The bridge is a crucial lifeline to the operations of both Omai and Barama Company Limited.

In a news briefing at Freedom House yesterday, Minister in the Ministry of Local Government, Mr. Clinton Collymore, said the bridge-blocking plans by PNC/R parliamentarian Judith David did not come to fruition as residents ignored her calls.

Ms. Davis was apparently seeking to disrupt Omai’s operations over the cyanide disaster in the Essequibo River in August of 1995, when more than a million liters of the chemical from the gold-mining company accidentally spilled into the river.

Most of the 23,000 residents living along the river suffered from the disaster.

Ms. David was one of the persons who had filed a lawsuit in a U.S. Federal Court against Omai’s parent company, Cambior, seeking compensation for the cyanide spill. They subsequently abandoned the suit, but the case, in which the victims are seeking some US$150 million from Cambior, is apparently still pending.

Minister Collymore said yesterday the protest plan by the PNC/R - during whose term of office both Omai and Barama Company Limited began operations in Guyana - was inappropriate in view of the dependence of the residents upon the operations of the two companies for their livelihoods.

Collymore recalled the situation earlier this year when residents of Linden blocked the Wismar-Mackenzie Bridge in protest against worsening living conditions in the mining town.

That protest action resulted in the already-depressed mining community sinking deeper in crisis, since around 1,600 workers from Linden could not get to work, and the market shares of Omai Gold Mines and its parent company Cambior fell drastically, causing the company to threaten a pullout of its investment in Guyana.

Collymore warned that an Omai pullout at this time would seriously harm the ailing Linden and national economy and cautioned the MP and the residents of Bartica to consider this when planning their courses of action.

When questioned about the Government’s position on the issue, Collymore said that the government was amenable to negotiating compensations for the residents who were affected by the spill, but that negotiations could not take place in good faith while legal action was being taken against the mining company.

Mr. Collymore questioned the PNC/R’s professed commitment to the development of the beleaguered mining community when the actions of members of the party threaten to produce the opposite effect.