Akawini regrets the removal of Barama Company Limited

http://www.kaieteurnewsgy.com/letters.htm

Akawini regrets the removal
of Barama Company Limited
Kaieteur News, 3 July 2007

Dear Editor,

I wish to refer to your newspaper article under the caption “Akawini
forces Barama to withdraw from concession.”

The caption of this article is misleading to both the national and
international communities because it gives the impression that Barama
wanted to perpetuate itself in the Akawini community. This is never so.
What the Barama Company did was simply comply with a decision by the
village council, and that decision by the council was that the council
no longer wanted to work with Barama. So the Barama Company removed its
equipment forthwith from the village backlands.

Unfortunately for the Akawini villagers, their council, which is a body
corporate, was badly advised by persons and organizations with hidden
agendas, who are not residents of Akawini Village . It is also
unfortunate that the decision made by the Akawini Vvillage Council may
also affect the St. Monica Village .

But the St. Monica Village leadership should vigorously and openly
state their isolation from the unpopular decision made by the Akawini
Council. I guess that by now the Akawini Council is ever so sorry that
they made a bad decision, influenced by self-servicing interests which
do not care about Akawini, provided their objectives are achieved. But
those who are responsible for this despicable act cannot say that their
work is well done, but badly done, because they failed miserably to
provide viable alternatives or solutions for Akawini to move forward,
both socially and economically. I hope their paymasters have taken
note, and moreover, that their monies were used to the fullest, not for
constructive purposes, but for frustrating the social and economic
plans of an Amerindian village.

It is doubtless that since the intervention of the Barama Company in
both the Akawini and St. Monica Villages , these village coffers gained
millions of dollars, which became the focus of envy by other logging
interests which are also responsible for the Akawini fiasco. Prior to
Barama's intervention in Akawini and St. Monica, it was a known fact
that some of the Amerindian communities had their commercial forests
plundered and pillaged without profit by private dealers on the
coastland, which is of no concern to forest conservation bodies. But
their focus is on the Barama Company, not for any genuine reason, but
merely to promote their own logging interests, which is not yet
understood by the international forest conservation bodies.

It is therefore pathetic that Akawini Village became the victim of a
national and international campaign to promote self-servicing interests
which will have no benefits for the Akawini villagers.

Peter Persaud