Tribune. As an indigenous woman from French Guiana, to read that Raoni, our eldest Kayapo, is filing a complaint against the President of Brazil at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, makes me happy, and gives me hope that a certain form of justice will finally be able to stop the dangerous excesses and the dramatic consequences of policies of excessive exploitation of the Amazon. In France, we are indeed quite well informed about the fires in the Amazon and the acceleration of deforestation caused by the policies of Mr. Bolsonaro, and we hope that justice can be done. However, we very often forget that France is also an Amazonian country, through French Guyana.
The international community is not aware of France’s policies in the Amazon. As a Native American, belonging to the Palikur people (one of the six indigenous peoples of French Guyana), and representative of my indigenous brothers and sisters as a member of the Guyana Indigenous Committee, I must note that the so-called “homeland rights ”is not really placed in a better place than its Brazilian neighbor.
Indigenous people excluded from consultations
Faced with its permanent injustices, we therefore feel powerless. And we would like to remind you that since its creation in 2018, the Grand Customary Council, an advisory body to the State supposed to represent indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, has not been based on any protocol for consulting indigenous peoples. Such consultation is an international law recognized by the UN but which is not applied in France. We have even, at times, been intentionally sidelined from decisions on important projects affecting us.
“The good resolutions announced in metropolitan France seem far away”
This is the case, for example, with the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus and its protocol. Discussions on this subject between the prefecture, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) and the local authority of Guyana are well advanced, but no representative has deigned to consult the customary authorities and inform them, while many questions and questions fears surround the vaccine. Will we have the opportunity to be properly consulted? So far, no discussion has been carried out jointly between our customary authorities, the state and the LRA.
On the other hand, the good resolutions announced in metropolitan France seem far away, while the Montagne d’Or project, a 15 km mining project2 believed to be buried, in particular thanks to the local protest, that of the indigenous movement, was revived via the decision of the administrative court of Guyana to condemn the state to extend the concession. The government, which has not even sent its representatives to defend its position in this trial, has two months to appeal the decision, but does not seem in a hurry to do so. All this while the citizens’ convention for the climate, in metropolitan France, voted more than 94% to adopt a moratorium on industrial mining in Guyana.
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