Chinese Landing yesterday took its case against mining on its lands to the National Toshaos Council (NTC) conference and blasted the government response to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) resolution calling for precautionary measures to protect villagers.
With a national stage in the capital city, Toshao Orin Fernandes waded into the government at a closed session after President Irfaan Ali had spoken at the opening.
Fernandes called for solidarity from the 200 indigenous leaders gathered and demanded that controversial miner Wayne Vieira depart from the village’s Tassawini lands.
The Toshao traced the origins of the controversy and called for the revocation of Vieira’s permits in the north west village.
Fernandes argued that years of inaction by the government had forced Chinese Landing to approach the IACHR.
He said that 2021 was the first time that Chinese Landing initiated legal proceedings against Vieira and the GGMC.
“Our case was thrown out in the High Court without even a hearing and is currently sitting before the Court of Appeal. Our people have been suffering and continue to suffer.
“It is the suffering of our people that caused us to seek redress at the level of the …IACHR. We approached the IACHR on March 8, 2023 seeking precautionary measures to protect us”, Fernandes said.
He added that the village is grateful that, on July 21, 2023, the IACHR found that villagers are in a “serious and urgent situation” with our rights to life and personal integrity at serious risk. As a result, IACHR requested the Government to:
take the necessary measures to protect villagers’ rights to life and personal integrity with a cultural, gender-based, and age-appropriate perspective to prevent threats, harassment, and other acts of violence against us;
consult and agree upon the measures to be adopted with us and our representatives; and
report on the actions taken to investigate the events that led to the adoption of this precautionary measure, so as to prevent such events from reoccurring.
Fernandes told the gathering that while the IACHR’s recommendations were clear and outlined what the government needed to do, “we are deeply disappointed that the government has chosen rather to engage in frivolous fact-finding. On August 6, 2023, the government sent a fact-finding team headed by Member of Parliament Alister Charlie and included Deputy Com-missioner of the Guyana Geology Mines Commission (GGMC) Jimmy Reece and representatives from the Ministry of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, Guyana Police Force and the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance to our community. We were clear that we are tired of talking and require action”.
Fernandes said that the villagers told the team that the government must immediately revoke the mining permits of Vieira and order all the miners to remove from Chinese Landing’s titled land. In addition to this, village residents made other proposals for the implementation of the IACHR’s precautionary measures decision. These included removing the firearms of the miners and security guards on the blocks, positioning new police officers (without ties to the miners) in the village until our security of the lands is restored, and speeding up the resolution of our court case.
“We have not heard anything from the team or the government since they left our community that evening. The only positive action the government has taken is to say that they are halting mining temporarily. But we should say that from what we know, miners continue to work when the GGMC officers are not present”, Fernandes declared.
He called on the NTC act to protect the rights of indigenous peoples.
“Therefore, we now call on the NTC as a body and all Toshaos across Guyana to stand resolute with Chinese Landing and its people. We call on this entire conference to support the call for:
The revocation of Mr. Wayne Vieira’s mining permits;
The removal of all outside mining equipment;
Removal of all firearms owned by the outside miners from our community; and
Mechanisms to protect our safety”, Fernandes declared.
He added: “We call on the NTC to advocate on our behalf for the government to allow Chinese Landing residents to continue their subsistence mining activities since there are no other means of earning a living in our community. Chinese Landing residents have been mining responsibly and for the benefit of our community, unlike Mr. Vieira, therefore we should be allowed to work”.
Situated on the Barama River, Fernandes noted that the village has a population of approximately 210 persons across 45 households and first received title to part of its lands in 1976 under the old Amerindian Act. In 1991 the title was reissued under the State Lands Act and a certificate of title was received in 2018.
Small mining has been a source of income for the peoples of Chinese Landing for decades but he said this all changed in 1995 when the government sold Vieira four mining block in the Tassawini area, which is located in the centre of Chinese Landing titled lands. This, he said, was done without the free, prior and informed consent of our peoples. Between 1998 and 2001, the prospecting licenses were converted to medium-scale mining permits and issued to Mr. Vieira by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission.
In 1998, the Village signed an agreement with Vieira but Fernandes said that the people never understood the contents of that agreement since the Toshao was unable to properly read and was coerced into signing. Nevertheless, he said that Vieira never honoured the contents of that agreement which had varying stipulations.
In 2004, Fernandes said that they began registering their objection to the agreement and asked the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs to cancel it. Former Minister of Amerindian Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues had written to the GGMC informing that the Village no longer had an agreement with Vieira.
Following the passage and enactment of the Amerindian Act of 2006, Fernandes pointed out that the GGMC attempted to enforce sections of the Act, which required medium scale miners to get permission from the village to enter and mine inside titled lands, and issued a cease work order on Vieira in 2010. However, Vieira brought a claim against the GGMC to court, and the case made its way through the Guyanese judiciary. In December 2017, Guyana’s highest court, the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that GGMC officers had no authority to issue cease work orders to enforce the Amerindian Act 2006 because there was no established mechanism in the Act to enable GGMC officers to enforce that law. Instead, the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs has to enforce the Amerindian Act.
“Since then, the Government and other authorities have been hiding behind that judgement without recognizing that the peoples of Chinese Landing are continually in the face of imminent danger. Toshaos, during the entire court proceedings between the GGMC and Mr. Wayne Vieira, we, the people of Chinese Landing, were shut out. We were not informed of any proceedings in court that involved the resources on our titled land. From what we know, no one – not the government or GGMC – ever told the court that we had title over our lands. They didn’t make any arguments to the court about our constitutionally protected rights”, Fernandes asserted.
He added: “Our people are suffering and many of you are aware that the government has temporarily halted mining on the village lands and that shows that they have the power to revoke the mining permits of Mr. Vieira’s and return Chinese Landing’s land to the community. Therefore, I encourage all of you here to stand in solidarity with your fellow indigenous peoples and call for our rights to be respected and safety be restored in Chinese Landing.
“We call on the NTC to advocate on our behalf for the government to allow Chinese Landing residents to continue their subsistence mining activities since there are no other means of earning a living in our community. Chinese Landing residents have been mining responsibly and for the benefit of our community, unlike Mr. Vieira, therefore we should be allowed to work”.
