GUYANA | Reparations demand compensation for forced unpaid slave labour- Indentureship was a paid worker system !

GEORGETOWN,  Guyana, August 29, 2023 - Once again descendants of former African slaves are being pitted against descendants of Indian indentured labourers in Guyana by the Jagdeo/Ali Regime.

Africans have received support for reparative justice from descendants of the Gladstone family, a former Plantations owner resulting in much public pronouncement from the Government of Guyana which has injected itself as the authority to speak on behalf of African Guyanese on all matters even those bearing such grave sentiments to Africans.

The pronouncements serve to further highlight President Irfaan Ali’s failure to acknowledge reparation is about compensation for forced unpaid labour committed during slavery and has nothing to do with the paid worker system under indentureship.

As such the African community is called upon to send a clear message to the Ali/Jagdeo regime that we shall not countenance any act to devalue the contribution of our forebears to the economic development of this country.

Whereas the world has seen several economic systems used to generate wealth and a comparison of any of these will result in some areas of similarities, there are fundamental differences making each a distinctive system. 

The plantation system with its inherent social, economic and political distinction is unique to the capitalist economic model of colonialism. 

It was considered an economically efficient and legal system of production, producing enormous amounts of wealth for colonial powers at the expense of exploiting labour as a factor of production – both that of slaves and indentured immigrants from different lands.

Labour as an essential factor of production has a value that is largely determined and priced by the market as well as by representatives of labour and the entrepreneurial class.

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. 

I am assuming there was some consideration of the market value at the time, and this would have been based on that existing in the lands from which they came.  History records an employment package was agreed to and included free land at the end of an agreed contractual period for which they were paid.

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.

Comparative to chattel slavery 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.

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.

In Guyana, not only is the African subjected to state oppression, marginalisation and attempts to destroy and distort historical facts, we are constantly and systemically having African pride, independence, wealth and contributions to develop Guyana  undermined  by the predominant PPP government. 

We find ourselves even having to compete with our Indian indentured descendants for whose mobility across continents and conditions of work was worse.  It’s unbelievable that some can seek such comparison.

We are reminded Africans were denied personal identity, they were owned as property of another human, stripped of history, classified as subhuman and alongside the poultry and cattle stock on the plantations.  They were paid no wages, had no choice hours of rest as they worked from dawn to dusk, their lives were not valued, they had no country representative negotiating a contract of work. 

Why do our Indian plantation colleagues strive to undermine what is deserving of Africans in order to promote a rewrite of indentureship and make claims for  any additional benefits they believe they deserve.

Let it be simply put- slavery is slavery and indentureship is indentureship and neither of these are defined by Ali or Jagdeo.

The Ali/ Jagdeo regime has no moral authority to speak on our behalf on an issue they care less about. In his flirtation with history, he does not care he is usurping and undermining the structured reparation work being done by CARICOM Reparations Commission on behalf of descendants of Africans in the region. 

He is bringing chaos, creating hostility, and dysfunction to a process that is thus far conducted in a deliberative manner. His treatment of the Gladstone family, who has acknowledged their role in slavery and is prepared to make restitution, is unbecoming of the office he holds and disrespecting the CARICOM Reparations Commission.

There is no doubt CARICOM would have had the names of those families who were involved in slavery, all Ali is doing is jumping up and seeking to grab attention. While Africans in the Caribbean and around the world will pursue reparations, which clearly the Ali regime has demonstrated is not within its remit, he can start now by correcting issues that will bring justice to African Guyanese for violations created by his government. A few are listed hereunder: –

–          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 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.

Ali has also touched on Plantation Success, East Coast Demerara, which the Gladstone family once owned. This nation is being reminded that the Ali/Jagdeo regime shortly after entering office in 2020 flooded the lands to force people off.

They engaged in one of the most inhumane acts not dissimilar to the slave masters and colonisers, to evict persons and undermine their right to economic self-determination on the pretext GuySuCo wanted to cultivate canes. Freed people bought plantation Success.

Ali brings no moral authority to any conversation on reparations given the brutish nature of his regime and its treatment of the African man, woman and child. Enough is enough!

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