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In a stinging rebuke of Government’s destruction of homes, motor cycle, household articles, businesses, permanent crops, livestock among other possessions, approximated to be tens of millions of dollars, the Caribbean Guyana Institute For Democracy (GCID) has called for the intervention of the United Nations (UN).
In a recent statement, the institute stated that from January 4 through January 7, 2023, residents of Mocha Arcadia were subjected to terror and trauma that normally accompany war, however, they were not at war with any enemy but their government was at war with them.
“Using giant machinery and backed by heavily armed police operatives, the government demolished houses, and threatened sympathetic parliamentarians with jail and harm. When Opposition Leader Mr. Aubrey Norton arrived on the scene and crossed over one of the bridges to speak to horrified residents, government officials ordered an excavator operator to destroy the bridge; obviously to provoke a war with the Opposition Leader and his supporters.”
In its rebuke, CGID pointed out the government prevented parents from helping their children and threw distraught women in the thick, inhibiting mud that engulfed the scene. “Inhumane Police officers knelt in one woman’s back, placed her face down in the mud, handcuffed her, threw her in a police vehicle like a dog and took her to the Police station, for no reason.”
Calling on Guyanese to fight for their rights to live and speak freely in Guyana, their homeland, the institute said in these days of unspeakable horror the government’s cruelty had no end.
“Residents could not recover personal belongings as those were thrown into large holes and buried. Business assets like soda bottles, cooking utensils, refrigerators, stoves and storage facilities were crushed to nothingness and also buried. Wooden bridges were maliciously broken to prevent residents from accessing their homes to retrieve their belongings and assist beleaguered neighbours.
“Some families had to rush out of their homes as the menacing claws of hymacs and excavators hovered overhead ready to destroy decades of hard work, dreams, and hopes. Their lives had practically ended at the hands of their own government – a callous cabal of fascist.
“Pigs and piglets, owned by residents who are farmers, were hit with the bucket of the escalator and maliciously killed, then buried in holes. Some of the animals were reportedly buried alive.”
The government has justified its action stating the residents were in the pathway of the new road and they were offered compensation to remove. The new road seen below shows the properties destroyed (as marked by X) were not in the pathway. Residents have also rebuked the government’s claims they had offered appropriate compensation in land and money to relocate and continue their livelihood.
Resident have been living in the area for some 15 to 30 years raising livestock, permanent crops, beverage distribution, among other businesses. One had hundreds of pigs and piglets, another 60 heads of cattle, a beverage distributor had more than 900 cartoons of beverage worth millions of dollars that were all destroyed by the bulldozers and excavators. The destruction was broadcast live via social media.
CGID contended that thousands of people inside and outside of Guyana are appalled at the cruelty and callous insensitivity of the government towards the African Guyanese citizens of Mocha and the Black population generally. “They have all condemned this act of war against African Guyanese.”
Noting the traumas that are occasioned by incidents of such nature, the institute pointed out that some people will be scarred permanently especially women, children, and the elderly. “Of course this is precisely what the PPP regime wants. They want to be feared like [Russia President Vladimir] Putin.”
The United States-based organisation which has repeatedly accused the government of practicing racism and filed similar complaints with US government officials said “if racists in the PPP regime do not want to live in a country with African Guyanese, and others who do not support the PPP, they must form their own country and live there!”
These atrocities of Mocha Arcadia must be publicised to the world, said CGID, and must never again occur in Guyana again. Expressing concerns if the government does not stop their assault on the citizens it could lead to retaliation by the people, CGID has called for those responsible for these crimes to be punished.
People’s homes and dignity must never again be hostage to the building of highway, then clearing them out like animals to facilitate reallocating their lands to ethnic oligarchs, the organisation said.
Calling for a complaint to be filed with the UN Human Rights Commission for an investigation of these crimes against humanity, the institute stated it must include: –
- investigation into the atrocities of the Mocha demolition;
- recommendation of appropriate sanctions for those engaged in wrongdoing and
- proposals for the just handling in Guyana of conflicts between persons with clams to ancestral lands and the government’s desire to use such lands for development projects.
CGID, accusing the PPP/C government of being an apartheid regime, said the government is deliberately provoking a civil war in Guyana and seems determined to drive African Guyanese out of Guyana. Reminding that Guyana belongs to all Guyanese, irrespective of race, the institute said persons must not allow themselves to become like Palestinians, homelesss and without rights in their own land.