Dear Editor,
Over the last few weeks it’s been fascinating to read about Guyanese history that has been kept from the public. I hope this encourages the current government to make history mandatory in our high schools. For social cohesion we need the truth about our history. I was particularly fascinated by the revelation that Africans were brought to Guyana 100 to 200 years before some groups came to Guyana from Brazil. I was also surprised to find out about the “negroid” skeleton Luzia found in southern Brazil, which showed that Africans [Ed. Note: south-east Asians, probably Australoids] were on the South American continent at least 12,000 years ago. Luzia was named after Lucy, the skeleton found in Ethiopia that was carbon dated to be 3½ million years old.
Also quite revealing was the revelation by Anna Correia who writes for the Guyana Times about her organization called the Guyana Empowered Peoples’ Action Network (GEPAN). She stated that excavations conducted in Kurupukari by Denis Williams showed that the Wapishana were in Guyana about 3,000 years ago.
As I read the media the last few weeks I am also concerned that the central points made by Mr Phillips have not been answered. Rather there seems to be an attempt to make his points a racial issue when in fact he is making sure our history is corrected.
Yours faithfully,
Jonathan Adams
