DAM! DOUBLE DAM!

Imagine that, this got not a post except by Cain when it is about first peoples and their natural patrimony. It is a  shame a half educated dalit judge can override what pre existed the state ( per a long list of treaties) on the sanctity of indigenous lands) and  what was affirmed ( promised legally and explicitly by the PPP and PNC) that if  there is any over reach in Amerind territories be it with improper demarcation or illegal squatting; native rights is sacrosanct. The stupid and backward reading of the law allows for our villages and titled lands to be fair game to outsiders. Not the Dutch, the English and even Burnham ever trampled on us as this.

The fortunate thing that will comes out of this is  the recognition that the  carpetbaggers in office are grasping perfidious skunks. They deliberately left native people open to predation by their improper,demanding, oversight and subsequent negligence in defining our legitimate claims. That they set themselves as the definers is the biggest insult. It is our damn land and all others are  by definition interlopers. The definition should be in the legacy of colonial law.

I hope this is the butterfly effect; that which makes native people stand up to these crooks who are more concerned with enriching themselves than assuring we are protected. Obviously, Indians forget that the british for the most part abandoned them here and as guests being accommodated and given a share of the house they cannot now demand all of it. That is a war cry. We like the Negroes and most Indians who remain grovelling poor are  the new dalits to these PPPite crooks.

There is indeed a quest by elected oligarchs to control the resource space and all economic opportunities in Guyana. The oligarchs believe that by controlling the natural resources they will be able to buy off people while enriching themselves. I think we will see cases upon cases like these. On a related issue, Guyana is sliding down the road to authoritarianism with Rohee's fake police "reform".  It's just a fake reform like the previous constitutional gerrymandering that allows for coalitions before elections and not after was another fake reform. Only the Indigenous folks can discipline the PPP. With East Indians now down to 43% they can send the decisive blow. They will need to guard against the soupatunists like Peter Persaud who is singing loudly for his supper. However, Indigenous folks can only have real development if they get control of the resources under their feet. They must ditch their leaders who only deliver outboard engines and small gifts. 

The majority AFC/PNC coalition in parliament should work to repeal the Amerindian act which allows licensed miners to mine instead of fools calling for gun war.

The judge was merely interpreting the act of 2006

Justice Diana Insanally ruled yesterday that under the Amerindian Act 2006, the Amerindians, second defendants in the land dispute matter, have no authority or jurisdiction to prevent licenced miners from doing so.

 The Judge is a mal educated ass with a shallow two years experience on the bench on land cases with little on the kinds of case as this which demands a scholar of some insight to take into condition the requirement for the law. It is a pre independence agreement that details what belongs to Amerinds and that is grounded in treaties dating back to the dutch. Our independence was contingent on those conditions being accepted as a prerequisite to the founding of the state. The 2006 law is just an iteration of that precedence. That the dunce takes the initiation of the laws as 2006 demonstrates her shallowness at lest and her complicity with the PPP crooks at worse.

As for a war, Amerindians have no alternative when they face genocide. Look to what is the recourse in Ecuador when faced with a similar circumstance. It is time we become militant rather than accepting. We have gotten no where by asking the land hungry greedy dalits and children of slaves to care about us. They are to psychically damaged  for the most part in a war to redefine themselves and their identity and establish a sense of place to belong to in this world to think we matter. We are in their way.

A lot of verbiage with no reference to the facts. Slow us where the magistrate misinterpreted the Amerindian Act of 2006. And you are truly full of yourself to proclaim that the honorable Insanally to be an ass just because you don't like her ruling. The claim was already grandfathered in prior to the 2006 act. You fools like to run your mouths without the necessary analysis.

Insanally however responded that the above regularities were not necessary, sinceChang already had a mining licence prior to the 2006 Amerindian Act coming into effect.

There are provisions, it was made known, for persons already in possession of mining licences to have access to purported Amerindian titled land.  In that light, the village does not have right to cease mining work or intervene in the matter, the judge indicated.

 

 You like most Guyanese are ignorant of who we are, what are our rights and from whence they came. First, defacto the land is ours all of it. We were there for going on 15 thousand years and Indians and Africans are recent comers. The latter came as slaves undillingly and with no homeland to return to are here as they earned their way in. Indians are indentured, contract workers, they came to to work for a time not to stay. That they stayed was because they could not go back on account of being deceived. None of that give Indians or Africans natural patrimony but one inherited on the conditions of their arrival as slaves or indentured. In Fiji, the natives there being almost a majority were able to enforce that right constitutionally when they felt they were overwhelmed by newcomers.

Second, we were never defeated in a war but were recognized as the owner of the land and signed treaties with the dutch and the English, Those treaties merged in the early 18 hundred with the merging of the colonies. Thirdly, at the initiation of the independence from Britain, our natural patrimony was a precondition to independence. We did not come into being per this ignorant carpetbagger judge in 2006.  Lastly, If we do hold paper titles then we have a fundamental disagreement. We are being over run by interlopers who are attempting cultural genocide. We have no alternative but to resist. This is not like Indians complaining about blacks about power expressions this is the erasing of a people by a crooked cabal called the PPP.

Every time I pass a glance at the tribal and village markings the shaiman cut into my skin when I was a young lad I think of my fellow bucks who I lived with in Watooka. What has become of them since the PPP started to lease and sell off the jungle? Is it now time for a call to arms and reclaim the tribal lands?

Whether in Guyana, Canada, US-of-A, etc., underground mineral resources belong to the state and not to the occupants of the land.

First you claim to be a Black man, next an Indian who was chased out of Linden, now you are a Buck man. ahahhahhaa

First you evade the question of the ruling where in a state of hysteria you claimed that the judge was an ass. Next you are really a White man with knowledge of Guyana limited to what you can scrape off the internet. That is why you put your foot in your mouth about a Sakiwinki being a bird. Thirdly the Amerindians, like the American Indians and many other "native" people, lost their land to the British, Dutch, conquerors.  Before you shoot crap about ancestral land, go tell the US to return the land the the American Indians and Hawaiians. 

 I not only claim the judge has the legal scope of a donkeys ass, I suspect one cannot be so dense unless she was in complicity with the crooks in the PPP. How can one not know that the 2006 act was pre dated with previous acts and these themselves rely for their legal authority on colonial law?

I guess you can claim we lost our land no less than any other people who had interlopers stealing from them. In acknowledgement of that theft the UN has a declaration of the rights of native peoples. you should read it. Every other state has laws protecting lands, some weaker than others and each with their own precedence. Ours is as it is, dutch handing us over to the British with our treaties intact and the British in Annex C informing the signatories at the founding of our state that we have inherited all rights per our agreements with them. You not knowing this and the PPP conveniently choosing to neglect that fact is not my ignorance but their intent to steal.

That you chose to be like any Indian carpetbagger failing to acknowledge your sorry dalit behind was used abused and abandoned in our home world. And what gives you the right to appeal to the dutch as conquerors for the basis of your right to the land? Knucklehead, you are children of contract workers who  were the dredges of your own homeworld. Our land is your land only because it rescued your sorry pathetic ass. To insist you know have authority over us to do as you please are not only fighting words, they are truly evil words. Your lot would have been no less than that of Indians in fiji because you are as you are; wanting more than you are entitled to. At least the Indians in fiji tried to reconcile and acknowledge the natives there!

You see what Burnham and the GDF did to them in 1969.  Better shet yuh ole rass and gwan da side.

 What has that to do with land rights? I suggest you watch what is happening in Ecuador, Bolivia and note Chavez gained his political status on the backs of native cultures.  Defending the naked corrupt decision yesterday is a watershed for the PPP. They already will have to beg their way out of this one since native peoples are not on their side if no one is on theirs. The PPP is definitely, by this decision made that clear

You have spears, blowguns and poison arrows. Why do you need guns?

You are no lawyer, so don't fool yourself into believing that you can interpret a treaty and pronounce that a magistrate is an ass. Leave that to the qualified folks like Ramjattan, Nagamootoo and Nigel.  The Amerindians never had the land so how can the lose what they never owned. Where are their land titles, where was their sovereign government that was overthrown when the Dutch and British landed and took over?  

 I am no lawyer but what she said was patently stupid. The 2006 Act was a revision and not the instance the amerind act came into law.

Every colonial power affirm that they had land so take your silly behind and go get educated on the issue before you open you stupid mouth.

Correct on ownership of land .. but an individual or native group do not own the natural resources that lie below the ground.

The respective government owns the resources below the land

When natural resources are discovered for marketing, the company has access to the sources. They then make agreements to pay the owner or native group an annual fee for access to extract the resources and maintain the site.

If there are disagreements for the access agreement, a Court can then make the binding arrangements.

This is the ruling:

The point of her error is the idea of counting the 2006 Amerind act as the origination of the law . The 2006 act is an update of the act of 76 which itself is a consolidation of Amerind claims that pre existed the state.

Further, the the Amerind act takes into consideration that if errors are made ie leases were given in territories not yet demarcated by  the 2006  date but which was determined to be Amerind land, the  leases etc given leases etc are treated as if they never existed.After all, you cannot blame Amerinds for the tardiness of the government in not formalizing the law or mistakenly given away Amerind lands. The Judge's ruling is narrow, shallow and demonstrate clear bias against the rights of native peoples.

The government has always maintained that point before the international community because Amerind complained of the give away of lands that they claim. They always said they will correct such injustices and that they should is a legal standard in the law that no one can give away what is not theirs to give away. That the law came to be crafted in 2006 represent a delay due to negligence of the government and native peoples cannot be penalized for their tardiness. This judge should have come down on the side of prudence not ignorance.

Re: Joan Chang, gold miner, versus Isseneru Village Council

Dear Editor,

From the limited Press reporting on this case, it seems that both the
Judge and the gold miner, Joan Chang, the holder of the mining licence, who is suing the Isseneru Amerindian Village Council (AVC), are unaware of the laws safeguarding Amerindian rights.

The AVC appears to be within its rights to defend its lands, in the absence of any prior information available to the community about the existence of a mining licence prior to the granting of communal title to Isseneru.  The holder of the licence should be addressing her concerns to the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC), the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (MoAA) because of their apparent error or errors.  The court appears to have been at fault in admitting the civil suit, which is misdirected.

Isseneru Village received communal title in 1997, under the Amerindian Act (AA 1951, amended to 1976). Through that Act, titles were granted by Ministerial Order (AA 1951, Article 3 (a)): ‘All the rights, titles and
interests of the State in and over the lands situate within the boundaries of any . . . Village shall . . . be deemed to be transferred to and vested in the respective Council for and on behalf of the Amerindian Community’ (AA 1976, Article 20A (1)).  The Village Council was established by the Chief Officer of the Minister (AA 1951, Article 18). No existing title to minerals or mining rights in or over any land could have been transferred to the Village Council (AA 1976, Article 20A (2) (b)).

If there were areas covered by pre-existing mining licences awarded by the GGMC, which were included within the Village boundaries by the Ministerial Order in 1997, this was a failure of communication between the MoAA and GGMC to implement correctly Article 20A (1) of AA 1976, not a fault of the Isseneru AVC.  It would also have been a fault of intra-government  communication for the GLSC to have issued communal title under the State Lands Act 1972, following the Ministerial Order, not realizing a pre-existing mining licence issued by GGMC.

Moreover, it would have been a fault of GGMC to have issued a mining licence in the first place over Amerindian traditional/customary lands,
which are safeguarded by the ‘quiet enjoyment’ Article 111 of the Mining Act 1989: ‘All land occupied or used by the Amerindian communities and all land necessary for the quiet enjoyment by the Amerindians of any Amerindian settlement, shall be deemed to be lawfully occupied by them’.

This clause has been in mining legislation in Guyana since 1905. This same Article 111 should have prevented the issue of any mining licence over Isseneru Amerindian Village Lands (AVL) in 1997 until 2006. Following the enactment of the revised AA in 2006, the AVC should have been involved directly in any negotiations for or issue of a small or medium-scale mining licence; see Articles 48, 49, and 53.  The Judge might also have looked across to the safeguarding of Amerindian rights in our National Constitution (preamble on page 26 and Article 149G on page 89), and in international conventions signed and ratified by Guyana, including the Convention of Biological Diversity (Article 10 (c)) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007.

Instead, as reported in the Press, the Judge appears to have confined her research to the Amerindian Act 2006, and to a novel interpretation of that Act. In the meantime this ruling marks only the latest erosion of Amerindian legal and customary rights over their lands.

Janette Bulkan

Personally I would like to see the Amerindians preserve what is their own, however they must do this withing the framework of the law, this will ensure those rights to withstand the test of time. The fool calling for guns to be used is misguided. This is a legal matters for lawyers to hash out in a court of law. Ms Bulkan is no lawyer, just a failed reject of the UN. I urge Ramjattan, Hughes, Nagamootoo and Trotman to use their legal minds to help the Amerindians secure their rights to the land. This is if these gentlemen are up to the intellectual task and not intent on blowing hot air like d2. 

Did somebody say FOOL?? And rightly so.

 If the parasitic PPP do as thay have done and give their cronies millions of acres of lands and fail to preserve native people land rights what do you think is the final arbiter in this dispute? The PPP are not about law. Were they about the law they would follow the law. That seriously un-informed judge made a shallow ruling and no one in the PPP has come to defend the law. The judge is a moron and one does not have to be trained in the law to know that.

 Surely you do not know your ass from your mouth on this issue. At least Dugabeer can marginally speak to it. You are even sub par as a moron so is not expected to contribute to this or any discourse.

The PPP will look after their own self interest, but this is no excuse for the legal minds in the opposition to throw in the towel. In fact it is an excellent opportunity to secure the Amerindian votes, if the opposition can win this battle for them. 

The PPP should have no private interests. The state hired them to manage the state business.

 I see as usual when you have no answers you sidestep the issue. What is the responsibility of the majority parliament and the lawyers in the AFC/PNC? Why are they unable to prove that the miners are not within their legal rights to mine on the land? Are you giving them a pass as an admission of their incompetency or is it your usual cop out when you realize you are wrong?

If the system is gamed or the Judge a dunce you end up with decisions as these.

Amerindians speak out against ruling on lands

By Zena Henry
A number of villagers from Isseneru, in association with the Amerindian Peoples’ Association (APA), have expressed displeasure with the recent ruling of High Court Judge, Diana Insanally, in favour of a miner Joan Chang conducting works in what they consider to be Amerindian ancestral lands. The Amerindians have seen the ruling as “an assault on our rights and way of life”, and have deemed the Amerindian Act 2006 as “a document with no power.”

Isseneru executives Lewis and Dwight Larson (far right) with Toshaos and representatives of other concerned villages.

 

At a press conference held at the Guyana Human Rights Association headquarters yesterday, villagers called on the Government to review the Amerindian Act, and to make the necessary amendments to strengthen and encompass a broader scope of rights for the indigenous people. They also plan to host peaceful vigil and picket exercises in order to meaningfully show their dissatisfaction with the court’s ruling.

The villagers brought to the fore, many incidents where they said they are contending with miners for areas given as titled lands. Currently, they said, many cases are before the courts and some which they have already lost are being appealed. Given these developments, they questioned what power they possess to control and monitor their lands, citing the negative implications the ruling may hold for Amerindians countrywide.

“The implication here is that the rights of miners take precedence over the people who were there before, simply because one was granted their legal papers before the other. What then is the relevance of the constitution; Article 149G that says ‘Indigenous peoples shall have the right to protection, preservation and promulgation of their languages, cultural heritage and way of life?’” Isseneru Village Councilor and Secretary, Dwight Larson asked.

The Isseneru villagers said that they received their land title from the government in 2007. The land was, however, much smaller than what they had applied for and considered as traditional lands. About three months after receiving the title, they said it became clear that the officially recognised land was not in effect theirs, since miners started making claims to carry out their activities.

They said that in 2008, when they tried to negotiate with another miner, “We were taken to court, and in late 2008 a decision was made stating that we did not have the right to stop the mining activity. Isseneru appealed the matter, but it is still pending in court and the miner is still carrying on mining on our lands.”

After the issues experienced by the villagers, they said the government demarcated their land in 2010 and a Certificate of Title was given, but the mining problems persisted.

“We sent letters to the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment and the Minister of Amerindian Affairs about our concerns and arranged a meeting in Isseneru which they attended, together with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), the Environmental Protection Agency and the Lands and Surveys Commission. The response was that the Ministers would look into the matter, but we never received word back. As a next step, we addressed the GGMC in order to have a cease work order issued towards the miner, Joan Chang. This was done – twice – but as a result, Chang chose to take both our Village Council and the GGMC to court.”

“We are deeply disappointed and worried with this ruling and what it means to our village and to Amerindian communities in general. On the ground it has serious environmental and social impacts for us. The miners have, for example, brought with them problems related to drugs and prostitution. At the higher level, we feel that when the High Court tells us that we have no rights to decide and control what takes place on our land, then the land is not ours. Why has the government given us this land when it has already given the same land to someone else? Just Friday, when inquiring at the office of the GGMC, we learnt that our whole land is covered with mining concessions. Yet, the government has not informed us about this,” the community members asserted.

They opined that with the existing Act, Amerindians’ way of life is at risk as they depend wholly on the land for survival.

The Amerindian Peoples’ Association (APA) has also highlighted its disappointment towards the court ruling and by extension, the treatment of Amerindians in connection to the rights given by the Amerindian Act.
Several members from various Amerindian villages were also in attendance to lend support to the representatives of the Isseneru Village. The members highlighted problems they face in their communities, while others also pointed to the possible negative impact on their locations and the weakness of the Amerindian Act.

In light of the recent developments, media operatives were told that the Amerindian representatives received word that President Donald Ramotar would be moving to accommodate them in discussions. The vigils and picket exercises will be held at the office of the Amerindian Affairs Minister and the Office of the President.

In the meantime, Isseneru Village has indicated its intention to challenge the High Court ruling, while other villages have vowed their support. “Together we will fight for our rights as first people and for the lands of our forefathers and for the future of our coming generations.”

I hope that these people rethink giving their votes to the PPP next elections in return for a couple of chainsaws.

That didn't stop Thurgood Marshal.  You claim to be an alumni of Howard. They would be ashamed of you for peddling violence. 

 Marshal fought to include people under the law by redefining the scope of exclusivity under the  law in a legal arena. That arena may not have been fair to begin with but it built on precedence. Ours ignored precedence, and presumed the law came into being my magic on 2006.Here the legal arena is populated by a dunce who ruled out of her ignorance.

The administration is also hell bent on robbing the people and sought every opportunity to delay and redefine what is a natural patrimony. Amerind legal claims pre date the existence of the state. Further, the creation of the state was contingent on accepting the legal doctrine and legacy of colonial agreements with native peoples. The PPP has ignored that, most Guyanese thinks we are sub human remnants of a long gone era to be assimilated as our duncified Amerind Minister agreed should be the case. This has been the case only because democracy afforded the children of carpetbaggers with larger numbers to decide our fate. That deciding has been a cruel injustice.

This is about homeland, identity and a natural patrimony dating to pre history. Note the Chechnyas  are at war for that. All of  the dis-integral states  of the former soviet union are established on prior rights of local peoples. Yugoslavia decayed into ethnic strive and broke apart over native homelands, even Scotland wants freedom from England after a thousand years, Yes we want our homelands and we will get it.

You folks are new comers and if Vic Odit can grab Para ranch some 200 square miles, RK  can own Cow Island, and Jagdeo the crook can give another 4% of the land to some random person in India, while taking some for himself and his corrupt cabal,   another bunch of squatters can sit on water front property at Orealla per the same cabal's  instruction etc not to mention various and sundry other greedy fu.cks  squatting on native people  lands inclusive of the Mark and Jean Chang in this case; we need ours and it is a just fight. Karma is a bitch. If those suckers are really offsprings of Hindus then they well know what is down the road.

The same way Marshall fought the system via legal means, your AFC/PNC lawyers can do the same. Instead of ranting and raving with unsubstantiated claims you should be calling for Moses and the rest of the legal minds to formulate arguments in court to correct this alleged land stealing.  None of what you write can be substantiated, only the court and a legal battle will bring out the truth. But then again the aFC/PNC lawyers are a bunch of nincompoops, noted by their recent failure to implicate police and Rhoee in the COI of the Linden killings by PNC/AFC agents. 

You live in some warped place I do not visit. This is not an AFC problem but an  Amerind problem. The problem is the newly created State and its successive administrations screwing native peoples. It is a problem native peoples have with all others who came but who never had a sense of justice in their hearts that we were here, are cultural peoples and are identified with the land where we live.

Our problem is with people coming in form elsewhere who need an identity and a place to locate themselves and their culture  and not having any  redress to this lacking rationalize the idea that the can take  ours and pretend we do not count and actually make a case that we do not count. There is no intent to share or recognize us but to assimilate and supplant us.  That is our problem and if the answer does not come from us it will never come.

The necessity here is for native peoples to empower themselves.  and not to  depend on an  interloper administrations to meet their needs.  This is an opening for the APA to assert themselves and to reconstitute influence and to help guide policies in the Amerind communities. The PPP sell soul Sukai is there as the PPP house slave and we were never slaves! Because of her we lost lots of ground and lack a voice. She is an agent of the administration that cruelly supplants and which will resist any independent voice in our communities.

Again, this is not an AFC fight. I do not expect any non Amerind party in guyana to ever recognize us. That hope has long been lost for us. If there is a real Amerind party. not Proxy parties like the UF or the one by that sell soul Peter Persaud, one whose leaders are selected by the community we may have a chance for us to get  recognition from non forest peoples. You folks have been long conditioned to think we do not count. 

The fact that this miner, can come on our land and have the audacity to say she and her husband has the right to rape our soil is not only an insult, it is a tearing at our souls and a real reminder that this administration has no place or regard for us. That stupid  judge is not the law. She is a metaphor for what is in store for us if we do not wake up. She is the face of the ignorance  and contempt we must confront.

=========

Indigenous folks should form their own party. They should focus on their problems. As elections come close they should form an alliance with the AFC as constitution requires. Obviously they can extract more leverage if they go with PNC. But it is time for them to have their own party. 

While I do not see eye to eye with you, I agree that our natives must become more active in politics to enhance their long overdue right to enjoy a much higher standard of living in Guyana. 

Granger calls for halt to mining in contentious Amerindian titled lands

Leader of the Opposition, Brig (ret’d) David Granger has expressed concerns about the ongoing mining issue plaguing members of the various Amerindians villages in the country.

Granger, the leader of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), in light of the protest action, has called on the government to halt the issuance of concessions to persons mining in Amerindian titled areas.
Granger told media operatives that the government should also halt any mining works ongoing in the affected Amerindian villages, even as he expressed solidarity with the nation’s first people.

Granger, during his meeting with villagers who picketed the Amerindian Affairs Ministry, yesterday, said that the nation’s first people should not be treated as second class citizens. He said that in all the regions he visited, the villagers have expressed great concern over their lands as they take great priority in ensuring its protection.

The issue, he said, was not about the Low Carbon Strategy or a single miner, but with the concerns of Amerindians in relation to the lands being a part of their way of life. In relation to the High Court ruling against the Amerindian village of Isseneru, Granger said that government needs to go back to the drawing board to make the necessary amendments as the law gives the powers to the Amerindian Affairs Minister and not the people.
He said that the ruling is an insult to all the things that the people have been striving for. He said that because of mining the Amerindians have suffered greatly.

“We know there is a gold rush on but at the same time we need to have a responsible Administration, responsible legislation and the government should come out in support of the Amerindian people.”

Granger charged that more power must be given to Amerindians since they are the ones who are impacted by mining. Because of the gold rush, Granger said in parts of the upper Mazaruni miners are penetrating places that have never been touched before. While gold mining is making some fabulously rich, Granger said the Amerindian people are suffering.
While the Amerindian people appeal the ruling of the High Court judge, Granger said mining in these areas should be halted and moves should be made to address the legislation.