Dear Editor,
Ashton Simon claims that the LCDS booklet has been available at meetings of the statutory National Toshaos Council (2009-2011) and a LCDS information desk on the LCDS at the 2012 meeting (‘No point in LCDS supporting documents being in Amerindian languages because most indigenous people can’t read them,’ SN, September 5).
Mr Simon misses several points which have been raised by miners and Amerindian communities since the launch of the first version of the Jagdeo LCDS in June 2009. There were two meetings organised by the President’s Office of Climate Change (OCC) in Region 7, both on July 12, 2009, one at Kamarang for the Akawaio and Arekuna Nations and one at Bartica for miners and communities of the lower and middle Mazaruni. 97 people attended at Bartica and 146 at Kamarang, out of the 49,000 people in Region 7. An 18-slide OCC technical presentation was apparently shown at each meeting, as elsewhere during the 13 hinterland meetings at the start of the LCDS.
The OCC notes on the Kamarang meeting recorded several comments that the LCDS document was difficult to understand. No attempt has been made by the OCC to issue simplified or culturally-appropriate versions of the LCDS, although these are called for in the IIED evaluation of November 2009. IIED recognized that written documents needed to be supported by audio-visual presentations, given (as Mr Simon says) that few people can read the historically unwritten Amerindian languages.
The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (MoAA) claimed to the Jagdeo-convened Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee for the LCDS that it, the MoAA, was working on translations but no such documents have appeared in the public domain. This should not have prevented the development of spoken presentations in the nine Amerindian languages.
Mr Simon says that the GFC and three Georgetown-based Amerindian organisations followed up the Kamarang presentation to the benefit of the villages of Paruima, Waramadong, Warwatta, Kako and Jawalla.
There is no document on the GFC website which records such action or the nature of the action.
What is certainly missing is the long-promised explanation from the OCC about the rights and responsibilities which would be associated with ‘opting into’ the LCDS by an Amerindian Village Council. The OCC claimed to have developed a draft on ‘opting in’ during March 2010 but 30 months later that document has still not been circulated, either in English or in Amerindian languages. Could the OCC or MoAA explain publicly when this document will be available for public debate under the principle of free, prior and informed consent which was promised by the Government to Norway as part of the MoU of November 2009?
Yours faithfully,
Janette Bulkan
