Chairman of the Aishalton Women’s Association, Dorothy James and her husband, Former Toshao Tony James, said they would be mounting a legal challenge against the lottery which was held Friday because they were not consulted and they fear massive pollution of their rivers.

Attorney-at-Law, Nigel Hughes confirmed that legal action would be taken. He agreed with the intended plaintiffs that the Amerindian communities must be consulted about land use in their area.

Toshao James said residents of the ‘Deep South’ Rupununi did not participate in the lottery because they could not satisfy the criteria that includes possession of registered mining equipment. Participants were mainly from Lethem and the coastland. The GGMC intends to allocate 200 blocks of land in south Rupununi for gold mining.

He and his wife charged that they were told about the requirements only on April 21 and it was all part of a grand plan to shut them out. “They never every thought about us competing in anything,” the Toshao told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com).

Amerindian Affairs Minister, Pauline Sukhai and Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert Persaud could not be reached immediately for a comment. Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, Rickford Vieria said the criteria for being in possession of registered equipment was waived a bit late and so they only had to provide their home addresses and their national identification cards. Vieria assured that there were more blocks available and that another lottery would be held to give them an opportunity to participate.

Reacting, Toshao James said they were only aware of the waiver on Friday when they were leaving their villages for the protest in Lethem. He said at that late stage they could not make a communal decision. He stressed that the custom by the Amerindian communities was not to make individual decisions.

said he feared that extensive mining would pollute the Kwitaro, Rupununi and other rivers and tributaries which are the only source of water for the scattered Amerindian communities in the north and south Rupununi. “You are going to contaminate several rivers which will affect all of the villages,” he said.

He accused government of violating the principles of free, prior and informed consent through a process of meaningful consultations. “We have finally concluded that the government has no interest in us. They want to keep us suppressed and they only come around when they want our vote,” he said, while adding that a large number of the 200 protesters were upset supporters of the governing Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC).

The Aishalton Women’s Association lamented that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) only advised them of the lottery on April 19 while the closing date was March 30.

“It was a slap in the Indigenous Peoples face to protest what has been done to us. We felt discriminated against and disrespected because Marudi is just in the backyard of Aishalton,” she said.

The Women’s Association Chairman said the gold bearing areas there make up the bread basket for the estimated 60 families because people go there to get a few pennyweights of gold to sell so that they could buy food and pay their children’s examination fees.

“The livelihood of the people is in jeopardy and we have taken enough and we cant take any more,” she said.

Tensions over allegedl illegal gold mining had boiled over on March 2, 2013 when police and GGMC Mines Officers had gone into Marudi, southern Rupununi to evict miners from a concession being held by the Canadian company, Romanex.

A policeman on that day was seen on video cutting a coarse twig which he had used to whip several persons including a woman and her child who had been blocking a road leading to the concession. The police corporal has been charged with four counts of assault.

The GGMC has said that it would be filing charges against 14 persons for illegal mining.

Representatives of the Rupununi Miners Association later held talks with the Minister of Natural Resources. At that meeting, they had committed to curb illegal mining and collaborate with the GGMC and the Guyana Police Force in the ongoing investigation of the police-supported operation at Marudi Mountain.