E/CN.4/2004/18/Add.1 page 9 and the implanting of various populations, in particular of Indian origin, by the recruitment of indentured labourers. Racial discrimination, an ideological pillar of slavery and colonialism, was applied against Amerindians as well as against Africans and Indians, and went hand-in-hand with a strategy of division and mutual antagonization. Following the abolition of slavery by Great Britain in 1838, the Africans (estimated at 82,000) refused to accept the pittances offered by their former masters and left the plantations in large numbers, establishing villages along the coast where they cultivated small plantations. The shortage of labour forced the British planters to bring in indentured workers, including Chinese, Portuguese and, in particular, Indians. 14. In defence of their economic interests, the Africans were unremittingly opposed to the import of labour. In their view, such immigration, which was supported by the colonial Government, was one of the causes of reduced employment opportunities, lower pay and a rise in the cost of living due to the taxes levied to subsidize it. They argued that there was enough work for them in the sugar plantations and that the higher wages they demanded could be paid if the import of labour were not such a drain on the colony’s resources. Because the Indian indentured labourers accepted the low pay offered by the planters, they were seen as strike-breakers and immediately aroused the Africans’ hostility. 15. The colonial plantation system was thus a factor in the diversification of the population of Guyana. But, based as it was on a strategy of dividing the various groups, it also gave rise to lasting animosities that hampered the construction of an integrated society. What is more, as the coastal areas of Guyana are below sea level, the land is prone to frequent flooding by the sea, and when, in the late nineteenth century, the former indentured labourers began planting rice in the flood zones, the colonial authorities provided them with technical and financial support. The Africans were also excluded from retail trade by a deliberate colonial policy of favouring a Portuguese monopoly on that sector. 16. Colonial economic and demographic policy, in combination with the mistrust arising from cultural differences, thus sowed suspicion and hostility between the various ethnic groups between Indians and Africans, Indians and Chinese, Chinese and Europeans, Africans and Europeans, etc. In effect, the British colonial system had created a social hierarchy between the groups, with each group’s social standing determined by its contribution to the plantation economy. The British, at the top of the ladder, were the plantation owners, the lawyers, the managers and overseers, the senior officials, bankers and clergy. Then came the Portuguese, who controlled trade; the Indians and Chinese, the majority of them indentured plantation workers and later small farmers and shopkeepers; and lastly the Africans, initially small farmers or farm workers, urban unskilled workers, teachers and lower-ranking police officers and administrators. The Amerindians, having lost their role as trackers of runaway slaves when slavery ended, were for the most part pushed to the margins of the colonial system and forced back into the jungle.4 The large numbers of Africans recruited into the forces of law and order were used when necessary to enforce the British system of division, control and dominance, notably in putting down uprisings by Indo-Guyanese farm workers demanding pay rises. 17. This brief outline of Guyana’s colonial history may throw some light on the profound influences that have helped fashion the mindsets and relations between the races. By the end of the colonial era, Guyana was thus a de facto multiracial and multi-ethnic country, but one split right down ethnic lines in political, social and economic terms. None of its political leaders have