Miners illegally occupying Marudi must move -GGMC's Benn
By Kim Lucas
Stabroek News
January 29, 2003
No permission has been granted for persons to mine the Marudi Mountains area, says Commissioner Robeson Benn of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC).
He made this announcement on Friday at a press briefing held at the Commission's Brickdam office. Several persons, in recent months, have been complaining of being evicted from the Rupununi concession by Vanessa (Guyana) Inc, a subsidiary of Romanex Exploration (Guyana) Ltd, which holds the prospecting licence.
Benn told members of the media: "There are no legal residents at Marudi Mountain. The Marudi Mountain is a concession which is being operated by Vanessa Ventures. It is only the Vanessa Company and its designated operators who can be doing exploration on the property, because it is only exploration which is allowed on the property."
The Commissioner said for many years, "raiders" had been going into old tunnels in the area, extending the shafts and working without permission.
Stabroek News understands that a GGMC team visited the area on September 21 last year and held a meeting with the illegal miners and according to Benn they agreed to move.
"Many of those persons, over 60% of [them] signed a declaration where they agreed to, within one month's time, remove themselves from the property. We returned six weeks later with the police to effect their removal...[but] some of the people ran off into the bush, so we only were able to remove some two thirds of the people with their property."
One of the difficulties, other than the fact that people are raiding the mines, is the issue of mine safety. According to Benn, at the end of 1999, a collapse of one of the tunnels killed three people. And during last year, some seven other persons were killed. Benn did not state whether any of those deaths were reported from the Marudi concession.
"It is a very remote area and we would try to get there once every quarter; but we have a situation where people have been continuing to go up there into those deep shafts and long tunnels, and working narrow veins to make some money for themselves. It is extremely dangerous. It is not sanctioned by the Commission in terms of mines safety and administration. It is basically theft [and] not allowed. It will damage the promotability of the property, in terms of getting the investment for a new large mine. The most important thing for us at Marudi Mountain is to be able to identify the resources, to do the type of feasibility studies for the type of mining equipment, mining technology, which would develop a large new mine in the area. Raiding by 20, 30 illegal persons would not help that cause at all. All it will do, more and more, is reduce the development prospects to the area."
In a letter to Stabroek News, dated September 28, 2002, one person claimed that earlier the same month, a representative of Vanessa Inc. and a mines officer held two meetings with "residents of Marudi", requesting that they leave the concession within three days.
"We, the residents, protested of not having anywhere to go. The mines officer then told us that he would radio the Commissioner of Lands and Mines, asking him to give us some time to move. On September 23, 2002, we were told that the Commissioner gave one month to leave," the letter writer stated.
Benn said on Friday that the Commission had been receiving similar letters, which have been taken down as complaints. The Commissioner, in a letter to the Regional Chairman of Region Nine, Vincent Henry, dated January 17, requested a meeting with both the Chairman and citizens of the Upper Takutu/Essequibo River region "to discuss the promotion of lawful, safe mining activity, which could be carried out in a manner to best promote the economic development of the region".
"Fundamentally, we will not sanction any situation where people will continue in theft, and otherwise, be in an activity where they will get killed," Benn stated.
But another claim against their removal was that some persons have been on the land for many years.
"There are people who have been living in Marudi for over 20 years with permanent crops, we also do hunting, farming and a little mining, and pork knocking to maintain ourselves and families. Marudi also has several types of cocoa trees that overseas students will come from time to time and study. Some of us have children that were born in Marudi...The government and Geology and Mines know that we are residing in Marudi and sold us mining privileges...Marudi is the breadbasket of the Rupununi. A lot of people depend on Marudi for a living because there is no work here in the Rupununi. Seeing that Vanessa had other places to work, they should leave the Marudi for us."
But Benn told reporters that, at the last count, there were only 30 persons on the concession, while the rest are based at Aishalton.
"My understanding is that, at one point, they had up to 200 persons working and raiding there. It has dropped to about 30 persons at the last count and these people have been itinerant raiders to an extent. Some of them are, more or less, headquartered at Aishalton and some of them are originally from the coast. They could not live on the property. There is no permission and no legal sanction for them to be on the property. We [the GGMC] have not signed off mining privileges. We have not given residential permissions, or any other document by which they can be legally on the property. The only reason we facilitated their move from Marudi Mountain to Aishalton, which is a distance of about 30 miles, is because we recognised the long distance and we gave them adequate notice and warning."
As such, the GGMC feels that there is no reason or rationale for the Commission relocating those persons, since they were on the concession illegally.
