The whole intent of the LCDS is to get money for the country and Indigenous Peoples, she said, need to understand they have a right to be included prior to the design of the strategy on how they may see development from the indigenous perspective.
At meetings at which the APA introduced the LCDS, George said concerns about their rights not being adequately protected arose from those meetings and these were sent in letters to the Office of the President, the Department of Environment and the Office of Climate Change.
“Government’s response demonstrated that they do not understand nor respect the right to FPIC and our concerns and how they are going to be addressed and incorporated into a revised draft.”
The APA would like to see the recommendations incorporated into a revised draft before it is taken to Parliament. For the successful implementation of the LCDS, the Amerindian Act will need to be revised, she said.
“Guyana has declared all forests including those on Indigenous Peoples lands, both titled and untitled, for carbon trading which violates the rights of Indigenous Peoples and our right to FPIC. We have been calling for recognition and protection for those lands and we can only have them if the law is changed to say that. The government is trying to justify this by saying that they were in a hurry and they had to do this.”
The redress mechanisms lack effective protections and the court system are not effective remedies for rights protection or to seek justice, George said.
Villagers and village leaders, she said, are reporting the minister as saying to them at public meetings in communities that the law does not need to be revised and not to listen to certain organisations that want it for their agenda.
“If communities are aware that the law does not provide adequate protection, we will speak to that. The minister and the government need to respect that.”
The APA was happy, she said, when President Irfaan Ali stated on two successive observations of Amerindian Heritage Month that laws will be updated to protect Indigenous Peoples rights. “We believed allocation would have been made in the national budget for this but there was none. It has to go beyond words.”
The APA’s support to resuscitate district councils in Regions One, Seven and Eight and Nine to have them gazetted as legal entities, George said, is to enable collective representations from which Indigenous Peoples can advocate for their own form of development and decision-making. “If we are talking about carbon markets, it might be an opportunity for the district councils to play the role of oversight within districts.”
With a rapidly growing oil-based economy, George said, “It would be an opportune time to ensure that environmental and human rights are protected. Not one for the other.”
Governments keep missing many opportunities for consultations with Indigenous Peoples, she said. “We were not consulted on the Natural Resource Fund. Perhaps there is space for revision to ensure that Indigenous Peoples have equitable access to resources and funding. The royalties from oil and gas and the foreign investment expansion will lend to larger hinterland infrastructure development. How might that impact Indigenous Peoples? It should have been an opportunity for Indigenous Peoples to be included, to decide how that can happen and how they can design mitigation plans and design grievance redress mechanisms.”
*Editor’s Note: The fifth paragraph of this story has been updated to clarify the project that was being referred to.