Dear Editor,
M. Maxwell `Land reparation for African Guyanese is impractical’, SN April 12th, 2016, knows very well what he is doing and whose interests he is promoting.
He is indifferent to the genocide of 450,000 African lives to build Guyana.
He is totally indifferent to the 200 years of enslavement in what the UN describes as a “crime against humanity”.
These figures are clearly grounds for reparatory justice.
Maxwell is unrepentant in his quest to deny Africans reparatory justice through land or equal access to government procurement which has been another area of discrimination practised by the last government.
The inequality of Africans in Guyana is because they have not been given justice. But all others groups have.
Much has been revealed over the last few months of the ethnically driven policies and practices of the Jagdeo/Ramotar regimes. Indeed, history will in the future record the period of their reign as the greatest transfer of state assets to an ethnic group in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Government procurement represents approximately 15% of GDP and is vital to business growth and wealth creation. The major beneficiaries of government procurement in Guyana have built up significant sustainable advantages because of corruption. The leading recipients of government procurement contracts were never industry leaders or competitive in the private sector. The PPP administration used state largesse to create private sector industry Titans. The blatant discriminatory practices of the PPP era left very few African businesses positioned to participate in the economy, particularly in qualifying and competing for Government procurement opportunities.
Maxwell now has a new guise. He argues, quite unconvincingly that the justifiable claim for land by Africans in Guyana will undermine CARICOM’s claims from Europe. It shows how little he knows or understands about the CARICOM Reparations Movement which is now a global movement. The UN Human Rights Commission recently called for reparations in the USA. Bernie Sanders just did a few days ago.
One of the TORs from CARICOM is “Linking past discrimination to today’s inequality”. The Guyana Reparations Committee found 15 reasons and all were driven by the State. Here are the reasons why Africans are unequal in Guyana.
- The criminal enslavement of Africans in Guyana from the 1600s to 1838. Dutch and British Governments passed laws to legitimize and institutionalize slavery which the UN has defined as a “crime against humanity”.
- The complete denial of the human rights of Africans for over 200 years during enslavement.
- The purposeful creation of the institution of racism to justify slavery. This is one of the greatest negative legacies of slavery. Racism was systematically created by Western philosophers, clergymen and scientists to give credence to their criminal enrichment.
- The annihilation of African culture as a complementary and historical strategy to slavery.
- The creation of African Guyanese pauperism through free forced slave labour for over 200 years.
- The British Government’s denial of justice and reparations to freed Africans in 1838 while empowering the 2,761 British owners in Guyana through a reparation payment of £4. 281 million of the £20 million awarded to 46,000 British slave owners. Freed Africans in Guyana therefore accounted for 21.8% of the total compensation to all British slave owners. Incidentally, this sum paid for free Africans in Guyana, in today’s value, multiplying by the objective factor of 839, amounts to £3.59 billion.
- The refusal to pay freed Africans fair wages after Emancipation and hence destroying their ability for generational wealth creation.
- The importation of indentured servants to break the economic backs of freed Africans. Had there not been indentureship, Guyana at Independence would have been owned by Africans and Amerindians and the existing racial economy of today, which gives preferential treatment to Indians, would not have materialized.
- An unrelenting attack on the Village Movement by the British Crown (Government) to destroy African Guyanese wealth.
- The granting of free lands to Indentured Indians in Guyana and not granting any to freed Africans who had worked free for over 200 years. This “land” wealth gap and the multiplier effect still exists today.
- The purposeful financing and nurturing of Indentured Indians into the rice industry.
- The forcing of Africans by the British Crown to sell their produce at low prices to the Portuguese who would then re-sell to the British at great profit. Portuguese merchants, who were financially helped by Madeira and the British crown, were granted licences to operate in African Villages, when Africans were not.
- The splitting of Africa among European powers in 1885 at the Berlin Conference and the subsequent Colonisation of Africa for more than 100 years. Unlike Indians and the Chinese who can easily network with India and China, there are no historically intact relationships or processes for Africans in Guyana to obtain products, finance, trading arrangements and business networks from Africa.
- The British and Guyanese governments did not offer lands to Africans at Independence but promoted and ensured Amerindians received lands. Today, Amerindians in Guyana own 13.8% of Guyana’s land mass regardless of the fact, the, Wapishana, Macushis and the Wai Wais were not in Guyana during enslavement and only came here from Venezuela and Brazil in the 17th and 18th century. This is a gross injustice.
The State therefore owes Africans lands as a form of reparatory justice.
We in the African community are not surprised by Maxwell’s views of Africans. We are also not surprised that Stabroek News has not published his name.
We in the African community see this as an attack by Stabroek News on our community. Both seem to want Africans in perpetual inequality.
Maxwell should know that Africans can boycott many things in Guyana especially those inimical to our economic lives.
Yours faithfully,
Eric Phillips
