GUYANA | Afro-Guyanese being evicted from legally acquired lands by the Ali/Jagdeo Government

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, August 31, 2022 - Guyana’s Village Voice is reporting that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Ali/Jagdeo regime, has embarked on a programme of removing people from their lands bought or leased under the (APNU+AFC) Coalition administration led by former president David Granger.

While in Opposition, the then People’s Progressive Party/Civic Leader Bharrat Jagdeo had pledged that any land transaction made by the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) government would be rescinded once they regained power.

Immediately after the PPP/C returned to government in August 2020 many persons who had leased state lands or bought state properties were instructed to return them and threatened with repossession if they failed to do so. 

According to the Village Voice, there have been cases like Wales on the West Bank Demerara, and Enmore on the East Coast Demerara where persons went to court in defiance of the government’s threat, and the court ruled in their favour.

Recently, the Ali/Jagdeo administration has sent eviction notices to persons occupying lands in the Timehri/ Yarrowkabra and Soesdyke Linden Highway areas. The government’s eviction notices include persons who are in possession of leases and have lived on the lands for more than 25 years. 

The Letters that have been distributed to leasees claim that they have occupied  the “land illegally,” are required to “cease forthwith with your activity….and give up peacefully” or “failure, to comply with the above directives will result in legal action…to recover the possession of the land…”

The report says that the people who accuse the government of “chasing them off the land” and who are mostly targeted and affected, happen to be African Guyanese. “Persons who spoke with Village Voice said President Irfaan Ali’s ‘one Guyana’ means only one set of people are being targeted for discrimination. In addition to having homes constructed on the leased lands, persons are rearing livestock and have permanent crops.”

Conversely, While the PPP/C government is charged with chasing Afro-Guyanese from their legitimate land holdings, there are allegations that only recently, president Ali visited Pigeon Island, Chateau Margot on the East Coast of Demerara, and promised to regularise the tenure of persons who illegally occupied lands in that area. 

These residents, who are primarily East Indians, were said to have been promised certificates of title for their illegal land holdings by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA).

According to the Village Voice article, the Ali/Jagdeo regime also assured the Pigeon Island residents that the vesting order to pursue ownership of their illegal holdings has been published in the Official Gazette, and the title documents for the lands will be issued by the Ministry of Housing by year end.