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Dear Editor
The protest in Plaisance is one which has been festering for years. The people of Plaisance are finally saying ‘enough is enough’.Those of us who are conscious of the bits and pieces of our history that is in the public domain know that the adjoining villages of Plaisance and Sparendaam (referred to as Plaisance) were bought by the formerly enslaved ancestors of the Africans in the village, and over the years segments of that community’s lands were forcibly taken.
Among the parcels of land taken without the villagers’ consent is the area known as Pradoville II, and that currently occupied by the (Railway) Embankment Road. Anyone that would say otherwise is free to present the evidence to demonstrate that the villagers were paid for those lands.
On Tuesday (June 27) of this week, masses of Plaisance people protested. They protested against a certain politician who along with others used their status and the laws of Guyana to bully villagers (of Plaisance) to relinquish a tract of land north of Sparendaam adjoining the sea dam. They were protesting against this same man who lead a team intending to bully them to freely give up more lands for the passage of a road. Effectively they were protesting against this man taking them for granted.
It was clear that the protest was not only against the current situation for protestors mentioned among other things this Politician is living on Plaisance People land. It is one which has a history of a people being marginalised, taken advantage of, and ridiculed for being in a state of impoverishment created by similar acts of disenfranchisement.
The Plaisance situation is mirrored in many of our villages. The trains once operated by the Transport and Harbours Department traversed the coast from Parika to Rosignol. However, there is no documentary evidence to show that African villages were paid for the land on which the tracks were laid after negotiations. On the other hand, there is evidence that some plantations owners through whose lands the trains passed were paid. History should surely be able to support the people of Plaisance in their resolve to end this ‘eye-pass’. In this day and age of Reparations, the people of Plaisance (and other villages) should be recompensed for the land on which the Railway Embankment is and any other lands required for (national) developmental projects.
Juxtaposing the situation evolving in Plaisance alongside the environment in which the world is clamouring for Diasporic Africans to get reparations for actions taken against them throughout the Maafa (African Holocaust). From the time the Spanish Crown accepted the recommendations of Bartholomew De Las Casas to present day, inclusive of the murders of Quinlon Bacchus and Orrin Baston. Las Casas’ recommendation saw the establishment of the Atlantic Trade in Africans, now considered a crime against humanity. Post emancipation we saw the enactment of policies which has continually restricted African participation in the economic activities of the colony and later the state of Guyana. In like manner we continue to witness differential treatment for African in contact with the law alongside that received by others.
The possibility of the situation in Plaisance being repeated in many other villages is high and very likely to bring into focus the need for the creation of an African Ancestral Land Commission. The fact that the people of Plaisance are not viewing the current efforts to take more of their village lands for a road in isolation to Pradoville II, people from other villages are likely to do the same. Even some that not in the defined road project area for the road are likely to join the fray for they are threatened by land grabbers as in Kingelly.
In Kingelly a small village on the West Coast of Berbice we saw the current Attorney General encouraging people to squat of lands he proclaimed to be state lands. These lands we all know are part of those bought by Kojo McPherson. However, the Minister of Legal Affairs in his attempt to deny a historical fact continuously claim the lands are state holdings. If one should assume these are state holdings then his instructions would definitely be conflicting with the law, as the Title to Land (Prescription and Limitation) (Amendment) Bill of 2010 made it illegal (useless) to squat on state lands. The instrument the current government has wrongfully applied against the people of Mocha.
A resolution to the land situation faced by the people of Plaisance and many other African villages needs to be placed in the reparations discourse, wherein its resolution would be framed by an African Ancestral Lands Commission, as recommended by ACDA. A commission with the mandate to protect African Ancestral Lands in the first instance.
Yours truly,
Elton McRae
