Nandlall accuses Alexander of misleading UN Forum on state of Afro-Guyanese
Apr 17, 2025
Kaieteur News- Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall SC, has accused Chairman of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G), Vincent Alexander, of misleading the United Nations Forum on the state of Afro Guyanese.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC
Earlier this week, Alexander told the Fourth Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent that Afro-Guyanese continue to be systematically marginalised and discriminated against.
However, Nandlall has taken offence at Alexander’s presentation, calling his statement untrue and debatable.
During his weekly “Issues in the News” aired on Tuesday, Nandlall contended that Afro-Guyanese are better off now than ever before.
“If a forensic audit is ever done, it will reveal that Afro-Guyanese, currently are better off than they have ever been in the history of Guyana, and I say that without any fear of being contradicted successfully, and I invite any debate to this effect and you can start on education, more Afro-Guyanese are pursuing education now, than any other point in time in Guyana’s history,” he said
The Attorney General emphasised that the benefits offered to Afro-Guyanese under the current administration are tremendous.
He continued, “More Afro-Guyanese are receiving cash grants and all forms of welfare grants from the government of Guyana than they have ever. Afro-Guyanese are receiving more lands and they own more properties from the state than they have ever received or they ever enjoyed at any other point in Guyana’s history.”
Chairman of IDPADA-G, Vincent Alexander
Nandlall sought to debunk Alexander’s claims that African ancestral lands are being disposed of in Guyana.
According to him, government has taken steps to regularise many of the historical ancestral villages, not seizing any ancestral lands.
“Our government is regularising Ann’s Grove, a slave village without title, they have been living there for 440 years, so all the families there will get transport before the end of this year. 440 families there will be regularised under this government—our government, and they are Afro-Guyanese.”
During his presentation to the UN Forum, the IDPADA-G chair had pointed out that education, land rights, entrepreneurship and political representation in Guyana all reflect this exclusion. He told the forum that the Government of Guyana has not taken any equitable action to address the state of people of African descent.
“Allow me to paint a true narrative about the state of Afro-Guyanese… our school curriculum continues to omit the history and contributions of the Guyanese of African descent…” Alexander said.
The IDPADA-G chair also said Ancestral lands acquired through the historic village movement are being seized without compensation through institutional and legal manipulations.
He stressed that in spite of legal provisions, a functioning human rights commission is yet to be constituted, 20 years on.
“The Government of Guyana, whilst vocally supporting reparations abroad as was done here today, has not implemented a single dedicated national policy to repair the internal legacies of enslavement. Instead, African Guyanese are blamed for their circumstances and demeaned by public officials as lazy or unworthy. The current governance structure entrenches this exclusion even within the Ethnic Relations Commission, which is in attendance. Which is here today represented by someone other than someone of African descent, notwithstanding the African community asking otherwise…” Alexander said as he called on the forum to support a quest for justice and equality for the people of African descent.
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