The Barama Issue

Atkinson replies to Beharry on the Barama issue
Kaieteur News, 13 February 2007

Dear Editor,

I refer to Seelochan Beharry's letter under the caption “The flawed
arguments of Barama insult all Guyanese” in Kaieteur News of February
5, 2007.

Mr. Beharry, in his letters to the media, continues to show utter
disrespect for the Government and people of Guyana in his analyses
where the management and control of our forests are concerned.

He continues to build on secondary information to give the impression
that he has vision on the future of Guyana 's forestry sector. This is
not so.

It is no doubt that Mr. Beharry had to fulfill his paymaster's designs,
and in so doing, he had targeted the Barama Company and is now waging a
vendetta against the company.

But Mr. Beharry is entitled to his own views, regardless of how crooked
they are. He can continue to visit the web sites and extract wrong
information about our forest matters.

Without being sinister, “Barama's Guyana ” may sound appropriate,
since
Barama is a river and tributary of the Waini River in the North West
Region of Guyana.

It must also be noted that Mr. Beharry is creating a storm in a teacup
where our forests are concerned, and with his distorted verbiage, he is
giving the false impression to the Guyanese and international
communities that Guyana 's forests are on the brink of destruction or
extinction because of the activities of foreign logging companies, and
more particularly, Barama.

Mr. Beharry is lying to those who want to believe him, since over 80%
of our forest cover remains intact, and more specifically, Guyana is
characterised by vast areas of pristine and undistributed tropical
rainforests, mountain edges and Savannahs with a combination of rich
diversity of plants and animals and intact ecological processes.

The people of Guyana will never allow our forests to be destroyed or
plundered as was the case of Papua , New Guinea or other South-East
Asian countries.

Mr. Beharry does not reside in Guyana , and the information he is
receiving is both secondary and misleading.

Mr. Beharry claims that he will not watch the destruction of Guyana,
yet he is silent on the Omai Gold Company, which claimed that it never
made a profit and has been operating in our country for more than ten
years; and coupled with that, caused an environmental disaster which
had devastating effects of immense proportions.

Our largest river, the Essequibo , became polluted with
cyanide–tainted
water, which was released in August 1995. Our flora and fauna were
severely affected, and the riverain communities became disrupted, if
not dislocated, both socially and economically.

Many residents suffered from severe illnesses as a result of this
environmental disaster caused by Omai, whether intentional or
unintentional.

How contradictory is Mr. Beharry by saying that he will not see Guyana
's destruction, but failed miserably to give his comments on the
disaster that Omai caused. How selective is Mr. Beharry in his
treatment of foreign companies, which demonstrates clearly that he is
being dishonest with his own self and that he is working overtime to
fulfill the agenda of his financial backers in Guyana , to frustrate
the operations of the Barama Company.

Mr. Beharry's role at the overseas level is to tarnish the image of our
Forestry Commission as well as Barama by misleading the international
community about Guyana 's forest management policies, and in so doing,
he is not being helpful at all to the country of his birth.

Mr. Beharry glibly writes about his love for Guyana , because if it was
not so, he would have been visible in our country offering solutions to
the problems of our local logging companies.

But he chooses to reside abroad tarnishing the name of our country. I
will now deal with some of the questions Mr. Beharry asked me to
respond to:

1. Comments on Barama's forest management are reserved until the appeal
by SGS is objectively heard and analysed by the relevant bodies.

2. Barama's tax concessions are within the sphere of government and
contractual arrangements.

3. Barama owes no monies to any contractor. The claim that the company
owes money to a contractor is, therefore, false.

4. Barama can certainly contribute to forest programmes, etc to UG,
providided a request is made to the company.

5. Marcus Colchester's reports on our forests are outdated and
irrelevant. Many of the things mentioned in the report are based on
assumptions, and the Amerindian concerns were settled long ago.

6. Barama's contract was debated in our Parliament in 1993. It is a
governmental matter for Barama's contract to return a second time to
our Parliament.

7. Barama is not the elected Government of Guyana. It is a logging
company.

8. The ASI audit team held consultations with stakeholders when they
visited Guyana . They did not invite me to those consultations. Is the
ASI impartial? Did the ASI listen to politicians instead of the real
stakeholders? Did the ASI compromise its credibility when its members
met with the Guyana Citizens Initiative, which is a front for the
Working People's Alliance (WPA), which is a political party?

I wish to state that it is most unfortunate that the FSC programme in
Guyana has now being contaminated.

Trevor Atkinson