(Demerara Waves) – The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) on Tuesday urged the United Nations Development Programme (EU) and the European Union (EU) to seek the intervention of the United Nations (UN) and the Inter-American systems to protect the rights of Indigenous Amerindians at Chinese Landing where gold mining operations are on the verge of being expanded.
Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat told Demerara Waves Online News that “we are facilitating talks between the two parties.”
Calling the appeal “urgent” to help prevent the imminent destruction of indigenous life, lands and assets in Guyana, the GHRA wants the UN and Inter-American systems to contact the Guyana government to most urgently to request it to ensure that the precautionary measures ordered by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights are implemented immediately and to “stop private individuals from acting in dangerous disregard of the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.”
The appeal is issued to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, President of the UN General Assembly, President of the UN Security Council, President of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, Chairperson Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, President of the European Union and Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
“Indigenous communities in Guyana are urgently appealing to the international community to establish a monitoring arrangement in Guyana to watch over the implementation of international norms on indigenous rights in Guyana as a matter of the greatest urgency. Indigenous peoples are without protection, notwithstanding the existence on paper of a Commission on Indigenous Rights – which has never acted in protective mode,’ the GHRA said.
