Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana Riding on the Crest of Truth
Last Updated on Thursday, 19 December 2024, 12:52 by Writer
Attorney General Anil Nandlall addressing residents of Leeds Village, Corentyne during a land regularisation exercise in August, 2024.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall on Wednesday said his People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-led administration has a proven track record of regularising Afro-Guyanese lands, even as the opposition demanded that the administration pass legislation governing African ancestral lands.
He said his administration has given land titles to more people in Linden in one year than the then A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) had given during 2015-2020. He said land regularisation was in Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 villages in West Coast Berbice “where thousands of Afro-Guyanese will get transport and certificates of title. At Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara, he said 400 Afro-Guyanese families would receive title after living there for 450 years. “That is what we do and we don’t have t0 puff our chest,” he said. At the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA-ADA), he said 50 leases for 10 acres each were granted to Afro-Guyanese rice farmers, but the coalition had revoked them only to be reinstated after he, while in opposition, had moved t0 court on their behalf. “That is what we have done for Afro-Guyanese and that is just the tip of the iceberg. I can go village by village and talk about what we are doing for Afro-Guyanese land rights right across the length and breadth of Guyana,” he said.
The opposition members erupted into an uproar when he named several Afro-Guyanese parliamentarians and other persons, who were “friends and families” of the coalition administration who received lands rather than “ordinary Guyanese.”
APNU+AFC parliamentarian, Nima Flue-Bess heaped criticism on government for crushing the homes of several residents at Cane View, Mocha-Arcadia during an eviction operation on January 5, 2023 on the basis that they were squatters. Though a number of the residents were provided titled lands and houses elsewhere, she said many of them lost their sources of income and their new residences were incomplete. Reacting to those criticisms, the Attorney General said after 400 years, the PPPC administration was regularising the area to give residents there Transports and Certificates of Title. “When we tried to move those, who were squatting, they made that into a big racial issue,” he said. He said 20 agreed to move from Cane View and seven others, who refused to do so, were forcibly removed.
In his contribution to parliamentary debate on amendments to the Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes Act, Shadow Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Roysdale Forde issued a call for the passage of special legislation governing African land rights. “I call on this Honourable House, Mr Speaker, for protection similar that exists in relation to the Amerindian Act, to be enacted as a matter of law and as a matter of urgency to secure African ancestral lands, so that they could be legally recognised as a distinct category of landholding, acknowledging their historical and cultural significance,” he told the National Assembly.
Chiding the PPP parliamentarians for being contemptuous of calls for this to be addressed, he said there was no “comprehensive legal protection” to address African land rights in contrast to mechanisms for Indigenous People’s lands. He said Afro-Guyanese lands include villages, established by freed Africans, that had been collectively purchased and hold significant cultural, historical and socio-economic value.
Existing legislation as well as amendments to the Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes Act, he argued, failed to adequately safeguard those lands from arbitrary acquisition and insufficient compensation, creating inequities that perpetuate historical injustices and leave mainly Afro-Guyanese and Amerindian communities vulnerable to displacement and loss of cultural heritage.
Mr Nandlall, in wrapping up debate, said all of the opposition parliamentarians, who referred to African ancestral lands, did not explain that concept. “Every person of that side, who chose to speak about African ancestral lands, has not left us at all with any definition of what this concept is. No one is yet to explain what this concept of African ancestral land is,” he said. Mr Nandlall said then-President David Granger had held a Commission of Inquiry into African ancestral lands but the report “that speaks to this glorified concept of African ancestral lands.” In the case of Victoria village, formerly Plantation Northbrook, East Coast Demerara, a Land Transport exists for its purchase and all land on that transport might be “referred to collectively and communally as African ancestral lands because it is stated in a Transport.”
Touching on the status of lands by residents of Victoria the Attorney General said residents there have to take individual steps to acquire lands that they are residing on because the entire village, having been purchased by freed slaves, is made of communal lands. “That entire village, excepting the persons, who went by themselves and obtained prescriptive title for the land that they are occupying individually, those are the only people who have obtained titles individually from that village,” he said.
During the debate, APNU+AFC parliamentarian, Attorney-at-Law Amanza Walton-Desir accused the PPPC administration of discriminating mainly against Afro-Guyanese in the area of lands. “Time and time again, Guyanese and in particular Afro-Guyanese have been disadvantaged and dispossessed by this government and I have zero apologies for stating it because it is a fact,” she said. She accused government of being “two-faced” in addressing Guyanese concerns.
But the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs challenged Ms Walton-Desir to provide her legal services to assist Afro-Guyanese in obtaining legal possession of lands that they had been living on for decades, rather than appear in the National Assembly to pretend that she was representing their interests. “The Honourable member is a lawyer. She can easily go in there to help the people regularise their occupation; all of them who are squatting on communally owned lands,” he said.
Referring to compensation to residents of Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara, whose lands were acquired to facilitate the construction of the new Demerara Harbour Bridge, Mr Nandlall said Afro-Guyanese there were paid GY$80 million to GY$90 million and Indo-Guyanese who got GY$10 million. “It has nothing to do with ethnic and colour,” he said. Mr Forde, who is also a lawyer for a number of the Peter’s Hall residents, told the House that due to racial and political reasons, the compensation process has not been fair.