A top official of the National Toshaos’ Council (NTC) has sought to correct recent assertions by African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) Executive Eric Phillips that sovereignty belonged to the State and not to individual groups.
NTC Vice Chairman Lennox Shuman expressed his disagreement with that statement, during an interview with this publication on Tuesday. He noted that Guyanese, as the electorate, held sovereignty in their hands.
“As it relates to sovereignty, sovereignty belongs in all the people of Guyana. But while we must understand that while we say one people, one nation, one destiny, yes, we are one people as in a holistic one country.”
In expounding on land titling, he noted that the fact remained that Guyana still was composed of six races. And within one race, the Indigenous people, there are nine divisions of people or groups. So, he urged that these considerations be taken into context.
“And when we look at the land issue and the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry as we have seen, the CoI was actually one of the outputs of the Guyana-Norway agreements. And it doesn’t say the Administration that is current or past; it says the Government of Guyana.”
“Now what they want to do is use that commission to address something that is different or outside the mandate or intent of that commission. And what they are trying to do is lump it right in with (something else). And it is those two fundamental things that need to be separated in this whole issue.”
In a missive to the media, Phillips noted that fears of Amerindians losing their land was also a false claim, as the Amerindian Act of 2006 provides Amerindians with 13.8 per cent of land in Guyana.
Phillips said there were many more important reasons why the Land CoI was very critical to all Guyanese. He explained that sovereignty belonged to the State, and not to individual groups.
“Sovereignty belongs to the State and not to individual groups. If there was an invasion onto or into Wai Wai lands, it is the Government of Guyana that would have to defend Guyana’s sovereignty,” Phillips had said.
Since the announcement of the CoI, the Opposition has thrown its support behind the NTC, which remains opposed to Government establishing the inquiry into matters related to land, including titling.
The NTC had called for the establishment of two separate entities to deal with the two different issues as it voiced its refusal to cooperate with the current lands CoI.
It also complained of a “severe” lack of consultations on the matter – an assertion which President David Granger has denied.
Other organisations, including the Guyanese Organisation of Indigenous Peoples, The Amerindian Action Movement, South Central Peoples Development Association, and the National Amerindian Development Foundation, have all protested the merging of the two issues under one blanket CoI.
