—says Chinese Landing standoff highlights weaknesses in legal framework
Kako Toshao Romario “Kapohn” Hastings has called for Guyana’s laws to be brought into line with the international standard of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), arguing that decisions affecting Indigenous lands should not be made before the communities involved have consented.
In a Facebook post, Hastings said the renewed mining dispute at Chinese Landing should prompt a deeper national discussion on how FPIC is applied in practice.
He also defended the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) against claims that it had attempted to prevent Indigenous communities from receiving money generated through the sale of Guyana’s carbon credits.
Hastings stressed that the post represented his personal opinion and understanding of the issues.
According to him, FPIC is not satisfied when fundamental decisions have already been made and Indigenous communities are subsequently approached for consultation.
“The sequence matters,” he said. “Free, Prior and Informed Consent means consent must come before the decision.”
Hastings said the government or other agencies could not decide on a project, programme, policy or activity, begin implementing it and then approach affected communities and describe that engagement as FPIC.
“That is consultation after the fact. And consultation is not the same thing as consent,” he argued.
Applying the principle to mining, Hastings said concessions should not be allocated within or affecting Indigenous lands, whether by lotteries or other processes, before the communities involved have been allowed to consider and consent to the proposed operations.
“The consent was supposed to come before the decision to permit the activity and not after it,” he said.
Chinese Landing
Turning to the current standoff at Chinese Landing-Tassawini, Hastings said the question should not be confined to whether the community was consulted before heavy machinery was transported through its lands.
“We have to ask when they were consulted about the decision to mine from the inception, what information they had, what decision had already been made, and whether they actually had the ability to influence or withhold consent before that decision was taken,” he said.
Residents of Chinese Landing last Friday blocked heavy-duty equipment from being transported into the Region One community’s titled lands.
Hastings said the latest confrontation and earlier conflicts illustrated why consent should be obtained before mining rights are granted.
“If concessions have already been issued, which is often the case, the process has already moved considerably beyond the point at which consent should have been sought. And that is the biggest problem,” he said.
He acknowledged that Guyana’s laws might not fully reflect the international FPIC standard.
“If our legal framework allows decisions affecting Indigenous lands to be made first and consent to be sought later, then perhaps the problem is not with the principle of FPIC. Perhaps the problem is that our laws need to catch up with the rights they are supposed to protect,” he said.
Carbon credits
Hastings also revisited the controversy surrounding the APA’s objections to Guyana’s carbon-credit programme, saying its position had been misrepresented as an attempt to block climate financing from reaching Indigenous communities.
“That was never how I understood the issue,” he said.
According to Hastings, the APA’s concern was not that Indigenous communities should be denied funding, but whether they had consented to the inclusion and accounting of their titled lands under the carbon-credit scheme.
“Why would an Indigenous rights organisation want to prevent Indigenous communities from benefiting from resources intended for their development?” he asked, describing that interpretation as “absurd” but useful to a political narrative.
He said there was a fundamental distinction between opposing the payment of carbon-credit funds to communities and requiring that Indigenous peoples be allowed to decide whether and how their lands and resources were included in the programme.
“APA’s stated rationale to me was therefore procedural and rights-based, rather than opposition to Indigenous communities receiving finance,” he said.
The government has previously accused the APA of seeking to deny communities development funds when the organisation challenged Guyana’s forest carbon-credit certification under the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions Environmental Excellence Standard.
The APA maintained that it was not seeking to block benefits but wanted deficiencies relating to land rights, consultations, benefit-sharing and safeguards addressed.
Hastings said FPIC should not be viewed as an obstacle to development, though he acknowledged that practical questions remained about its application.
He pointed to efforts by the National Toshaos Council and District Councils to develop FPIC guidelines and protocols as one possible means of resolving those questions without compromising Indigenous rights.
“Good intentions do not remove the requirement for consent,” Hastings said.
“A project can be designed to bring jobs. A programme can be designed to bring development. A policy can be designed with the best intentions. But good intentions do not automatically create consent.”
He said FPIC existed because even well-intentioned decisions could undermine Indigenous self-determination when communities were excluded from making those decisions.
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