Élahé

The village of Élahé gathers an Amerindian community Wayana located in Haut-Maroni, on banks of Tampoc, in the south-west of the Guyana on the commune of Maripasoula.

This community is concerned with the project of National nature reserve of South-Guyana.

Problems involved in gold washing

The territory of Élahé is located in one of the zones followed by the French authorities of health (DRAS, InVS) for mercurielle pollution due to the Orpaillage which contaminates the food of the Amerindians wayana: With the village of Kayodé, it is one of the studied sites where the rates of mercury measured in the hair were highest.

A Net gold bearing renewal of activity upstream of the Amerindian villages of Haut-Maroni puts the health and the quality of life of their populations in danger. The clandestine gold washers seem to be initially come from Surinam with barges, then as from 1996 with building sites with ground (powerful motor-driven pumps feeding of the lances monitor which devastate the grounds by sending their water muddy and polluted in the Tampoc and its affluent the Waki where fish Wayana. This ethnos group saw principalemnet traditionally fishing. This territory is theoretically protected and accessible only on prefectoral authorization, but the gendarme S are far from numerous and miss means vis-a-vis the extent of the problem.

The chief of the village emitted the wish that the prohibition of the Orpaillage is supervised better and on December 25th, 2005, the Collective " Which gold washing for Guyana " the State alerted on the fact that the Indians were to make " by themselves - with all the possible serious risks of drifts - a work of police force to ensure their safety ". Moreover, in 2005, the children of the villages of the haut-Maroni, must still be provided education for with Maripasoula very far from on their premises, without boarding school. They live in families of reception, nonAmerindian, remunerated for this reception. However, always according to the collective, the Amerindians are confronted with a hardening of the behavior of part of the population of Maripasoula since they confirm their total refusal of gold washing”. The collective fears that these children are too often “ left with themselves without real monitoring, when one does not ask them, moreover, to achieve tasks which they do not have to carry out ”. This situation had already been denounced by the Greens of Guyana and Attac-Guyana at the time of a voyage of investigation in December 2004.

For 10 years, these children become adolescent or young adults have been increasingly numerous to commit suicide or try to do it. The collective points out the case of Philippe Gros, assassinated of a ball in the nape of the neck at the end of November 2005 to have helped the gendarmes, and estimates that in spite of the Opérations Anaconda, the inhabitants of the banks of the rivers of Guyana are subjected to an increasing pressure of the gold washers.

The State set up a network of actors which through the Opérations Anaconda and of taken back the clandestine ones at the border tries to control the problem.

Useful bonds

Internal bonds

Teko

External bonds

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