Chair of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) Derrick John is maintaining that the complaints of rights violations in the Region Seven indigenous community of Isseneru should not have been referred to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
John, who had previously taken an identical stance in 2014, reiterated the view during a recent interview with Sunday Stabroek on the sidelines of the launch of Amerindian Heritage Month.
“This thing should not have reached the IACHR and we did not know that the village went there until after they did,” he said.
Back in 2014, John was serving as Chair of the NTC and during an address to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, he said, “The National Toshaos Council is concerned about the irresponsible action of the Amerindian Peoples Association which has influenced a particular village to advance a case on land and mining issues to the IACHR without exhausting all domestic remedies.”
He added, “The National Toshaos Council wishes to state that the case referred to is misleading and does not represent the true situation, as Guyana has one of the more sophisticated processes of securing land rights for Amerindian peoples.”
The Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) is a civil society advocacy body furthering the cause of indigenous peoples and communities. The government has had a contentious relationship with the APA for a number of reasons.
Isseneru, an indigenous community consisting largely of people from the Akawaio nation, and the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA), approached the IACHR on September 5, 2013, arguing that the government had violated the rights of the community and its members to property, equality before the law, justice and a fair trial, to the protection of mothers and children, to the preservation of health and wellbeing, and to enjoy the benefits of culture. All of these rights were protected by several Articles of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man.
The appeal to the IACHR partly stemmed from two High Court rulings against the village’s objections to mining projects. Back in 2013, Justice Diana Insanally made orders granted to miner Joan Chang against the Isseneru Village Council and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) binding. Members of the Village Council had claimed that the mining company was mining on titled lands without the council’s permission under the Amerindian Act and despite subsequent Cease Work Orders (CWOs) issued by the GGMC mining officer. Justice Insanally pointed out in her ruling that by virtue of Chang being granted a licence to mine prior to the coming into operation of the Amerindian Act of 2006, the Village Council had no authority to stop the operation and the GGMC no authority to issue the CWOs.
On August 13, 2008, a similar judgment was made in the High Court in the case of Lalta Naraine v Isseneru. The case of Naraine has been appealed and is languishing at the Court of Appeal since 2008/2009 according to the villagers.
On Tuesday, John – who is also toshao of Moraikobai village in Region Five – told Sunday Stabroek that as head of the toshaos representative body, he is concerned about anything that affects the lives of indigenous peoples.
“So we sympathize with them and we hope that we can able to bring an early solution to the problems [particularly in Chinese Landing and Isseneru]. It is really hard when there are problems in the villages and there is hardly any solution,” he said.
Top priority?
Soon after his election to the helm of the NTC, for the second time, John told this publication that the land and mining issues in Isseneru and Chinese Landing in Region One are top priority for the new executive. However, less than one month later he has abandoned that position, noting that upcoming Heritage Month activities are more pressing for the Council.
When asked directly whether his position, as expressed before the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues remains the same, John explained that he still believes that the issues should not have been taken to the IACHR and that the community was influenced.
“Well [back in 2014] we had taken the right approach and [were] trying to address it at the local level and having all of the stakeholders have a roundtable discussion. I don’t think that it should have been [elevated to the IACHR] because there’s a lot of things that we could have addressed right here before,” he said.
Pressed on what more the NTC could have done to address the issues faced by Isseneru, John said “Well, we would have a mature conversation with the village and the government and also included NTC. But honestly, when that [complaint to the IACHR] was done NTC was not aware of the situation until it reached the highest forum.”
John’s ascension to the helm of the NTC was met with some scepticism because of the fact that he is seen as sympathetic to the government. He was selected to deliver the opening address at the National Toshaos Conference, last month, after the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs sidelined the former executive body. Hours after his address praising the PPP/C government, he was elected as Chair of the NTC.
Asked about this, John said that he has always been impartial, adding “Well, I can tell that there’s a lot of people who can fabricate their own concept of how they think it [the elections] went but it was the democratic process. I am not worried about that,”
Asked whether visiting the community is still on his agenda, the NTC Chair said that it will happen but not any time soon. He said that while the Council remains concerned about the situation, they hope the community can formally request intervention but added that the NTC will visit regardless.
“Well, I know that there’s still an ongoing issue there [in Isseneru] and I have been out of office for several years now and coming back into office, I know that there is still an ongoing issue there. So we again, yes, we have put some renewed focus there,” he said during the interview.
Reflecting on his visit to the community back in 2013, John said that the residents there did not afford the team the “welcome we were expecting.” He refused to explain what he meant by that.
“We did made a trip to Isseneru and honestly speaking, our acceptance there was not something that we had hoped for. Because we had went there to be a fact-finding mission and I think that our welcome was not what we had expected. However we still did our work and we had created a report that we submitted to the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs,” he said before terminating the interview.
IACHR said that government is responsible for at least 16 violations of the rights of the Isseneru community and its members and recommended that reparations be granted to the village as well as that government employs the necessary measures to support Isseneru and its members in their duty to preserve and protect the environment, particularly in relation to the mining operations that the community undertakes on its ancestral lands.
Additionally, the IACHR advised government to “…amend its legislation in order to secure that the provisions of the relevant Acts and regulations related to indigenous territorial property are in harmony with the American Declaration, in accordance with international law …”
The IACHR report informed that the state failed to grant Isseneru title over its entire ancestral territory despite the community demonstrating that it is a primarily Akawaio village, that it is set within Akawaio territory and, among others, it needs the full extent of the territory to pursue livelihood and survival. Additionally, it further concluded that the community’s rights to health, water, food and a healthy environment were violated by the negative impacts of mining in the community particularly contamination of waterways.
Isseneru’s leaders have called for the government to visit the community so that a way forward can be determined as it relates to the recommendations. Additionally, they have noted increased activities by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) since the IACHR’s recommendation.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira had said that government met the June 20 deadline for responding to the IACHR but declined to divulge any other information on the response. She added that the document will remain confidential until the IACHR decides to release it to the public.
IACHR had denied the government’s request for a hearing before the full Commission on state violations of the rights of the Isseneru community and instead granted it a three-month extension to respond to the report of its findings.
This now means that the government has until September to submit its response to the IACHR.
The IACHR is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS) with a mission to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere. It is composed of seven independent members who serve in a personal capacity. Created by the OAS in 1959, the Commission has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. together with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
