Take another bow Amerindian dancers

LIKE FR ROBERT Barrow, SJ (May 30) I was shocked and intensely annoyed on reading the article, May 16, on the Amerindian dancers, first, because it fell short in describing adequately the excellent performance of the young artistes who acquitted themselves so admirably and creditably; secondly because of the erroneous number given of the present Amerindian population in Guyana; and, thirdly, and above all, because of the biased view presented on Church and State relations in Guyana. As one interested in the acts, I was disappointed that the performances of the Amerindian dancers and singers were not given the credit they deserved, — coming as they did from a small village on the Pomeroon river in Guyana and dancing and singing here on a London stage with such grace and natural charm — winning the hearts of their audience. The total Amerindian population was noted in your article as 60,000! According to the 1970 Census this number was 32,794. The information given from the recently divulged 1980 census
reads Amerindians: 34,302. (See Latin America, Central America and the Caribbean, Europa Publications, 1986, p352). The Amerindian population has definitely not increased 25,698 over the past five and a half years. On the contrary, there has been much movement of the population into Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname.
As a religious Sister, working and living in Guyana and present in the country during the fraudulent elections of December 1985, the deportation of Fr Patrick Connors, SJ on I st January 1986, conscious of the Churches suffering and the stalwart and courageous stand of Bishop Benedict Singh and other Church leaders for human rights and justice, I was saddened, and I must admit, somewhat angry, to read the one-sided version of ChurchState relations presented. It was bad enough for it to have been preferred but worse for the press to have been caught in the coils of propaganda and not investigated the other side of the case.
Sr M Noel Menezes1 RSM Professor of History University of Guyana