Decrying what it says is the ignoring of the ‘battery of legal support’ available to the Government of Guyana to protect Amerindian communities from the impacts of small and medium scale mining, the Guyana Human Rights Association [GHRA] says that the GGMC must be held accountable for the devastation and not its junior officers.
This scenario of devastation, the GHRA said in a press release yesterday, has been repeated for decades, the more recent examples of lawlessness being found in the Marudi Mountain area of South Rupununi, the Potaro River, and Baramita, the Carib community in Region 1. The human rights body said that systematic tolerance for a range of legal and administrative breaches of all of the Acts related to mining is now institutionalized in the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission [GGMC].
In its press release, GHRA said though it is welcoming of Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s ‘concern’ for the well-being of the Chinese Landing community currently besieged by miners, “It is patently clear that the (GGMC) as an institution, not a few junior officers, is responsible”. The GHRA statement was in response to Jagdeo’s recent comment that “individuals at the junior level of Government” must be responsible. The GHRA press release further argued that, “Until that institution is thoroughly and urgently reformed from top to bottom, the scandalous squandering of Guyana’s natural mining assets and systematic undermining of community life of Guyana’s indigenous peoples will continue.”
The GHRA release referenced the ‘battery of legal support’, all of which was designed to safeguard Amerindian communities and available to the government, including the Mining Ordinance No. 1 of 1903 which states: ‘All land occupied or used by the Aboriginal Indians, and all land necessary for the quiet enjoyment by the Aboriginal Indians of any Indian Settlement, shall be deemed to be lawfully occupied by them’ (section 173). Similar provisions are found in State Lands Act, cap. 62:01. 1972 Section 42(2) –Amerindian rights or privilege ‘Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prejudice, alter, or affect any right or privilege heretofore legally possessed, exercised, or enjoyed by any Amerindian in Guyana. Provided that the Minister may, from time to time, by publication in the Gazette, make any regulations defining the privileges and rights to be enjoyed by Amerindians, in relation to the State lands and rivers and creeks of Guyana,’ the Water and Sewerage Act Cap. 30-01 2002 –section 94 ‘(1) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prejudice, alter or affect any right, privilege, freedom or usage possessed or exercised by law or by custom by any person,’ and the Amerindian Act 2006 Section 48 which relates to all permissions miners are required to obtain from the Village Council and Section 14 that lists all the by-laws affecting life in the community that miners are required to obey.
Despite this ‘battery of legal support’ at its disposal, says GHRA, the Government seems to project the impression that the courts are the main obstacle frustrating its policies to promote the well-being of indigenous communities. A more logical reading of the situation, GHRA suggests, is that it is the GGMC unwillingness to apply the laws that is the source of the problem. The ‘quiet enjoyment’ clause [Mining Ordinance No. 1 of 1903] should have served as a deterrent to the GGMC issuing small-scale mining claim licences or medium-scale mining permits unless a due diligence check had determined that there was no Amerindian traditional occupation or customary resource use in each requested area. In practice, as shown in the High Court cases in 2009 (Arau Village) and 2012-2013 (Isseneru Village), GHRA says that such checks appear not to have been made and mining concessions have been issued by the GGMC over titled and untitled Amerindian lands without the knowledge of the Amerindian communities.
Environmental permit
GHRA noted that another powerful legal tool available to impeding destructive mining should have been enforcement of the requirements for an environmental permit (EP) for every mine operation, backed by an environmental impact assessment (EIA) (Environmental Protection Act 1996, Section 11 and Schedule 4, item 9). GHRA noted that this Section requires an environmental permit for any project which may significantly affect the environment. The Schedule lists the ‘extraction and conversion of mineral resources’ as examples of such a project. In other words, the GHRA release says, all mining concessions should be associated with EIAs and EPs because all mining has a significant effect on the environment, at the level of hydraulic mining technology as used in Guyana. GHRA says that this issue was raised in 2013 because it appeared that the GGMC had not been enforcing such requirements for small- or medium-scale enforcement of the requirement. That being the case, GHRA concluded that all current small-scale mining claim licences and river dredges were and are out of compliance.
The GHRA release said another means available to the Agency is Section 11 in the same Environmental Protection Act (1996). This Section relates to the control of the use and emissions of metallic mercury and the incidence and scale of mercury methylation released into the environment and food chain, with repercussions on human health. Adverse effects have been documented in a number of well-researched Reports, by indigenous bodies and NGOs. According to the human rights body, how the superficial visit to the Chinese Landing community by the GGMC team could have assessed the impact of mercury raises more skepticism. Noting that the degradation of Guyana’s rivers and surrounding lands has risen significantly since the introduction of ‘draga’ dredges, GHRA reminded that a clear link between global warming and deforestation is well established. REDD+, the release opined, lasted as a deterrent on mining only as long as Norwegian payments to the State exceeded income from mining. Once gold prices rose again, REDD+ and Guyana’s progressive stance on the environment evaporated. Neither the well-being of current indigenous communities, nor Guyana’s obligations to future generations of Guyanese loom sufficiently large to deter decision-makers whose only interest in natural resources appears to be the price tag.
GHRA observed that there is no evidence that the Amerindian Act 2006 Section 48, adopted in 1997 on mining and which includes the sentence ‘Government has decided that recognised Amerindian land would stand exempted from any survey, prospecting or mineral agreements unless the agreement of the Captain and Council for the proposal is obtained by the GGMC in writing’ has been applied at least for the last two decades.
