GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) has been asked to withdraw its provisional measures for the Indigenous Indian community of Chinese Landing, where residents there had alleged severe physical violence and environmental degradation by several gold miners.
This was disclosed on Wednesday by Minister of Governance Gail Teixeira, who said that last December, the Government wrote to the IACHR asking for a response to the Government’s raised issues. “What we did with Chinese Landing; we asked for a withdrawal of the precautionary measures as they’re not based on fact and it’s a misrepresentation, so we asked formally of the IACHR to withdraw the petition against Guyana,” she said.
She told reporters attending a news conference that the IACHR has acknowledged the Guyana government’s submissions in response to the claims made by Chinese Landing residents, but has not indicated what the next steps will likely be to its withdrawal request. “We have submitted our responses to Chinese Landing. We’ve had an acknowledgment that they received it. We’ve not had a response in terms of what their views are,” she said.
No details about the Government’sGovernment’s response were provided, but the minister described the Government’sGovernment’s findings on health and mining as “very interesting” based on work done by reputable government technical officials.
Teixeira signaled that if the IACHR does not respond definitively to its request to withdraw the provisional measures, the Government would likely release its response to the provisional measures that sought to protect the community from serious human rights abuses.
The Chinese Landing Council had asked that the Government allow the community residents to mine gold for their livelihoods.
The GovernmentGovernment had shut all gold mining operations in the community and deployed police and Guyana Geology and Mines Commission representatives after the IACHR, an autonomous and primary body of the Organisation of American States (OAS), issued a resolution on July 21, 2023, stating that the Caribs “are in a serious and urgent situation, given that their rights to life and personal integrity are at serious risk.”
That body had asked the Guyana government to take the necessary measures to protect the right to life. The personal integrity of the members of the Indigenous Carib Community of Chinese Landing identified as beneficiaries, with a cultural, gender-based, and age-appropriate perspective to prevent threats, harassment, and other acts of violence against the beneficiaries; consult and agree upon the measures to be adopted with the beneficiaries and their representatives, and report on the actions taken to investigate the events that led to the adoption of this precautionary measure, to prevent such events from reoccurring.
and then  has been asked to withdraw its provisional measures for the Indigenous Indian){kind=link}