US Report Highlights Human Rights Abuses in Guyana’s Mining Sector

Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website on 8 March

Georgetown, Guyana: The International Human Rights Programme at one of the world’s leading universities says Guyanese mining regulations have failed to prevent severe human rights abuses and devastating damage to the natural environment and the communities in which Amerindians live.

“Medium and small-scale gold mining, as currently practiced and regulated, inflict severe environmental, health, and social damage on the areas and people near mining operations,” the Harvard Law School programme said in a report, released in Massachusetts this week.

“The prevalence of corruption in the mining oversight process reduces the government’s capacity to enforce the mining regulations and other policies for mitigating these effects,” the report added.

It said in almost all cases, Amerindians are “disproportionately affected,” stating that firsthand observation and interviews with government officials, non-governmental organizations, workers, Amerindians and miners revealed five large-scale environmental and health effects of mining in Guyana’s interior.

The report entitled, “All that Glitters: Gold Mining in Guyana”, identified them as “drastic increases” in the sediment content of river water, increased levels of mercury in river water, creation of artificial sandbars in rivers, deforestation and degradation of land fertility, and mosquito infestation and malaria.

The Harvard Law School programme said a full-scale investigation into the social effects of mining in Amerindian communities is “beyond the scope of the report.”

But it said interviews with participants involved in mining, Amerindian community members, and government officials “strongly suggested that mining is correlated with prostitution, HIV- infection rates, violence against women, and international and domestic trafficking in persons.”

The report said Guyana’s property rights regime places “too much priority on subsurface mineral rights, fails to coordinate land uses, and impermissibly restricts rights of Amerindians.”

It said while the 2005 Regulations effect a “marked improvement” over the previous regulatory regime, they are yet to fully implement and contain deficiencies that will impede efficacy.

The report said the current mining regulatory structure is unenforceable, contributing to “high levels of corruption and poor revenue collection.”

“Guyanese law gives the government a virtually unlimited right to the minerals in the ground and gives subsurface right priority over surface rights,” it said.

“While it is not uncommon for a government to retain subsurface rights for land within its territory, Guyanese government policies extend the rights of miners holding licenses excessively, often placing the rights of miners to access subsurface minerals ahead of the rights of surface holders and of environmental concerns,” it added.

The report said the failure of the Guyanese government to place stricter and more specific regulations on mining activities leads to environmental change, interference with land use rights of Amerindians and other property holders, and a “pastiche of mining claims and permits that has become increasingly difficult to regulate.”

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Americas. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.