Dear Editor,
During the height of the protest by some 500 rice farmers at Three Friends on the Essequibo Coast, the police forced them to move from the road, but harsher methods were used when 35 of these protesters were locked up in the Anna Regina station.
The protest was broken up, cars and tractors impounded, loudspeaker equipment damaged – all of this with women and children watching. Naithram and Sollo were beaten and manhandled in full view of the other policemen present, but no action was taken by them; it would appear to all that the police action was directed against rice farmers who were owed for their paddy some three months ago.
The farmers’ protest action enraged the policemen so they became aggressive; they started to shoot teargas into the air and into the crowd harming the women and children. This is nothing very unusual since other protestors in the country have been the recipients of blows from the police. The farmers who were arrested were deprived of their right to see lawyers.
Kudos must be given to the rice farmers of Region Two who are toiling under harsh and back-breaking methods of production, so the product can then be processed into palatable and edible form for consumers, both local and external. Rice is more than a staple for us. It affects every Guyanese in terms of food, employment, foreign exchange earnings and economic growth. The millers must pay the rice farmers for their paddy promptly. Further, in the farmers’ view, the GRDB, RPA and government have been reduced to a farce and merely serve to rubber-stamp their edicts.
They can therefore neither speak on behalf of the rice farmers, nor serve any useful purpose at this point in their struggle for their long outstanding paddy payments. The Ministry of Agriculture and GRDB have not been moving to resolve disputes with millers as they relate to weight, grades, moisture, dockage and payments which have long been festering and which have allowed some unscrupulous millers to benefit by increasing the exploitation of farmers.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
