Dear Editor,
Bartica is the breadbasket of Guyana. As I pointed out in several notes to some persons last year, the gold and diamond miners earn more money for the national treasury than any other sector. Our people earn more money for the nation than foreign investors. Our people earn more money for the nation than foreign remittances from the diaspora. Our people earn more money for the nation than farmers in rice, sugar, and ‘other crops.’ We don’t have an intellectual class that earns money for Guyana. The class that earns money is the one whose members have basic education and adventure in their bones. Fred McWilfred and the Committee of Concerned Barticians said that they would close down Bartica on Monday: “The entire town including schools and transportation services are expected to grind to a halt,” Stabroek News said, and I am in solidarity with them.
Imagine, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission asked the Office of Climate Change to send someone to have a conversation with us concerning the Low Carbon Development Strategy, and the response in January 2010 was that it “did not feel the time is right to give a briefing.” So, let money talk. Bartica is the money capital (Wall Street) of Guyana and the PPP/C will finally hear.
In Bartica, I am told, everyone who has a computer keeps it on all day and night with the under bar giving the price of gold on the world market. So, the most uneducated pork-knocker from the coastal villages knows what he is expected to get for his labour.
And therein is a political problem, Jagdeo is using the hardworking dredge labourers and punters to give roads, light and schools to others. Persaud went to Bartica this weekend with a government team to quell the Bartica protest. But Tony Shields and a miners association team was also going! However the work should essentially have been political.
My party, the PNCR, is not thinking outside the box. If anyone read the latest press statement there is nothing on Bartica which has been simmering for about two weeks! Are the top brains engaged? Is the party in solidarity with the Committee of Concerned Barticians? They should say ‘No’ like the USA Republicans.
Is it the 30 million from the Norway state? The more I think about the 30 million the more I think of Haiti at the time of the American occupation of Haiti. What is the lesson for Guyana?
Yours faithfully,
Ras Dalgettie I
