General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress, Mr. Lincoln Lewis is urging President Irfaan Ali to prove his call for reparative justice for African Guyanese is serious by attending to existing challenges affecting the African community. Writing in his column, Eye on Guyana, last Sunday, Lewis said: “In Guyana, not only is the African subjected to state oppression, marginalisation and attempts to destroy and distort historical facts, [Africans] are constantly and systemically having African pride, independence, wealth and contributions to develop Guyana undermined by the predominant PPP government.”
Ali, in a recent statement, responding to the apology and financial contributions to the University of Guyana offered by the Gladstone family for their forebear, Sir John Gladstone role in slavery and indentureship said “the call for reparations is an essential response to right a historical wrong and mitigate the enduring legacy of slavery. Reparations are aimed at ensuring a reckoning for the greatest crime against humanity and addressing the multifaceted inheritance of slavery.”
Correcting the enduring legacy of slavery
Lewis told Village Voice News, the president’s acknowledgment of “enduring legacy of slavery” must go beyond seeking to hold former colonial powers and individual beneficiaries of slavery accountable, by also holding his regime accountable. The president, he said, must show he is not only prepared to talk the talk but walk the talk.”
According to Lewis, President Ali can start now by correcting issues that will bring justice to African Guyanese for violations created by his government. A “few,” he said, are:
“- Respecting Collective Bargaining consistent with Section 23(1) of the Trade Union Recognition Act. A right the regime violates as employer and principal custodian of the Constitution and Laws of Guyana. The GPSU, GB&GWU and GTU.
” – Have the Labour Minister and Chief Labour Officer convene a meeting between the Bauxite Company Guyana Inc (BCGI) and the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) to address the severance benefits due to hundreds of workers since 2020
” – Put systems in place for the regularisation, return and/or compensation of all ancestral lands to the various African families that were encroached upon and coveted by a number of persons including the PPP government.
“- Return all cooperatives to their members and the government keeps its hands off them and ensures those that have lands are returned to them. This has historically been the sector where the African economy thrives.
” – Respect the constitutional right to free education from nursery to university. The removal of this right has severely affected the African community and opportunities for upward mobility.
“- Meaningfully engage and work with the APNU+AFC, whose support base is primarily of the African community, to ensure their interest is being protected in the management and distribution of resources.
“- Meet with the Leader of the Opposition to confirm the appointment of acting Chancellor Yonette Cummings-Edwards and acting Chief Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire. The non-appointment of these two women continue to diminish their tenure and reduce their pension when they reach pensionable age.
“- Return the state-subventions to IDPADA-G, Critchlow Labour College, and all other non-aligned PPP institutions that pursue Africans’ interest or by their work Africans stand to benefit.
“- Examine and treat the bauxite company in Region10/Berbice River through the identical lens used to treat the sugar industry in Region Six. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo recently announced his regime’s reason for re-opening the Rose Hall Estate is not the economic viability of the factory or GuySuCo but the economy of the Region. The bauxite workers and their communities are no less deserving.
“- Inject soft loans and grants into African communities across the country, with a view of giving opportunities to existing and potential businesses. Government’s talks about training citizens to be entrepreneurs but has failed to create the enabling environment, including technical support and finances, to make this possible.
“- Meet with stakeholders, including the APNU+AFC, to conceptualise and develop and institute an Affirmative Action programme that would address historical and existing structures which place the African community at a disadvantage.”
At the core of this issue stated above, Lewis said, is the disrespect for African descendants by Ali who wants to set the African agenda, dictate who should be their leaders, and feel it is the PPP’s God given right to determine whether Africans thrive or fail.
Slavery vs Indentureship
Addressing the issue of slavery and indentureship, the trade unionist said in the case of indentured labourers this value was, according to historians, determined by negotiations between representatives of the lands from which the indentured immigrants came.” He also noted based on historical records an employment package was agreed to and included free land at the end of an agreed contractual period for which they were paid.
He also shared that utilising 20th and 21st Century value systems we can constructively review the contracts and conditions of their employment and critique the labour violations in retrospect. “This does not nullify, nor should it exclude an understanding of context and the evolution of extensive labour rights and protection.”
Regarding chattel slavery, Lewis argued, the main, perhaps only similarity, lies in the fact that both slaves and indentured workers worked the same plantations under colonial masters. “Plantation slavery and the sufferings of the Africans over 300 years remains incomparable to any other production, migration and inhumane system, experienced by any other group of people in this world.”
And according to him, Africans do not wear this claim as a badge of honour but as a BADGE of HORROR of other humans displaying their inhumanity, greed and exploitation of another. “We wear this account of our history as a badge of horror to tell our story to remind and protect others that such inhumanity should never be repeated.”
