Those of us who live on the coast probably have very little idea of what goes on in some of our border regions. It was the AFP which two days ago carried a feature on Mango Landing, a small settlement in the Wenamu River, close to the Cuyuni River. It is an isolated village, and the main occupation unsurprisingly is mining. The news agency reported that a few years ago the population there numbered four or five hundred, but that nowadays it is only one hundred or less. A decline in gold extraction coupled with the major price increases consequent on the economic decline in Venezuela, caused many inhabitants to leave.
These Cuyuni border communities are dependent for their survival on what they can buy from Venezuela. Robinson Flores, a fifty-two year-old Venezuelan who has lived there for eight years told the AFP, “Everything that arrives here, arrives through Venezuela: food, gasoline, medicine, clothing.” A journey to the coast would involve a river journey of a few days, which is hardly a practical way to supply the settlement. What applies to Mango Landing also applies to all the Guyanese mining operations along the Cuyuni and Wenamu Rivers.
The current crisis generated by President Nicolás Maduro has resulted in further dramatic increases in the price of goods, the agency being told that the cost of gasoline has since doubled or even tripled, and that a can of tuna now costs US$5 and a Coca-Cola more than seven. The situation is aggravated by the bribes which have to be paid out. One Venezuelan miner was quoted as saying, “We used to pay the Venezuelan soldiers and the syndicates, then the police here. Now there are more military posts, they ask for more money.” Cindy Francis, a Guyanese woman married to a miner told the AFP, “Until now everything was fine, but now everything is too expensive.”
There is a police station there which was reinforced two weeks ago by the GDF.
While the coastal population is probably aware that everything in that area has to be supplied from Venezuela, they may not know how mixed the population is in terms of nationality. Mango Landing comprises not just Indigenous people as well as other Guyanese, but also Venezuelans and Brazilians. Most of the people who have left the village for economic reasons are, it was reported, Venezuelan nationals. What the AFP did not indicate was what percentage of the population was accounted for by Guyanese. What applies to Mango Landing probably applies to some other mining settlements in the area; gold will inevitably attract Brazilians and Venezuelans, particularly the latter given that their homeland is just a river crossing away.
Whatever the stresses between nations, at the personal level in Mango Landing there is no hostility.
“We all live together well, no problem,” Doriely Garcia, a 30-year-old Venezuelan cook whose partner is an Indigenous Guyanese was quoted as saying. Another resident said he greeted both Guyanese soldiers and Venezuelans when they passed his home.
This far from central authority the residents do not expect governments to help them. “We survive with what we have,” said Mr Flores. When asked by the news agency whether Essequibo was Venezuelan or Guyanese, Ms Francis, whose home is adorned with a picture of President Irfaan Ali, was quoted as responding, “It doesn’t matter! We have to think about making a living without help from governments. So that doesn’t change anything.” For his part, Mr Flores’ view was, “The politicians do their thing and we pay the price.”
The AFP described Mango Landing as a settlement of three or four dirt streets where there were any number of advertisements for alcoholic products. There are bars, it was said, which were “crammed with bottles waiting for a customer,” and nearby there was a place where sex workers plied their trade. “A lot of work, no distractions. We come here to drink, to have fun, to listen to music,” said one resident. If this suggests a semi-functioning economy in at least one small sector, that is not the case in general. The news agency referred to Milton Shameer, the owner of a dilapidated shop who had a customer “this morning”, while the last one was two days ago. Some parts of the community, were described as being like a ghost town, with many wooden houses abandoned.
Yet for some of those who stay there are clearly advantages. The AFP interviewed 30-year-old Venezuelan Lionel Coro who is not a miner, and earns his living transporting oil, diesel and food by mule for US$100 per 100 kg. His verdict was, “We live much better here than in Venezuela. Well, my situation is stable. If there is a problem [with the Essequibo], we will all lose, Venezuelans and Guyanese.”
While the military and police are presumably aware of how the frontier functions in these areas, one wonders if central government is fully aware of just how fluid the population situation is. The Indigenous people have never taken much notice of political boundaries, and in some parts of the country still traverse their traditional routes as their forebears did. But it seems that in the Cuyuni areas there is little respect for them by non-Indigenous citizens either. If nowadays the traffic seems to be from Venezuela to Guyana, in the 1980s it was the other way around, and it is certainly known that some Guyanese went to work in the mines on the other side of the Cuyuni at that time.
Two days ago it was reported in the Venezuelan press that there had been an identification exercise for citizens from ‘Guayana Esequiba’ which was held in Tumeremo. In the first three days, the so-called director for the purported new state was reported as alleging there were more than 400 citizens who were ‘assisted’. He was quoted directly as saying: “Currently more than 500 Esquibanos citizens are in the process of formalizing identification and this is just the beginning of the incorporation of the social plans advanced by the Commander in Chief and President Nicolás Maduro, to guarantee the social rights provided by the Constitution.”
If the immediate Guyanese reaction is that he won’t find 500 Essequibans who want a Venezuelan ID card, the numbers, even if exaggerated perhaps, should not be dismissed out of hand. It may be that these are nationals from Venezuela who have been living on our side of the frontier and have left after finding mining there unprofitable. Some of them too may be Venezuelan migrants, perhaps even of Guyanese origin, who consider there might be some economic advantage to be gained by registering under the scheme. Apart from anything else, there are the 120 houses to be built outside San Martín, which presumably are free.
The central government has never bothered very much about what goes on in the Cuyuni, and perhaps it is about time they took a greater interest so they know exactly what is going on there, and what the needs of citizens in this remote area are. It is all very well to send in the GDF and beef up the police, but their duties are very specific and not related to general welfare needs. What the government needs first is a fact-finding mission, so it gets an accurate picture of the situation, and apart from anything else, can pay attention to allegations of corruption. After that, it can mull the options for how it can establish regular contact with the area and assist with its needs so its inhabitants feel a part of the Guyanese polity.
