On November 13, 2026, the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) issued a formal statement levying serious accusations against the Toshao (Indigenous village leader) of Chinese Landing and affiliated community members, claiming the group launched a violent assault on legally registered miners operating near Kariako village, before seizing heavy mining equipment including an excavator and all-terrain vehicle. The statement came in response to widely circulated footage and accounts from earlier that week, in which Chinese Landing Toshao Nikita Miller showed visible signs of severe physical assault and mud-covered injuries, alongside reports of an elderly community member sustaining wounds during a Thursday, November 12 confrontation.
The GGDMA pushed back against the Indigenous community’s narrative of victimhood, claiming its own personnel had suffered critical injuries during the clash. The organization released photographic and video evidence showing a miner employed by operator Wayne Vieira with a deep chop wound, who required emergency airlift to a city medical facility via an Air Services Limited helicopter. According to the miners’ association, Miller was armed with a licensed firearm during the initial encounter, pointing the weapon at the excavator operator to force him to redirect the machinery toward the Barama River, while her brother wielded a cutlass to repeatedly strike the equipment. The GGDMA alleged that after the operator complied out of fear for his life, the group stole the excavator and ATV, and later ambushed the operator Eon Perry and a colleague when they traveled to Chinese Landing to reclaim their property, hacking them with cutlasses and making subsequent attempts to kill other staff at the associated mining camp. The association went on to claim that the community leadership was providing cover for unlicensed, illegal mining operations under the guise of defending ancestral lands, and called on the Guyana Police Force to immediately arrest individuals implicated in the attempted murder and armed robbery, noting that law enforcement had already confirmed the incident involved armed threats and the forced seizure of mining equipment, though no official public statement had been released to the media as of the GGDMA’s announcement.
In a swift, forceful counter-response, the Amerindian People’s Association (APA) declared unwavering solidarity with Chinese Landing’s Indigenous residents, condemning what it described as unprovoked, brutal attacks on Toshao Miller and local community members by outside miners. The APA framed the violence as a direct, unacceptable violation of Indigenous people’s safety, dignity and legally recognized rights to their ancestral titled lands, noting that Chinese Landing residents had spent years filing formal complaints about unregulated mining operations, repeated intimidation, widespread environmental destruction and targeted threats that government authorities had largely ignored. The association called on Minister of Amerindian Affairs Sarah Browne-Shadeek to lead a multi-agency delegation including representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Natural Resources and the Guyana Police Force to visit Chinese Landing immediately, meet directly with residents and deliver permanent, actionable solutions to ongoing land rights violations. The APA also criticized the national government for hiding behind the 2020s Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruling on Chinese Landing-related disputes, clarifying that the CCJ’s previous decision only addressed the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission’s authority to enforce cease-work orders under the Amerindian Act, and did not absolve the state of its duty to protect Indigenous land sovereignty. Additionally, the organization called out the National Toshaos Council (NTC), a body that positions itself as the sole legitimate national representative for Guyana’s Indigenous populations, to move beyond vague public statements and deliver tangible support by traveling to Chinese Landing to demonstrate its solidarity and advocate for the community’s interests.
Both the GGDMA and APA have issued separate public appeals to relevant state authorities to intervene and de-escalate tensions, while demanding formal investigations into the Thursday outbreak of violence, as long-simmering disputes over Indigenous land sovereignty, legal mining permits and unregulated extractive operations in the region come to a head.