The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD) has written to Guyana requesting that it provide a response, no later than July 15, 2022, to allegations of various rights violations relating to the indigenous community of Chinese Landing and the Wapichan people.
In the April 29, 2022 letter addressed to Chargé d’ Affaires of Guyana at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Kerrlene Wills, Chair of UN CERD, Verene Shepherd highlighted the complaints that the Committee received as well as Guyana’s non-response to various letters requesting information.
UN CERD’s Chair said, “…the Committee profoundly regrets the State party’s lack of reply to its letters of 17 May and 14 December 2018, regarding this situation.” It added “The Committee regrets that the State party has yet to submit its reply to the list of issues prior to submission of the fifteenth and sixteenth periodic reports that are overdue since November 2021. In this regard, the Committee requests the State party to submit the overdue reply as a matter of urgency.”
