Christopher Ram opposes land rights of Guyana’s indigenous peoples

Peter Persaud: Christopher Ram, in his business page of the Stabroek News (S/N Thursday January 20, 2011), states that the Government plans to spend “Huge sums on the Amerindian land demarcation progress” in his preview of the 2011 Budget

Christopher Ram stated: “The budget optimistically projects the receipts of seventy million United States dollars from the Guyana-Norway Agreement under the Government’s Low Carbon Development Strategy(LCDS). The Government is projecting to spend much of this money on the Amaila falls Hydro power project and huge sums on the Amerindian land demarcation process.”

Mr. Editor, kindly permit me to state the following:

1. Christopher Ram doesn’t know what he is saying and must stop misleading the Guyanese people and the international community with his trash and untruths. He further stated: “when one looks at the Amerindian Act 2006 however, one finds it extremely difficult to see how the process can cost any huge sum of money.”

2. Christopher Ram is all wrong here and should be big enough to accept that this is deception he is deliberately perpetrating on the Guyanese people, as well as the international community. He wrongly justifies the cost for Amerindian land titling, land extensions and land demarcations by quoting sections 59 & 60 of the Amerindian Act 2006 that deal with the procedures when applying for land extensions by an Amerindian village, and land titlement by an Amerindian community. Christopher Ram is at sea where Amerindian land issues are concerned and I challenge him to find out from the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs the cost for Amerindian land titling, extension and demarcation, instead of polluting the Stabroek News’ readership with lies and distortions.

3. Christopher Ram strongly opposes the land rights of Guyana’s indigenous peoples, as well as their social and economic empowerment, since he is questioning the “Huge sums (spent) on the Amerindian land demarcation process.” What would he do then to Amerindians if he gets a ministerial portfolio if the PNC forms the next Government: But that is only a dream. In my opinion, therefore, Christopher Ram is nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing where the rights of indigenous people are concerned.

4. Christopher Ram does not want the LCDS funds from Norway to be reflected in the 2011 budget, yet he is a preacher of transparency and accountability. What manner of transparency and accountability is this? What manner of man is this? It is crystal clear that Christopher Ram has double standards, and yet he has the temerity to criticize and condemn the Government, its ministries and officials. While he writes a lot, spewing his trash and lies, he has done absolutely nothing for the development of our nation state. His commentaries lack objectivity since he is political and anti-government.

5. Christopher Ram and others waged a vendetta against Guyana’s LCDS, but they lost quite miserably and that is their place. They believed that Norway would have bowed to their trash and untruths, but Norway knows better and Guyana received its first tranche of funding for the implementation of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). What does Christopher Ram know about climate change? He is an accountant.

6. But Christopher Ram is disgruntled and frustrated. He wanted to become president of what he said would have been “an interim Government”. He assisted in crafting the PNC’s 2006 Elections Manifesto, hoping to hold a top Government position if the PNC had won the elections, but the PNC lost the 2006 elections. Is Christopher Ram assisting the PNC with its 2011 elections manifesto? Last year, 2010, he refused the offer to be the presidential candidate for the PNC at the 2011 elections.