Dear Editor,
Once again descendants of former African slaves are being pitted against descendants of Indian indentured labourers in Guyana by the Jagdeo/Ali Regime. Africans have received support for reparative justice from descendants of the Gladstone family, a former Plantations’ owner resulting in much public pronouncement from the Government of Guyana, which injected itself as the authority to speak on behalf of African Guyanese on all matters, even those bearing grave sentiments to Africans. The pronouncements serve to highlight President Irfaan Ali’s failure to acknowledge reparation is about compensation for forced unpaid labour committed during slavery and not with the paid worker system under indentureship. As such, the African community sendS a clear message to the Ali/Jagdeo regime that we shall not countenance any act that devalues the contribution of our forebears to the economic development of this country.
The only similarity, comparative to chattel slavery, lies in the fact that both slaves and indentured workers worked the same plantations under colonial masters. Plantation slavery and the sufferings of the Africans over 300 years remains incomparable to any other production, migration and inhumane system, experienced by any other group of people in this world. Africans do not wear this claim as a badge of honour but as a BADGE of HORROR of other humans displaying their inhumanity, greed and exploitation of another. We wear this as a badge of horror to tell our story to remind and protect others that such inhumanity should never be repeated. We remind that Africans were denied personal identity, were owned as property of another human, stripped of history, classified as subhuman alongside the poultry and cattle stock on the plantations. They were paid no wages, had no choice hours of rest as they worked from dawn to dusk, their lives were not valued, they had no country representative negotiating a contract of work. Let it be simply put – slavery is slavery and indentureship is indentureship.
The Ali/ Jagdeo regime has no moral authority to speak on our behalf on an issue they care less about. Ali does not care that he is usurping and undermining the structured reparation work being done by CARICOM Reparations Commission on behalf of descendants of Africans in the region. He brings chaos, creating hostility, and dysfunction to a process that is thus far conducted in a deliberative manner. There is no doubt CARICOM would have had the names of those families who were involved in slavery.
The Ali regime can start by correcting the issues that brings justice to African Guyanese. A few are listed hereunder: – Respecting Collective Bargaining consistent with Section 23(1) of the Trade Union Recognition Act; Have the Labour Minister and Chief Labour Officer convene a meeting between the Bauxite Company Guyana Inc., (BCGI) and the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) to address the severance benefits due to hundreds of workers since 2020, and, put systems in place for the regularisation, return and/or compensation of all ancestral lands to the various African families.
Return all cooperatives to their members, this has been the sector where the African economy thrives; Respect the constitutional right to free education from nursery to university, the removal of this right has severely affected the African community and opportunities for upward mobility; Meet with the Leader of the Opposition to confirm the appointment of acting Chancellor Yonette Cummings-Edwards and acting Chief Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire. Return state-subventions to IDPADA-G, Critchlow Labour College, and other institutions that pursue Africans’ interest, or by their work, stand to benefit; examine and treat the bauxite company in Region10/Berbice River through the identical lens used to treat the sugar industry in Region Six; Inject soft loans and grants into African communities across the country, with a view of giving opportunities to existing and potential businesses; Meet with stakeholders, including the APNU+AFC, to conceptualise and develop and institute an Affirmative Action programme that addresses historical and existing structures which places the African community at a disadvantage.
At the core of this issue is Ali wants to set the African agenda, dictate who should be their leaders, and whether Africans thrive or fail. Ali touched on Plantation Success, East Coast Demerara, which the Gladstone family once owned. This nation is reminded that the Ali/Jagdeo regime, shortly after entering office in 2020, flooded the lands to force people off. They engaged in an inhumane act to evict persons and undermine their right to economic self-determination on the pretext GuySuCo wanted to cultivate canes. Freed people bought plantation Success. Ali brings no moral authority to any conversation on reparations given the nature of his regime and treatment of the African man, woman and child. Enough is enough!
Sincerely,
Lincoln Lewis