What Kind of Freedom Leaves a People Behind? 75% of Amerindian (Indigenous) Guyanese living below the poverty line (2006)

According to that 2006 survey from the Bureau of Statistics, 31.6% of Afro-Guyanese, 30% of Indo-Guyanese, and 33.7% of those of mixed race were living in poverty. But the most staggering figure was this: over 75% of Amerindian (Indigenous) Guyanese were living below the poverty line. In a country that claims to belong to all its people, the original people of this land continue to carry the heaviest burden.

On this Emancipation Day, the government will flood social media with celebratory slogans about independence, freedom, and prosperity. They will wear traditional garb, post staged photos with Amerindian children, and boast of building “One Guyana.” But beneath the polished PR lies a brutal, shameful truth, three out of four Indigenous Guyanese still live in poverty.  Let that sit with you.

In a country now overflowing with oil wealth, the cruelest irony is that the very people who first inhabited this land, our Indigenous brothers and sisters, remain the poorest, the most neglected, and the most silenced. The government has not released official poverty statistics since 2006, nearly two decades ago. And even then, the data painted a grim picture that should have sparked national reckoning. Instead, it was quietly buried. According to that 2006 survey from the Bureau of Statistics, 31.6% of Afro-Guyanese, 30% of Indo-Guyanese, and 33.7% of those of mixed race were living in poverty. But the most staggering figure was this, over 75% of Amerindian (Indigenous) Guyanese were living below the poverty line. In a country that claims to belong to all its people, the original people of this land continue to carry the heaviest burden.

The rural interior, where the majority of Amerindian Guyanese live, posted a jaw-dropping 74% poverty rate, compared to just 19% in urban areas. And since that time, not a single updated ethnic or regional poverty report has been released. We are left to assume, and rightly so, that if there were good news, we would have heard it by now.

In the meantime, the World Bank (2019) and IDB (2023) have tried to fill the silence. The World Bank estimates that 48.4% of all Guyanese live on less than US$5.50/day. The IDB says nearly half the country is below the poverty line. But even those numbers likely underestimate what is happening in the interior, where poor infrastructure, food insecurity, underfunded schools, and collapsing health services continue to plague Indigenous communities.  And still, the government remains quiet.

This is not just neglect. This is strategic erasure.  When Amerindian children die at twice the rate of coastal children before their fifth birthday, where is the outrage?  When young people in Aishalton, Baramita, and Kamarang still walk miles to reach a broken schoolhouse, where is the investment?  When Indigenous families are offered solar panels instead of roads, clinics, and job opportunities, where is the justice?

Guyana cannot claim to be modern while colonial patterns remain intact. Today, it’s not the British who deny the Indigenous their dignity, it is a government that uses their images in brochures but denies them a seat at the table.

And while the PPP speaks of “inclusion,” their record says otherwise. They have not prioritized hinterland education. They have not delivered economic development in a way that respects Indigenous self-determination. They have certainly not closed the poverty gap.

To be clear, the oil economy is not lifting all boats, it’s leaving entire communities underwater.

For too long, our Amerindian brothers and sisters have carried the burden of a state that remembers them only at elections and photo ops. They are not ornaments. They are citizens. And they deserve more than tokenism, handouts, and empty promises.

If Guyana’s youth, regardless of ethnicity, are to build a truly just society, it must begin with truth. And the truth is this, a nation cannot call itself free while its first peoples remain trapped in poverty.