A rum distillery in St. Lucia. Credit: Gary J. Wood/cc by 2.0

By Bert Wilkinson
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov 29 2012 (IPS)

Caribbean governments have begun a quiet lobbying effort to convince Washington to rethink the subsidies it grants to the rum industry in U.S. territories, or face a formal complaint in the World Trade Organisation.

At the heart of Caribbean fears are two companies, UK-based Diageo Plc brands and U.S.-owned Cruzan Rums, which like many Caribbean distilleries, export millions of gallons of white and dark rums to the U.S. mainland each year.

Irwin LaRocque, chief of the regional trade bloc Cariforum, told IPS the U.S. subsidies “have the potential for damaging the market for our rum producers in the region, a market that we have been cultivating over the years, a market which they are seeking to upgrade by exporting brand rum rather than bulk rum.

“This is a matter of grave concern and it is agreed there needs to be some intervention of some sort to inform the United States of our concerns,” he says.

The problem, says the Barbados-based West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers Association (WIRSPA), is that the U.S. has granted millions in annual subsidy payments to the two producers to build new distilleries and other equipment in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

The subsidies allow them to export rum to the U.S. market at a rate so much cheaper than their neighbours in the English-speaking Caribbean that WIRSPA’s own producers find themselves unable to compete.

Rum and spirits production date back nearly 400 years to the European colonial era. Collectively, the sector is worth more than 500 million dollars to the Caribbean’s economy.

The Dominican Republic, Guyana, Barbados and Jamaica are among the key exporting nations. About 80,000 people benefit directly and indirectly from the sector.

The issue appears headed to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) unless the Barack Obama administration and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office are prepared to sit down to review the policy in a way that is mutually beneficial, industry players say.

Thus far, the row has stayed relatively low key. Officials at the Guyana-based Caribbean trade bloc secretariat said that it came up briefly at the hemispheric Summit of the Americas this year in Colombia, with President Obama present at the meeting table.

Washington-based Caribbean ambassadors have also floated the topic to various tiers of administrative officials in the past year.

By all indications, they have made little headway. WIRSPA, and producers in the Dominican Republic who are also affected, say the road is being cleared for a trip to the WTO in Geneva if all else fails.

“We find that it is extremely difficult to compete and it is a challenge at this point in time. We feel that this is an iniquitous and pernicious use of subsidies for multinational spirit companies and their rum production,” Frank Ward, the head of WIRSPA, told IPS.

In the event that the U.S. digs in its heels – as it has done with the now destroyed banana and internet gaming sectors – WIRSPA and Cariforum say they have already done their legal homework and anticipate a favourable ruling at the WTO.

“We have had so far three legal opinions of the legality at the WTO of these subsidies which are being given by U.S. territories and all of them stated that there is a case to be made against the subsidies,” Ward said.

“One of the opinions came from the advisory centre on WTO law which is a body set up to advise individual countries on issues related to WTO laws. So we have a clear case there. We now need the political will to take it forward and time is not on the side of the industry,” he added.

The clearest indication that talks are a possibility has come from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson, who said the U.S. preferred dialogue to legal action.

Industry officials and diplomats say frustration is rising in Cariforum because of the mixed signals from various levels in Washington.

The grouping of regional diplomats in the U.S. capital had earlier this year written to the office of the U.S. trade representative, Ron Kirk.

In the letter, they outline their case and detail the subsidies they allege are “covering 100 percent of all costs to build a state of art production plant in St. Croix and then providing an operating subsidy that would approach or exceed 100% of the cost of production of all rum exported to the United States.

“The generous tax breaks and incentives” could entirely destroy Caribbean rum as most have known it, the letter warns.

Ironically, some of the regional distillers like Guyana sell bulk rum to their now British and U.S. trade nemeses for onward production to bottled rum. They now have to face the possibility of a decline in business at the expense of their buyers if the matter is not resolved in the short term.

“Several rum producers have lost long-term contracts to supply bulk rum,” noted a recent editorial in the Jamaica Observer. “This trend will continue because subsidised production capacity is larger than the existing market share of Caribbean rum exports. This excess capacity will first disrupt the U.S. market then inevitably affect all export markets.”

A small-scale gold miner shows off his earnings for the day. Credit: chuck624/cc by 2.0

By Bert Wilkinson
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov 26 2012 (IPS)

As regional delegates meet to discuss a legally binding ban on the use of mercury this week, Guyanese officials are arguing that an exception should be made for the South American country’s lucrative gold mining sector until an acceptable alternative is found.

Since world gold prices began to surge in the last five-plus years, gold has become Guyana’s leading export industry, easily surpassing sugar, bauxite and rice as the main economic pillar.

The runaway prices have also attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investments by Canadian, U.S., Australian, Russian, Chinese and Brazilian firms, all eager to open huge mines in the country that colonial-era British explorer Sir Walter Raleigh once believed was home to the legendary “El Dorado”.

The plan to lobby for a grace period to comply with anticipated treaty restrictions on the use of mercury to recover gold is to be pitched at the Nov. 26-29 U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) review conference in Bogota, Colombia, where government officials, industry players and activists will gather to debate the issue in-depth.

Small-scale miners add mercury to pans of gold-rich ore, where the element clings to the gold and sinks to the bottom. Studies show that up to 15 million miners around the world are exposed to dangerous levels of mercury in this way, along with others in the industry like jungle shopkeepers and jewelers.

It is also a major environmental hazard, travelling thousands of miles in the atmosphere and poisoning local water sources.

This year, recorded sales of gold will bring in more than 600 million dollars to the Guyanese economy, about six times more than sugar. Officials say about half of the estimated national annual production of about 650,000 troy ounces is smuggled to countries like neighbouring Suriname and Brazil where royalties and taxes are cheaper.

Natural Resources Minister Roper Persaud has included active miners and mercury suppliers in his delegation. He says he plans “to vigorously tell the meeting that up to 100,000 people depend on the sector for a living and so the status quo must remain until an equally efficient way of trapping gold from mud, sand or alluvial rock is arrived at.”

“We import large quantities of mercury in Guyana but mercury is not abused here,” Miners Association spokesman Tony Shields told IPS. “We use far less than, for example, the Brazilians and miners in other countries, but the industry will die unless we get the grace period and until a satisfactory alternative is found to the use of mercury.”

Shields argues that if uncertainty about restrictions or an outright ban is not dealt with quickly, miners will simply hoard mercury supplies. Most remain convinced that mercury is the best method despite its known negative effects on human health and the environment.

A recent study by the Guianas office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found elevated levels of mercury not only in miners who use it almost daily while panning for gold, but in jewelers who inhale the dust when working with raw gold and in jungle shopkeepers who often barter for gold, a revelation that caught most in the industry and environmental community off-guard.

Critics note that the Guyanese government has been hard-pressed to control the industry’s spectacular growth, which has brought increased lawlessness – including a spike in the annual murder rate from about 10 to 50 a year – and more importantly, pollution of waterways and general damage to the environment.

As an indication of how serious the situation is, the umbrella Amerindian People’s Association (APA), which monitors the situation of nine native tribes in the jungle, says it is overwhelmed by daily complaints from members about rivers being so polluted that animals no longer water at them.

Residents say they now have to trek to faraway creeks that are hopefully less polluted to get potable water, fish and wait for animals to trap, as dirty and dying waterways are chasing them away.

“The situation is a serious one but nothing much is being done to alleviate it,” APA spokeswoman Jean LaRose told IPS.

The mines commission and the WWF have collaborated in recent months to demonstrate alternative equipment like the shaking tables and a retort system that hardly uses mercury, but miners’ representatives like Shields, as well as government officials, argue that mercury is still the most efficient method.

Meanwhile, several large Canadian companies are at an advanced stage of exploration and will soon be going into full production on large-scale mines in the malaria-infested interior of the Amazon. They will likely use cyanide, whose effects are also known to be harmful to the environment.

Pedro Melville, 62, a father of nine from Guyana’s northwestern gold and manganese mining district of Matthew’s Ridge, sees the impacts of unchecked prospecting on the local environment every day.

One major problem is contamination of water sources. Melville says some residents who previously depended on river water to drink now dig their own pits or trenches, allow the water to settle, and let the rain replenish it.

“The miners don’t care anything about the communities. All they want is what they could get,” he told IPS. “Hygiene is also a problem, and by that I mean the disposal of human and other waste. That is why we have diseases like malaria and typhoid. The situation is getting out of hand, to tell you the truth.”

Authorities regulating Guyana’s booming gold industry recently ordered a halt to new applications to mine for gold and diamonds in the country’s rivers and other waterways, setting off a sectoral firestorm and threats of protests from enraged industry players who accuse government of abusing its powers.

Melville, a member of the Carib tribe and himself a former miner who worked land dredges, believes the restrictions make sense. He says the nearby Barima River is so polluted it can no longer be safely used for domestic purposes, and blames corrupt officials in the city and urban centres for not properly regulating the brigade of local and Brazilian miners working in the jungle.

Besides pollution, officials say some river courses have been changed dramatically because of gravel islands left uncaringly in their centre by heavy mechanical dredges.

Paulina Williams, a mother of three from the western Upper Mazaruni Village of Kako, admits that her village has allowed a small number of locals and Brazilians to work claims in the Kako and Mazaruni rivers, but adds that the miners are presenting problems to villagers of the Akawaio Tribe, one of nine in the country.

“They give nothing to the community and litter the rivers and instead of paying us local taxes, they give it to the police who demand bribes from them. I agree that work on the rivers should be restricted,” she said.

Williams claimed the police are also shaking down Brazilians who don’t have work permits and allowing them to work without the permission of the village council.

Citing persistent complaints from native Indians and other interior residents, worried river boat captains and other stakeholders, Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud banned miners from applying for operating permits at the beginning of June, blaming widespread pollution and a plethora of other problems for the move.

But last week, the fairly militant Gold and Diamond Miners Association stepped in to organise an emergency meeting of members, passed a motion of no confidence in Persaud, and raised more than 50,000 dollars to bring court challenges to the move. It also threatened street protests if no compromise was reached.

Veteran miners said it was time the industry, by far the number one foreign exchange earner and among the largest single employers, flexed its muscles.

In the end, the ministry said the ban would only last for a month, to allow for a thorough review of the situation as pollution and turbidity levels had reached alarming proportions in some rivers, tributaries and creeks.

The miners’ association does not deny these problems, but argues that individual miners who transgress should be suspended or have their licenses revoked rather than penalising the entire industry for the behaviour of a few.

“That is our argument as the mining act is clear on how an errant miner should be punished. We see no reason for all applications to be turned away. Just deal with those who create problems,” said association administrator Colin Sparman.

The ministry had also criticised some dredge owners for allowing operators to work too near to river courses, uprooting 100-year-old trees which in turn fall across small rivers and block navigation. But that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Like the umbrella Amerindian People’s Association (APA) which has railed against the effects of indiscriminate mining, the ministry says that the future of subsistence farming and fishing are seriously threatened by mining activities, wildlife is disappearing because of the noise, and some species of fish are dying off from the pollution.

The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) describes the ongoing dispute as “a battle for control of Guyana’s rivers”, noting that the Guiana Continental Shield that includes Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana “is currently one of the world’s largest reservoirs of fresh water; even on limited cost/benefit economic calculations the uncontrolled destruction of our rivers is short-sighted.”

“This is the real context in which the battle for Guyana’s rivers is being contested,” it says.

“Within a matter of a few decades, fresh water will be as valuable as oil,” the group says, noting ongoing water disputes in the Middle East and China-Tibet region, as well as Southeast Asia involving India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Runaway world prices for gold in the past five years have brought more than a billion dollars in direct investment to Guyana and its eastern neighbour, Suriname, as dozens of Canadian, U.S. and Brazilian companies have set up shop, creating a mining boom that appears to have grown too large to regulate with current structures.

For example, only now is the mines commission moving to establish gold-buying centres in the western mineral-rich regions to make it easier for miners to sell their wares without traversing lonely jungle roads where they risk being robbed by heavily armed gangs. Local police investigate at least one murder a week linked to greed and general lawlessness.

The U.S. is also coming down hard on Guyana over the trafficking of underage girls to jungle camps where they are forced to work as prostitutes. Police have rescued several in recent months and remain vigilant for ongoing cases.

Added to all this is the problem of smuggling. Official natural resources ministry estimates indicate that up to half the national annual production of 600,000 troy ounces of gold are smuggled to Venezuela, Brazil and especially Suriname because royalty and tax rates are three times cheaper in Suriname than across the border river with Guyana.

Talks between the two governments are likely to soon yield an increase in rate levels in Suriname to help minimise smuggling, but the pressure to cope with a dramatic increase in investment remains heavy.

As Caribbean leaders meet in St. Lucia this week, they are focusing on a series of routine issues affecting the region, including problems with the smooth operation of the single trading market.

But those from the smaller eastern group of islands are also likely to raise the implications of a recent U.S. court ruling that has much to do with the protracted battle between mainland China and Taiwan for diplomatic recognition in the Caribbean Community bloc.

In the past week, Justice Harold Baer of the Southern District Court of New York handed tiny Grenada a major victory over Taiwan when he ruled that the Asian economic giant had no right to garnish the overseas earnings of Grenada to win back payments for development loans when Taiwan and Grenada were seemingly inseparable diplomatic buddies.

Grenada was one of only 23 countries around the world that had recognised Taiwan as a full sovereign state rather than as a breakaway rebel province of China, as Beijing has long maintained.

But the two had a bitter falling out after the previous government switched allegiance to China and booted out Taiwan, humiliating Taipei and setting off a chain of events that nearly led to full-scale economic hardships for Grenada.

Once China replaced Taiwan as Grenada’s Asian darling, Taiwan began to demand immediate repayment of about 30 million dollars in concession loans to the island, clearly as punishment for being chased off the 344 sq km island of 110,000 north of Trinidad, even though authorities there had asked for time to work out a payment plan. Taiwan basically said no, and demanded its money in a shorter period.

Lawyers for Grenada took the matter to a U.S. court because Taiwan had successfully begun to garnish the island’s earnings from cruise lines and air travel, putting the money – nearly a million dollars – into its own account rather than Grenada’s.

Wazir Mohamed, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Indiana, East, says there are lessons for small island nations caught in the middle of a tug-of-war by developed nations to win hearts and minds in the region and access minerals and other natural resources.

“There are a lot of implications for small states being caught in a new type of cold War in the world today,” he told IPS. “Nothing has changed in the way capital is being used by the West and nations like China. It is a new form of colonialism, but the only thing different to the past is that this new form is now being implemented and effected much more rapidly than in the past using capital that is very, very mobile.

“Caribbean nations have to be careful about being caught in the middle of these geopolitical fights involving other nations,” said the Caribbean-born Mohamed.

For Grenada, cruise lines were on the verge of scrubbing St. George’s as a port of call because they were uncomfortable being in the middle of a nasty diplomatic row that forced them to take the side of one over the other.

In his ruling, Justice Baer called the actions of Taiwan inimical to the island’s development since Grenada depends on money from the cruise and airline sectors “as a source of revenue for carrying out public functions”.

As widely expected, lawyers for Taiwan say they will appeal. For now, Grenadian authorities are breathing easier even as they prepare for the very likely round two legal process.

For other nations, like summit host St. Lucia, the issue is of prime importance and one to monitor very closely as it could also face similar problems. The last government in 2007 had ironically kicked out China and replaced it with Taiwan, upending the decision of another administration in the late 1990s.

China has so far not retaliated by demanding back its money, notably funding for a new sports stadium, hospital and buildings in St. Lucia’s industrial zone, but has condemned local officials outright for its diplomatic expulsion.

“We have been very careful about making this decision, and now that we have taken it, we do not expect the Chinese will love us any more for it,” said then Foreign Minister Rufus George Bousquet. “But we expect that they will conduct themselves in a manner that is acceptable to our government.”

Bousquet’s government has since lost power. The new administration of Prime Minister Kenny Anthony has already spoken to both sides, but for now is playing it safe and has remained loyal to Taiwan even though it had chosen China in a previous period in office. Bousquet had also said the policy back then was to deal with which donor was willing to give more.

Once Taiwan departed Grenada, China moved in to win hearts, funding a national sports stadium and donating generously to reconstruction efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, which devastated the island in September 2004.

Other Caribbean trade bloc nations that recognise Taiwan over China include Haiti, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, Belize and now St. Lucia, even though the official policy of the bloc is for a “one China Policy”.

The Grenada issue is not an official agenda item for leaders when they meet in the main of two annual summits from Wednesday to Friday, but officials all say the court ruling has implications and lessons for island nations still caught between China and Taiwan for diplomatic recognition.

For now it appears that mainland China is winning. Last September, many regional leaders travelled to Trinidad for the China-Caricom forum where the delegation from Beijing offered up to one billion dollars in soft loans to fund projects throughout the region.

Some states, like bloc headquarters Guyana, signed on quickly by proposing various projects for funding, but Taiwan does not have that luxury as its diplomatic and aid outreach is confined only to those with which it has formal diplomatic relations.

Over the past six months, governments in two influential Caribbean trade bloc member states – Jamaica and Guyana – have floated political test balloons on the question of whether colonial-era laws criminalising homosexuality should be amended in keeping with trends in most Western states.

The climate for gay people in the two nations is very different.

In Guyana, where many gays and lesbians live openly, the move has not made headlines, although some Christian churches have vowed to fight the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) to the very end on this issue.

The administration of President Donald Ramotar says that it is preparing to take a motion to the 65-member parliament as early as this week to begin debate on the abolition of buggery and cross-dressing laws, corporal punishment in schools, and capital punishment by hanging.

“The idea is to have the special select committees of parliament convene and begin public hearings on all three of these issues as we have indicated to the United Nations Human Rights Council,” said government legislator and presidential adviser on governance Gail Teixeira. “These should dealt with shortly.”

Government has already sounded out the Christian church, and is aware of its continued and obvious opposition to the move. Crunch time will come when the public is invited to have its say, as opposition remains fairly strong to legalised homosexuality and cross-dressing, even though gays and lesbians are not usually attacked or shunned for who they are.

Joel Simpson, an executive member of Guyana’s umbrella Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD), says it is appalling that the colonial-era laws are still on the books and can be enforced at the behest of any policemen.

“We can be jailed from between two years to 25 years for buggery even if it is consensual sex between two adult men, and cross dressers can be fined and jailed for up to six months. We want these laws changed,” he said.

More than 1,000 miles away in Jamaica, widely considered one of the world’s most homophobic societies, the government of Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller says there could be a parliamentary conscience vote in the near future as to whether or not the so-called buggery laws should be amended.

In contrast to the open hostility toward gay people of her predecessor, Simpson-Miller has also said that ability rather than sexual orientation should be the main criteria for political appointments.

In the land of Bob Marley and reggae, this is music to the ears of a gay community that has largely existed underground because of Jamaica’s culture of often violent homophobia.

Many officials in key governmental positions across the Caribbean might be reluctant to admit it, but Western governments have been upping the pressure on them to initiate change, even linking aid to the laws being removed from the statutes.

Going even further on the issue, the Simpson-Miller administration said recently that “the People’s National Party (PNP) president remains committed to her pledge to make appointments to a cabinet led by her on the basis of competence” and that legislators will be allowed to vote their conscience when the issue hits parliament in the coming months.

A recent poll in Jamaica suggested that 61 percent of the population would have a negative opinion of government should it repeal the law, down from 82 percent last year, but some Christian fellowship groups are leading a so far relatively successful fight against any amendment to the laws.

Last year, Guyana’s then health minister Leslie Ramsammy said it was high time governments face the issue head-on.

“The laws and policies that we want to legislate need to address stigma and the social risks of (HIV) testing, anonymity, confidential testing and recognising that there are vulnerable groups such as women, children, indigenous populations, prisoners, commercial sex workers and MSM (men who have sex with men).”

Clearly emboldened by the recent signals from officials, a regional LGBT advocacy group this week demanded that some of the four million euros the region will get from the European Development Fund (EDF) for vulnerable groups in the Caribbean be set aside for protection of gay rights.

The funding, intended to boost the capacity of civil society groups, covers 15 Caribbean Forum countries, including the Dominican Republic.

Ian McKnight and John Waters of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition say they are unhappy with the rather narrow definition of which groups are considered “vulnerable”, and believe that sex workers, prisoners, at-risk youth and others should included as well.

“We are asking the press to partner with us on this,” said McKnight. “There is an emerging threat to civil society that might have the strong possibility of excluding those who we call vulnerable population from a very large grant that will benefit the Caribbean region.”

Fabian George drank and generally used water from jungle rivers near his mountainside home for decades until world market prices for gold began climbing in recent years.

Now he and other villagers from the Chi Chi District in western Guyana near Venezuela won’t dare drink or bathe in water from the river nearest their tribal Indian community because of the chemical pollution and sedimentation from river and land dredges that local miners and Brazilians are operating in the area.

Small-scale miner next to cyanide leaching pit in Peru. Credit:Milagros Salazar/IPS

They, like other tribal communities in the South American nation’s booming “gold bush” sector, are today forced to walk long distances to inland creeks they believe are less polluted to obtain potable drinking water, as traditional sources are laced with sedimentation and mercury tailings from high-technology dredges as well as high- powered pumps and hoses stripping away mud or ore to recover gold.

“It is getting really bad in Chi Chi,” the 39-year-old father of two said of the river pollution Sunday as he relaxed at a government- funded native Amerindian hostel in the city, transacting business in the capital before returning to the district later this week.

“Sometimes we make sure that we catch enough rainwater to use or we would have to search out the creeks for water clean enough to drink,” he said, recalling the days when nearby rivers were dark but clear and free of sediment as mining activities were not as ramped up as they are today.

He said the wildlife has also disappeared because of equipment noise, dirty waterways and the exponential increase in human activity, as gold prices had earlier this year threatened to reach 2,000 dollars per troy ounce.

Runaway world prices for gold have pushed Guyana’s gold sector to easily leapfrog sugar, rice and bauxite atop the economic totem pole, with investors turning up from as far away as Australia, South Africa, the U.S., Brazil and Canada in particular to cash in on the gold rush in this former British colony of 730,000 people.

Officials estimate that the Caribbean trade bloc headquarters nation has so far attracted investments worth more than a billion dollars in recent years, and this will shoot upwards significantly in the next two years when Toronto-Canada-based Guyana Goldfields opens its mega mine in the Cuyuni District, also near Venezuela.

At least four other companies, most of them Canadian, are close to making similar major intentional mining announcements in the coming months, all banking on the premise that world prices will remain lucrative in the near term.

Early indications are that the mine could produce more than seven million troy ounces of gold or more than twice the amount Canada- based Cambior Inc. produced when it ran Omai mines in western Guyana for 12 years up to 2005. Back then, it was one of the largest operating in South America.

Officials like Joseph Singh, a retired army chief of staff and now chairman of the Geology and Mines Commission, admit that the booming sector now presents regulatory agencies with major administrative and other challenges, as they struggle to enforce regulations, hire enough trained jungle mines inspectors, qualified geologists and other personnel to keep pace, and generally maintain order in a sector that it is tough to regulate because most of its activities are centered in the faraway Amazonian rainforest.

The mines commission is now opening offices in the jungle in an effort to bring regulators nearer goldfields and ensure the environment isn’t damaged permanently.

He said the commission is prepared and has taken swift action to issue “cease work orders” once reports about transgressions reach the city.

“We act swiftly on reports of any transgressions, be it from our own mines officers or even pilots flying overhead and spotting river pollution. Yes, we are facing serious challenges,” he said.

Jean La Rose, head of the umbrella Amerindian People’s Association (APA), said her association had for weeks been asking for an audience with President Donald Ramotar to outline a long list of complaints about the negative effects of mining, including a stark increase in prostitution, drug and human trafficking, pollution, the inability of Amerindians to consume fish and other marine life and even river mouths being blocked by heavy sedimentation.

As an indication of some of the problems authorities are now forced to confront, interior police investigated nearly 50 bush murders last year, about 40 more than normal, many from fights over gold and women, or from drunken rum sprees by miners on time off.

Indications are that this year’s murder rate will surpass last year given current trends, including the murder of a 16-year-old mining camp prostitute in the interior last week, at the end of a love triangle gone awry.

Sensing they are losing the battle, the natural resources ministry risked aggravating Guyana’s friendly but powerful neighbour Brazil by recently deporting nearly 100 Brazilians working without documentation, while penalising locals for a slew of transgressions including improper record keeping and mining on river banks.

Officials estimate that Guyana is host to nearly 15,000 Brazilians, many of them illegal miners, chased out by the military from the Venezuelan jungle in the 1990s and pushed southeast to Guyana and neighbouring Suriname where they have settled, invested heavily and provide major regulatory headaches for authorities.

In the southwestern Potaro Region near Brazil, miners have in the past two years twice excavated the main road and uprooted underground state water main pipes while looking for gold, stranding residents on both sides of large craters and cutting off water supplies. Officials seized equipment and warned of prosecution.

Along with the other problems, the mines commission and police say they are forced to cope with a massive smuggling ring to neighbouring Suriname that Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud says accounts for up to half of the estimated 600,000-plus ounces of gold that small- and medium-scale miners produce annually.

Talks are now ongoing with Surinamese authorities for them to raise the royalty taxes to match Guyana’s seven percent to eliminate smuggling, as royalties are currently less than two percent, handing smugglers a hefty profit once they successfully make the 20-minute boat ride across the border Corentyne River.

If that is not enough, a recent World Wildlife Fund study showed significant mercury pollution in the blood of shopkeepers in the jungle who exchange freshly mined gold from miners for rations, and in dozens of jewelers tested, indicating that safety standards are lightly enforced and largely ignored.

The mining industry in Guyana is a vocal opponent of new conditions and regulations adopted by the government, which has engaged in a campaign to get millions in international donations for preserving the Amazon jungle as part of the country’s contribution to mitigating climate change.

Mining protest march in Bartica, Guyana. Credit: Jules Gibson/IPS

Political opponents have joined forces to warn those nations intending to sign on to the scheme that they need to include several layers of financial safeguards to ensure monies are expended for development purposes.

Last November, Norway signed a Guyana forest preservation deal to pay the former British colony in South America up to 250 million dollars over the next five years.

An initial disbursement of 30 million dollars could be in the national coffers as early as this month, according to Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Though Guyana emits minimal greenhouse-effect gases compared to industrialised countries, the deal mandates that this country step up efforts to curb emissions and do as much as it can to protect its still largely intact forest.

The result is that there have been renewed – and controversial – moves by authorities to better regulate industries like gold and diamond mining and the timbre sector, two of Guyana’s key foreign exchange earners.

Miner Fred McWilfred told Tierramérica that a new proposal mandating miners to wait up to six months before mining permits are approved could be a death sentence for small and medium mining operations like his.

Authorities argue, however, that they want the leeway for the state-run Forestry Commission to allow commercial but controlled harvesting of areas before small and medium scale miners, armed with shovels, power hoses and land dredges, move in and commence operations.

Most of these miners, who clear small patches in the jungle to work land claims where they believe gold deposits are hidden, have no commercial interests in trees they fell.

They say the six-month rule will completely ruin their lifeline businesses, because investment decisions will have to wait on bureaucrats. The rule is “unenforceable” and “ridiculous, to say the least,” Tony Shields, secretary of the Gold and Diamond Miners Association, told Tierramérica.

In a show of how strong opposition is to some of the new rules, miners last week demanded and won the resignation of association president Norman Mclean, a retired army chief of staff, who they accused of siding with the government on this issue. He has denied such charges.

On Feb. 1, nearly 4,000 miners blocked access to the northern town of Bartica to protest the new regime of regulations, despite the government’s ministerial delegation sent to stop them.

Analysts point out that regardless of its good intentions to protect the jungle, the Jagdeo administration might have unwittingly stirred up the conflict that has been fuelled by declarations from both sides.

In one such remark, Jagdeo vowed that his administration “will have to go it alone if we cannot do it together” with the mining sector. He has also said that the use of mercury to recover gold and diamonds from ore will soon be a thing of the past.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds was just as forthright, saying on national television that the proposals to improve mining practices are here to stay.

The statements from Jagdeo and have only served to irk miners and reinforce their fears about the effects of the waiting period. The miners are convinced that the delay aims to prevent them from felling trees that are of commercial value for the timber industry.

Hinds maintains that the matter can be settled cordially, but both McWilfred and Shields say the administration is so anxious to comply with rules to bring in the Norwegian funds that the industry is the first to feel the pressure of tighter controls and tougher new rules.

In fact, Shields argues that what small mining operations need are not new measures, but for the geological commission to enforce in an organised way the existing systems for reforestation and cooperation between timber harvesters and miners.

The forestry and geology commissions are planning to beef up inspections to monitor the jungle, but it is so vast and some mining areas are so far away from administrative control that miners doubt the effectiveness of the measure.

Guyana has an estimated 25,000 miners, with one-third of them coming from neighbouring Brazil.

In the absence of any large-scale mine, last year the brigade of local and Brazilian miners working the industry sold a record 305,000 troy ounces to the state’s buying agency last year, making the industry second in foreign exchange importance after sugar – apparently encouraging players to flex their muscles more than ever, as evidenced in the recent Bartica blockade.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

The Guyanese government and miners are at loggerheads, with the Amazon forest – and its wealth in minerals and its role in fighting climate change – at the center of the dispute.

Mining protest march in Bartica, Guyana. - Jules Gibson/IPS

Political opponents have joined forces to warn those nations intending to sign on to the scheme to include several layers of financial safeguards to ensure monies are expended for development purposes.

Last November, Norway signed a Guyana forest preservation deal to pay the former British colony in South America up to 250 million dollars over the next five years.

An initial disbursement of 30 million dollars could be in the national coffers as early as this month, according to Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Though Guyana emits minimal greenhouse-effect gases compared to industrialized countries, the deal mandates that this country step up efforts to limit emissions and do as much as it can to protect its still largely intact forest stock.

The result is that there have been renewed – and controversial – moves by authorities to better regulate industries like gold and diamond mining and the timber sector, two of Guyana's key foreign exchange earners.

Miner Fred McWilfred told Tierramérica that a new proposal mandating miners to wait up to six months before mining permits are approved could be a death sentence for small and medium mining operations like his.

Authorities argue, however, that they want the leeway for the state-run Forestry Commission to allow commercial but controlled harvesting of areas before small and medium scale miners armed with shovels, power hoses and land dredges move in and commence operations.

Most of these miners, who clear small patches in the jungle to work land claims where they believe gold deposits are hidden, have no commercial interests in trees they will fell.

They say the six-month rule will completely ruin their lifeline businesses, because investment decisions will have to wait on bureaucrats. The rule is “unenforceable” and “ridiculous, to say the least,” Tony Shields, secretary of the Gold and Diamond Miners Association, told Tierramérica.

In a show of how strong opposition is to some of the new rules, miners last week demanded and won the resignation of association president Norman Mclean, a retired army chief of staff, who they accused of taking the side of government in this issue. He has denied such charges.

On Feb. 1, nearly 4,000 miners blocked access to the northern town of Bartica to protest the new regime of regulations, despite the ministerial delegation sent to stop them.

Analysts point out that regardless of its good intentions to protect the jungle, the Jagdeo administration might have unwittingly stirred up the conflict that has been fueled by declaration from both sides.

In one such utterance Jagdeo vowed that his administration “will have to go alone if we cannot do it together” with the mining sector. He has also said that the use of mercury to recover gold and diamonds from ore will soon be a thing of the past.

Jagdeo's Prime Minister Samuel Hinds was just as forthright, saying on national television that the proposals to improve mining practices are here to stay.

The statements from Jagdeo and have only served to irk miners and reinforce their fears about the effects of the waiting period. They are convinced that the delay aims to prevent them from felling trees that are of commercial value for the timber industry.

Hinds maintains that the matter can be settled cordially, but both McWilfred and Shields say the administration is so anxious to comply with rules to bring in the Norwegian funds that the industry is the first to feel the pressure of tighter controls and tougher new rules.

In fact, Shields argues that what small mining operations need are not new measures, but for the geological commission to enforce in an organized way the existing systems for reforestation and cooperation between timber harvesters and miners.

Still, the forestry and geology commissions are planning to beef up inspections to monitor the jungle, but it is so vast and some mining areas are so far away from administrative control that miners doubt the effectiveness of the measure.

Guyana has an estimated 25,000 miners, with one-third of them coming from neighboring Brazil.

In the absence of any large-scale mine, last year the brigade of local and Brazilian miners working the industry sold a record 305,000 troy ounces to the state’s buying agency last year, making the industry second in foreign exchange importance after sugar – apparently encouraging players to flex their muscles more than ever as evidenced in the recent blockade.

Earlier this month, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula DaSilva flew more than 1,600 kilometres from his base in Brasilia to a remote state on the Guyanese frontier to formally commission a border river bridge with his country’s English-speaking neighbour.

More than just a new land link, the project will eventually give Brazil a long desired economic and geopolitical footprint in the nearby Caribbean Community trade bloc.

Successive Brazilian administrations have never hidden their desire to boost the living standards of some of their landlocked northern frontier states, which have no major waterways on which to haul manufactured goods or agricultural produce to markets outside Brazil. A 12-hour land route through Guyana could change all that in a matter of years.

This is why the Brazilian government didn’t ask its less prosperous neighbour to contribute anything to the five-million-dollar construction costs of the 720-foot long bridge across the Takatu River. It did so itself, and mobilised a military engineering battalion to do the actual work.

Speaking before Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo, a clearly enthusiastic and upbeat Lula talked about the efforts by some of the left-leaning South American nations to build infrastructure projects that would physically link neighbours, spur development and boost direct investment that could improve the lives of historically poor people in frontier states throughout the continent.

But the moment that drew the most genuine applause came when he said that a Brazilian technical team will fly to Guyana in a matter of days to examine the possibility of paying for a 560-km Amazonian jungle road linking the respective border towns of Boa Vista and Lethem with Georgetown, the Guyanese capital.

Georgetown is just a day’s sailing or a 45-minute jet plane ride from seaports in oil- and gas-rich Trinidad.

Trinidad sits just above Guyana and is the most southerly of the Caribbean island chain, representing the actual beginning of the islands stretching all the way to the Bahamas. This lucrative potential market for Amazonian producers could even include nearby Central American states, North America and Europe by sea.

“With a bridge over the Takatu River, we will be incorporating Guyana once and for all into South America,” said Lula. “I am convinced that there will be no South American or even Latin American integration without the strong presence of the Caribbean,” he added.

For his part, Jagdeo pointed out that “there is room for expansion between Guyana and Brazil and the rest of the Caribbean. This is a dream come true after more than a generation of anticipation. There is no limit to what can be achieved through cooperation and political will.”

The Brazilian head of state even announced plans for a first summit with Caribbean countries next year as Brazil eyes a lucrative market that beckons just north of Guyana, the home of the regional trade bloc.

Officials at the bloc’s Guyana-based secretariat say that all Brazil needs to do to conquer the regional market is to set up factories anywhere in Guyana or fellow trade bloc member Suriname. Such a move would benefit from regulations dealing with the origin of goods – exports will be duty-free, as they will have been manufactured in a member state.

To underscore how serious it is about creating opportunities for its northern territories, Lula said that apart from stepping up efforts to pave the fair weather jungle highway, Brazilian engineers will also be flying to this former British colony to prepare for construction of mega hydro plants that will power frontier provinces on both sides of the river and open opportunities for agriculture, mining, logging and other areas.

But even as both countries remain upbeat about the bridge and possibilities that could flow from it, rights groups like the Amerindian People’s Association (APA) say they are worried more than ever about what the bridge means for indigenous, mostly Macoushi Indians, near the border.

“Right now there are barely any controls by Guyanese authorities. We already see what has happened with the influx of illegal Brazilian miners polluting rivers with mercury, bringing disease and prostitution. There have to be more official controls and we are not happy with the lack of it,” said APA spokeswoman Jean LaRose.

The APA appears to have the support of some international academics like Guyana-born Indiana University assistant professor Wazir Mohamed, who has been campaigning against Brazilian landowners seeking to cultivate rice and other crops in Guyana – where they don’t have to clash with powerful Indian and land rights groups and a government trying to correct centuries of land ownership atrocities.

He praised authorities for so far holding off on granting licenses, saying they should not be allowed refuge in any country where indigenous peoples have been waging land rights struggles for centuries.

“This affords Guyana the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of Brazil, which for a long time had turned its back as lands were being seized from indigenous Indians and the descendants of slavery by rapacious investors. No amount of short-term gain, as Brazil is now finding, out can compensate for the long term damage social exclusion brings,” he argued.

Estimates of the number of relatively poor Brazilian wildcat Garimpeiro miners working in gold and diamond pits in Guyana range from 10,000 to 20,000, many of them undocumented.

The regulatory mines commission and environmental groups have been waging a serious campaign against them for using larger amounts of mercury to recover gold than Guyanese counterparts, resulting in serious pollution of previously unspoiled rivers.

This small English-speaking nation, home to the Caribbean trade bloc (CARICOM), has been in the news recently due to allegations in a New York court that the government here willingly and knowingly gave surveillance equipment to a private death squad so that it could hunt down and execute more than 200 criminal suspects and opposition activists it wanted off the scene – as far back as 2002.

The details of a U.S. federal investigation into New York lawyer Robert Simels’s work on behalf of Shaheed Roger Khan – an accused drug kingpin with reputed ties to the Guyanese government – were laid out in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn last September.

The allegations have not caught many of the 730,000 people in the former British colony by surprise because most feel that Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo’s administration has for some time been much too close to a violent gang of cocaine dealers and gangsters. In fact there is concern that the government has used this gang to frighten or kill off rival gangs and opposition supporters – as was the case with opposition talk show host Ronald Waddell.

Waddell, a fierce critic, was gunned down outside his seaside home as he went for a stroll in early 2006 by four well known-ex cops who today openly roam the streets and consort with government officials in full public view. Evidence from the New York case has implicated this same gang which was allegedly gifted with the equipment in his unsolved murder.

For the past week, federal prosecutors have been laying out their witness tampering case against Simels, who was caught earlier this year in a federal sting operation trying to buy off or to “neutralise” the principal witness in the cocaine trial of his client, Khan.

Meanwhile, Khan has struck a plea bargain on all his charges – including obstruction of justice and cocaine trafficking – and is now watching from his cell as prosecutors try to jail Simels for up to 10 years.

The key points emerging from the trial revolve around testimony alleging that government authorities bought high tech surveillance equipment to intercept telephone calls and triangulate the positions of users from a Florida spy shop, and then handed the tools to Khan and his gang, rather than to the police or military. The testimony shows that Khan’s gang listened into calls by dozens of people including Opposition Leader Robert Corbin.

Corbin’s mobile telephone number turned up in court evidence that Peter Myers, co- founder of Smyth and Myers – manufacturers of the equipment – provided in court during the trial.

The Guyana government put out a statement at the end of last week denying that it “bought the spy equipment and insists that there is no evidence that it was a party to any activity with the firm or U.S. authorities in the purchase and/or importation of the equipment.”

But many locals, including political critic and former presidential adviser Raymond Gaskin say that the government is in deep political trouble because there is irrefutable evidence that it is deeply involved with the drug dealers, gave them the equipment sold only to governments, turned a blind eye when they mowed down suspects or political opponents, and allowed them to later celebrate at bullet-proofed bars in the city with police conveniently on the other side of town.

The gangsters would allegedly call people like controversial Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy to report that their illicit tasks had been completed.

Ramsammy has vigorously denied any involvement at all in the saga, arguing that he is “responsible for health rather than security matters.” He is prepared to defend his name without a lawyer. Ramsammy is an American citizen.

“The whole thing is a simple matter,” says Gaskin who has been associated with the Hindu-led governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) since the early 60s. “The deal is help the government to eliminate criminal and political enemies and they are free to carry on with their cocaine business.”

The New York trial has dwarfed discussion about virtually everything else here, including a well-financed effort by the government to get money from Western nations to keep its Amazonian forest cover intact – as its contribution to a better global environment.

The trial has also forced observers to hark back to a series of events that could tie the government up squarely with the drug ring.

When a military patrol caught Khan and two other gangsters with the wiretapping equipment on the seacoast in 2002, the government became so angry that it immediately ordered the dissolution of the army’s military intelligence unit (MCID).

And when Khan played illegally tapped telephone recordings of then police chief Winston Felix who was going after his gang, the government publicly took Khan’s side. It also said absolutely nothing when Khan boasted in whole page newspaper advertisements while on the run from police that he was helping the government to stem runaway crime.

Political scientist Elvin McDavid says that the government has on its own, “created the conditions for its removal but the opposition parties and civil society are weak and appear unable to mobilise masses against a corrupt government.”

Much more is still to come in this case that has confirmed what local media and civil rights groups have been reporting for years – that the government has used its extra judicial arm with Ak-47 rifles and machine guns to be repressive and oppressive to critics.

In the case of talk show host and opposition nominee for parliament, Waddell, evidence that he was hit on behalf of government has “greatly upset the Black middle class” as many had blamed the government for his assassination, says ex-adviser Gaskin.

In the meantime, many opponents of the government are quietly lobbying the Barack Obama Administration in Washington to take action against those in power, reporting that they are turning the country into a cocaine haven and allowing armed gangsters to do as they please.

Opposition leader Corbin warned the government to pay attention to events in Honduras where angry citizens joined arms of the state to overthrow an unpopular administration – an assertion that was quickly condemned by the governing party as irresponsible.