Miners attack Chinese Landing Toshao, other residents

Last Updated on Friday, 13 November 2026, 0:13 by Written By Denis Chabrol

A gold miner at Tassawini/Chinese Landing, Thursday night beat the Toshao and other residents after they seized an excavator in order to prevent further mining in the area in a long-running battle that had even reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

“We could have lost our life just now trying to protect ourself, trying to not being bullied,” she said on Social Media.  The woman appealed to authorities to dispatch assistance to the community.

Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat, in a brief comment to Demerara Waves Online News, said “police are investigating.”

Toshao Nikita Miller alleged that a named and identifiable miner stole her unloaded firearm and her brother’s cellphone while regaining possession of an excavator that the residents seized and were taking for safe keeping. “He beat me up- he and one of his workmen fired 10 shots over residents’ heads,” she said.

The woman complained bitterly that miners’ assault on villagers’ rights was “overbearing”.

Ms Miller said Thursday night’s confrontation began with efforts by miners to enter the village through Kariakoo again “boring to come through Chinese landing”. The village chief said the villagers reached and escorted the miners “way down to Tassawini landing”. She said after the residents seized an excavator and attempted to take it to the mission for safekeeping, but the miners “brackled the boys”, beat them and seized their phones and regained possession of that piece of heavy duty equipment.

The Toshao said when she and three other villagers returned to the area by boat and they again seized the excavator. The woman said the miners retaliated by beating her. “I got a thrashing and, as you can see Uncle here, the men beat him up and blacked him out,” she said. “The men held me down in the mud” and took away her phone, gun, a bike that was donated by the government.

“Sad situation going on with Chinese Landing and no agency is there to help Chinese Landing right now. It seems as though we were left on our own; like we have to fight our own battle,” she said.

The Natural Resources Minister is already on record as saying that a decision by the Caribbean  Court of Justice (CCJ) does not give the government any room to intervene.

In response Mr Bharrat said there were “no legal grounds” for the government to stop Mr Wayne Vieria’s operations.

“Vieira has a decision from the CCJ which tied the hands of GGMC. This is the crux of the matter. It is not government or the GGMC’s inaction,” he told Demerara Waves Online  News in August,2026. 

The CCJ in 2017 ruled that a GGMC cease-work order (CWO) to Mr Vieira on November 26, 2010, could not stand as the issuance was beyond the mines officer’s powers and there was a failure to consider whether that order was absolutely necessary.

The CCJ says it took the view that the power to issue the CWO was to be exercised only where it appeared ‘absolutely necessary’ for the maintenance of public peace or for the protection of the State’s or private persons’ rights.