Salbora mining incident warrants a public enquiry

http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56526484

Business Editorial
Salbora mining incident warrants a public enquiry
Stabroek News
Friday, August 10th 2007

One of the sad truths about the activities of the rogue miners who have
been wantonly destroying property and dislocating lives in parts of
Region Eight is that their illegal activities are a microcosm of a
wider problem that pervades several mining communities in various parts
of the interior of Guyana.

What has been happening in the Salbora area goes beyond a mere
illegality. It is reflective of both a disposition of lawlessness and a
callous disregard for the welfare of a host community. Worse, it
suggests that despite the laws governing the rights of Amerindians and
the lip service that so many pay to the protection of Amerindian
communities, many of those communities are still vulnerable to abuse by
the pursuits of gold and diamond seekers who care little for the impact
of their activities either on the environment or on the lives and
welfare of the Amerindians.

Whatever the contribution that mining activities make to the public
treasury the search for gold and diamonds cannot be allowed to
degenerate into the kind of wanton lawlessness that has been going on
in Region Eight, evidently for some time. Indeed, one is left to wonder
whether in the face of the inability of the authorities to police the
country's mining regions similar or worse transgressions are not
occurring elsewhere.

In more ways than one Salbora is likely to be a critical test case for
the local judicial system. First, the outcome of the case against the
rogue miners will determine just how determined we are to put an end to
illegal mining activities. Secondly, it will send a message to our
Amerindian communities regarding just how seriously we take their
rights as Guyanese citizens. Whoever dug up the roadway, destroyed the
pipelines and polluted the water at Salbora should be made to pay a
high price.

Since it is hardly physically possible for the vast and far flung
mining regions of the country to be effectively policed either by the
Guyana Geology and Mines Commission or the disciplined services, miners
are, to a large extent, expected to regulate themselves. That
self-regulation requires them to balance their pursuit of gold and
diamonds against the importance of the environmental damage that
inheres in their pursuits and the impact of their mining activities on
the communities in and around where they operate.

One question that is yet to be answered is why, apparently, the
extensive damage that was done to at Sabora was discovered only after
it had been going on for some time. Surely, there are other responsible
miners and owners of other business operations in the Mahdia area who
were aware of what was going on in the area and could have at least
moved to report it to the authorities. And what about the police and
the various other public officials at Mahdia? Was there no one who
could have moved to put a stop to the activities of the rogue miners
before the recent visit to Region Eight by Minister Robeson Benn?

If the nature and scale of the offence require that the perpetrators
face the full force of the law, the callous trampling on the rights of
an Amerindian community that is fully entitled to the protection of the
authorities demands that there be a full public enquiry into the
incident since the implications of the Salbora incident go far beyond
the greed and lawlessness of a few rogue miners.