| Indigenous Peoples in Guyana Seek Recognition and Enforcement of their Land Right in an Historic Lawsuit
Guyana Information Update from the
Forest Peoples Programme
Acting on behalf of their communities, six Akawaio and Pemon
Indigenous community leaders (known as Captains in Guyana), from the
Upper Mazaruni region of Guyana filed the first ever land rights
lawsuit in the High Court of Guyana on October 28, 1998. They are
seeking a judicial declaration that: 1) Indigenous peoples in Guyana
are entitled to full and equal protection of the provisions of the
Guyana Constitution; 2) that large parts of the 1976 Amerindian Act
are unconstitutional in that it violates constitutional prohibitions
of racial discrimination; 3) that the Akawaio and Pemon communities
of the Upper Mazaruni have an unextinguished aboriginal title to the
area formerly known as the 1959 Upper Mazaruni Amerindian District
and; 4) an order that freehold title to the area be vested in the
Captains on behalf of their communities. In a written statement (reproduced below), the Captains stated
their reasons for taking legal action. Frustration with the lack of
constructive action by the government and the impact of mining
activities, both small-scale and multinational, were cited as the
main reasons. With respect to the former, the Upper Mazaruni
communities have been seeking title to the 1959 District and beyond
since the Amerindian Lands Commission visited the area in 1967 to
survey Amerindian lands and make recommendations concerning titles.
This Commission was established to implement a legal condition of
Guyana's Independence from the United Kingdom in 1966, that
Amerindians receive title to the lands they occupy. In its 1969
Report, the Lands Commission recommended that the six communities
receive title to approximately 1500 square miles; the communities
submitted a joint claim for approximately 4-4500 square miles. It was
not until 1991, however, that the Upper Mazaruni communities received
title to the lands recommended by the Lands Commission, some 15 years
after other communities received titles in 1976. The reason for the
delay was that the government planned to construct a hydroelectric
project in the region that would have flooded the majority of the
land in the area and forced the communities to relocate. This project
was abandoned in the early 1980's due to intense community and
international opposition. There has been mining in the Upper Mazaruni since the 1930's, when
a large diamond find resulted in an influx of coastal, small-scale
miners. In 1959, the government of then British Guiana, dereserved
one-third of the 4500 square mile 1945 Mazaruni Amerindian
Reservation and opened it for mining. In 1977, the entire Mazaruni
River and its tributaries was opened for mining, including the areas
within the 1959 Upper Mazaruni Amerindian District. A year later the
entire area was officially declared a mining district and thousands
of small-scale miners entered the area causing severe environmental
damage and social problems. Even after titles were issued to the
communities in 1991, mining continued unabated due to the state's
claims to own all subsurface minerals and the exclusion of all rivers
and river banks up to 66 feet inland from Amerindian land titles.
In 1994, Canadian mining company, Golden Star Resources, received
two large reconnaissance permits - Upper Mazaruni and Wenamu,
covering 474,200 has. and 517,900 has., respectively - which
incorporated almost all of the communities of the Upper Mazaruni.
These concessions were granted without even notifying the
communities, who only became aware of them when they noticed GSR's
planes conducting aerial surveys. Golden Star's activities included
cutting trenches through and destroying villagers agricultural plots.
When village leaders complained about GSR's presence to the Minister
of Amerindian Affairs, he not only refused to intervene on their
behalf, but tried to persuade them that they should acquiese to
Golden Star's presence on their lands. Others, including Canadian
company, Vannessa Ventures Ltd., followed Golden Star. The impact of mining on the communities, some of whom are also
engaged in small-scale mining, has been devastating. The Mazaruni
River is unfit for human use; ancestral fishing grounds and spawning
areas have been destroyed; use of river water causes skin rashes,
vomiting and diarrhea; prostitution, violence, drug a alcohol abuse
are common; miners rape and abuse Amerindian women with impunity;
village rules and authorities are ignored and disrespected; family
life and the agricultural cycle are disrupted, and; malaria has
become a serious health problem. In one community, 9 out of 10 people
had malaria in 1998 and eleven people died in July alone. Mercury
contamination has never been systematically evaluated, but is
expected to be high. All of this mining activity, some of it illegal,
takes place with minimal oversight and supervision from government
agencies. In an attempt to address the problems caused by the miners and
their lack of land security, the communities organised themselves
into the Upper Mazaruni District Council and sought support from the
Amerindian Peoples Association, Guyana's primary Indigenous
organisation. In 1994, they decided to seek legal advice and to seek
funding to conduct a community-based mapping project that would map
their village and 1959 District boundaries and their use of
resources. In that same year, they met with the President of Guyana,
who stated that they must provide a blueprint of how they would use
the lands they were requesting before he could assist them further.
Having completed the mapping project, which demonstrated that they
were occupying and using large areas of the 1959 District outside of
their titled areas, the Captains sought to show it to the government.
The government, however, refused to even meet with them to look at
the maps. This led the communities to take the decision to authorise
their Captains to file the legal action. Guyana is a common law jurisdiction and, therefore, in theory,
Guyanese law should recognise Indigenous rights to their lands based
upon immemorial occupation and use. Aboriginal title has been
recognised by the courts in Canada, the United States, Australia and
Aotearoa-New Zealand. The Upper Mazaruni communities are now seeking
the same through the Guyanese courts. Whether this will happen
remains to be seen, especially as the courts in Guyana have not
traditionally been seen to be independent from the executive. The
government has yet to react to the law suit, but it is clearly
opposed to recognising Indigenous land rights based upon occupation
and use. This will be especially the case in the Upper Mazaruni,
which is a gold and diamond mining district that the government
considers important for national development - small-scale gold and
diamond mining presently account for less than six percent of
Guyana's GDP. The powerful and vocal small-scale miners association
is also likely to seek to intervene in the case to protect what it
perceives to be the interests of its members. Other Indigenous
communities in Guyana are watching this case with great interest and
have expressed their support for the Upper Mazaruni Captains. They
view a victory for the Upper Mazaruni as a victory for all
Amerindians in Guyana, especially the 40-50 communities without any
form of legal protection for their lands.
We the Captains of the Akawaio and Arecuna villages of the
Upper Mazaruni, would like to make the following statement. With the assistance of our lawyers, we have just filed a law suit
on behalf of our Akawaio and Arecuna communities in the High Court of
Guyana against the Attorney General, as legal representative of the
Government of Guyana, seeking: 1) A declaration that the Amerindian peoples of Guyana are
entitled to full and equal protection of the provisions of the Guyana
Constitution; 2) A declaration that parts of the Amerindian Act are in
violation of Constitutional guarantees prohibiting racial
discrimination and taking of property without compensation; in other
words, that parts of the Amerindian Act constitute racial
discrimination under the Constitution of Guyana; 3) That our communities of Paruima, Waramadong, Kamarang,
Kako, Jawalla and Phillipai have from time immemorial occupied and
used the lands enclosed in the former 1959 Upper Mazaruni Amerindian
District and by virtue of that fact we have had and still have an
unextinguished Aboriginal title in the common law of Guyana 4) An order that title to all of the lands within the
former 1959 Upper Mazaruni Amerindian District be vested in the
Captains for the benefit of our communities. We wish it to be known that we have not entered into this
undertaking lightly or without serious attempts to seek redress
through the government of Guyana. Indeed, our communities have been
requesting title to these lands, which we know to be ours, since the
Amerindian Lands Commission visited our communities in 1967. Since
then we have attempted to discuss this matter on many occasions
without result. In fact, we have written over 20 times to the
government, both past and present, on this issue. Successive governments have not dealt with our lands rights
concerns. In 1994, we even had a meeting with the late-President Cheddi
Jagan to discuss the matter. He stated that we should provide him
with a blue print of how we would use the lands before he could seek
to intervene on our behalf. We have done this by making maps of our
lands demonstrating how we use it and the resources on it. However,
not only did representatives of the government do everything they
could to stop us making these maps, they have also refused to look at
them. We believe that this is a direct contradiction of the many
promises made by successive governments. It is also contrary to the
National Development Strategy's recommendations concerning
Amerindians, not to mention international human rights guarantees
applicable to Indigenous peoples, that Guyana is bound to comply
with. Our lands and rivers are being destroyed by miners, especially
land and missile dredges. The Mazaruni River, for miles below Chi Chi
falls, is unfit for human use: our fishing grounds have been
destroyed and we can no longer catch fish in the river. The water is
making us sick, especially our children. We have experienced
tremendous social problems and injustices as a result of the presence
of the miners. We have complained to the government and the Geology
and Mines Commission more times than we can remember; they have done
nothing but grant more permits to miners. They have also granted
multinational companies permission to work in our areas without any
consultation or permission from our villages. These miners are also
seeking permission to work in the Kamarang River. The destruction of
our environment affects all Guyanese and should be a matter of
national concern. In light of the failure of successive governments to address our
legitimate concerns, and after extensive discussions in our
communities, we believe that we have no other option but to seek
protection of our rights in the courts of Guyana. We are mindful that
we have the Constitutional right as Guyanese citizens to seek
enforcement of our rights through the courts. We are also mindful
that this is the first time that Amerindians have gone to court in
defense of our ancestral lands. We know that we are not alone among
the Amerindians of Guyana in feeling the frustration of being ignored
when it comes to our land rights. Amerindian communities in Regions
1, 2, 8 and 9 have all expressed similar sentiments. We take this step today not only on behalf of our communities, we
also take this step on behalf of future generations of Amerindians,
our children and their children's grandchildren, so that they may
live and prosper on our lands as our ancestors did before us, into
the next century and beyond. We also stand here today for our
brothers and sisters without title to their lands and those that are
seeking extension of their lands and hope that they are also not
forced to seek protection of their rights through the courts. For
this to happen, any government must begin to serious address
Amerindian land issues in good faith, with our full participation. It
must also revise the outdated and discriminatory Amerindian Act and,
finally, treat us with the respect we deserve as the first peoples of
Guyana, as Guyanese citizens and as human beings with basic human
rights. Respectfully, Captain Lawrence Anselmo, Paruima
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