At the top of Tepuy Pakaramba flies the flag of Guyana. At its foot, in the small village of Arau, the inhabitants call themselves Guyanese, despite neighboring Venezuela’s claims to the Essequibo, an oil-rich territory.
“On this mountain, there is our flag. Every morning we look at him and we feel happy and proud,” says Jacklyn Peters, a 39-year-old nurse from the village of 280 located less than ten kilometers from the border with Venezuela.
“It was the president himself who planted it to show that we all belong to Guyana,” explains this mother of six children, all born like her in Arau.
Guyanese President Irfaan Ali came by helicopter at the end of November to witness the installation of the flag at the summit of Tepuy Pakaramba, which rises to 2,300 meters.
In the village, there is an austere white Adventist church, without sculpture or paintings, and a school with a Guyanese flag at half-mast as a sign of mourning for the five soldiers who died in early December, not far from there, in a helicopter accident .
Wooden houses on stilts, cashew trees and hammocks everywhere. Here, a father sleeps with his daughter. There, four children are playing on cell phones.
“This is Guyana,” insists the nurse. “We are afraid, we are terrified. The soldiers [vénézuéliens] mistreat us by preventing us from traveling on the Cayuni River, which marks the border.
“We don’t want war. There are children, pregnant women,” she continues.
“This is the land of the Akawaio. It was before the arrival of the Spanish. Since time immemorial. For us, there is no border, but now with politics, there is one,” says Thomas Devroy, 59, a former village chief.
Good neighbors
“Essequibo belongs to Guyana,” assures Mr. Devroy. “We don’t want war. We can live as good neighbors. But, we are firm. Essequibo is ours. »
“We welcome Venezuelans. We are brothers on both sides of the border. We are sad for them. They are fleeing their country. But we don’t want Maduro [le président vénézuélien], corruption, poverty. How can he claim to govern here? » he takes offense.
Some seven million Venezuelans have fled the economic and political crisis their country is going through.
Thousands of them crossed the border into Guyana. Many work in the region’s artisanal gold mines.
However, in Arau, we are not exactly rolling in gold. The families make a living from gold panning and “survival” agriculture, explains Lindon Cheong, 53, as he shows the house he “built with his own hands”.
Of distant Chinese descent, this father of five children went from mine to mine until his arrival in Arau 17 years ago.
His little house has three rooms. In the bedroom, a mirror crowned with the portrait of “my” president Irfaan Ali. Leaning against a wall, a metal detector.
Essequibo has been claimed by Venezuela for decades. Tension rose with the discovery of large oil reserves. Some 125,000 people, or a fifth of Guyana’s population, live in this territory which covers two-thirds of the country’s surface area.
A very distant black gold
But, in Arau, located hundreds of kilometers from the capital, Georgetown, or the deep sea deposits, we are still “waiting” to see the color of silver and black gold.
“Look at how we live. There are no roads. At school, in the canteen, the first week of the month, there is a little meat. But, after that it’s white rice! » protests Lindon Cheong, believing that the government is abandoning Essequibo in favor of the eastern regions. “Where is the money going? »
The gold miner says he has difficulty making ends meet. “Gold is becoming rare. It seems that there are some deep, but we are surface miners,” he says.
Since September, the Venezuelan military has also taken a tithe from the boats that supply the village via the Cayuni.
And prices have exploded. A small plane brings cargo four or five times a week. But a bottle of Coca-Cola costs US$10.
Gasoline went from $10 for five gallons (approximately 19 liters) to $350. As a result, the hours of current produced by a generator have been reduced.
“We are struggling to live,” says Lindon Cheong, who has installed a Guyanese banner in his garden. President Nicolas “Maduro can do what he wants. But, here, it is the Guyanese flag. The one from Venezuela will never float in Arau. »