There is a pattern of disregard for African village lands
Dear Editor,
There is an ongoing dispute between the Plaisance community and the government, and the latter seems to have already allocated the lands to a businessman and has also imposed an overseer on the NDC. It is clear that permission has been given by the Government of Guyana to develop this ‘vacant’ land behind Plaisance village, while the villagers contend the land belongs to them. This is not the first time that the current government and the population have clashed over lands or historical sites. The case of the lands around Chateau Margot which now serve as a lumber yard and the site for the 1823 Monument are just two cases in point.
If you read carefully between the lines you will notice a pattern of disregard for African village lands in Guyana. If one understands the history of that movement you would comprehend what a troubling development this is. Between 1838 and 1852, when laws were passed to prohibit the practice, Afro-Guyanese pooled their money from overtime during apprenticeship and purchased 25 villages and over 2000 freehold properties. The remarkable nature of this feat cannot be overstated. Plaisance was one such village purchased by 65 individuals for a sum of $39,000. To put this in perspective, the value of that sum today (if using purchasing power parity) is just over US$1million, meaning each individual raised around US$15,000. Bear in mind that when payment was made it was done in coins carried in wheelbarrows.
Many of these village lands were never properly demarcated and the exact boundaries have always been disputed. After these villages were purchased there was a genuine attempt by Afro-Guyanese to become economically independent of the plantations. Many turned to farming, others, at a later stage, to porkknocking, and yet others who continued to work on the plantations on and off, engaged in collective bargaining to get better wages. In order to break the back of this emerging class two strategies were employed: indentured workers were brought in who would undercut the villagers in terms of wage demands and the deliberate flooding of the farmlands of these villages.
My UG classmate Lloyd F Kandasammy writes: “Apart from having to contend with the flooding of their provision grounds from the European planters of neighbouring plantations who wanted to force villagers to continue working with them, settlers… found it extremely hard to maintain their roads and drains.” In fact, “those who controlled the administration of D&I, for instance, did so in a manner far from helpful to the villagers. Thus where villages were adjacent to operational sugar plantations, the former would be excessively and mysteriously be flooded with excess water from neighbouring plantations precisely when the plantation was in need of labour for harvesting!”
The current flooding of the lands claimed by the village of Plaisance is distasteful, not only because of the lack of regard the government is showing for its citizens, but also because it is tinged with the hint of oppression and discrimination that all races in Guyana have fought so long to do away with. Who would have thought that in 2014 the PPP would resort to tactics used by the colonial regime? It might be time for us to remember the spirt our ancestors demonstrated in their long struggle against oppression.
Yours faithfully,
Kwesi Sansculotte-Greenidge
