Suriname’s President Désiré Bouterse has an opportunity to change the course of Suriname’s relations with Guyana.
Mr Albert Ramdin, the Suriname-born Assistant Secretary General who led the delegation of the Organisation of American States to the inauguration ceremony, described the situation well. He explained that it was not a coincidence that no regional head of state attended the ceremonial inauguration of Suriname’s President Desire Delano Bouterse on August 12.
Mr Ramdin said that the leaders’ absence was understandable because “… it was not every day that a soldier who has led a coup is later democratically elected as president.” He added, “In the Americas some people are still hesitant about Bouterse. They still do not know how to deal with the situation in Suriname. Latin American and Caribbean countries will be looking to see how the policies of President Bouterse’s government unfold over the next six months.”
Guyana, Suriname’s nearest CARICOM neighbor, particularly will be interested in the manner in which President Bouterse’s policies unfold in the coming months. President Bharrat Jageo did not hesitate to congratulate Mr Bouterse soon after he was elected by the National Assembly in July. President Jagdeo wrote to President Bouterse wishing him “…every success as you embark upon the mandate conferred upon you by the Surinamese people…It is my hope that we can work together to further improve and deepen the relations between our two countries…I therefore, look forward to pursuing this desire with you for the mutual satisfaction and benefit of our peoples.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs Ms Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, when asked to comment, could say only that Guyana’s position was reflected President Jagdeo’s action in promptly sending a formal congratulatory message and in personally contacting the new Suriname President by telephone. Mr Jagdeo, however, as with other Heads of State the world over, did not extend his graciousness to attending Mr Bouterse’s inauguration. Guyana was represented by Prime Minister Samuel Hinds.
Apart from the international despondency expressed over Mr Bouterse’s election to office, it is a historical fact that diplomatic relations between Guyana and Suriname have always been difficult. A culture of cold courtesy, arising out of the territorial issue, has grown up over the past four decades. Suriname, as a result, has evinced little enthusiasm for improving relations with Guyana, even in the best of times.
Now that Mr Bouterse – widely considered to be a strong nationalist and rather hawkish territorial revanchist – has his hands on the levers of office again, cordial relations with Guyana are unlikely to be prominent on his scale of priorities. While the two neighbours have barely managed to maintain functional cooperation, Paramaribo has preferred bluster, bullying and blackmail and has always been disinclined to resort to international law over its claims to Guyana’s territory.
Georgetown, on the other hand, at least over the last 25 years, seems not to have grasped fully the fact that nothing else but the territorial claim matters to Suriname. During his first visit to Guyana, President Ronald Venetiaan crassly used the occasion of his address to the National Assembly on Guyana’s Independence Anniversary – 26 May 1995 – to express the seriousness with which Suriname viewed the border issue, saying that it “takes first place” in its relations with Guyana. The measured tone of his statements on the issue correctly explained his country’s intransigence and the reason why talks so often reach a stalemate.
Despite President Venetiaan’s conviction, he was criticised by the opposition parties at the time for his alleged appeasement of Guyana. The National Democratic Party was among those that boycotted President Bharrat Jagdeo’s formal address to the National Assembly on 29th January 2002 during his official visit.
Suriname’s officials do not conceal their negative perceptions and unfavourable stereotypes of Guyanese officials. Georgetown, for its part, does little to dispel doubts about its policies. Its failure to craft a coherent frontiers policy; its weak diplomatic representation in Paramaribo and refusal to adopt a more assertive diplomatic posture have placed it in an unequal and unfavourable relationship with Paramaribo. Its reliance on party hacks where professional diplomatic representation is needed and the supine posture of Guyanese officials who do little to suppress illegalities such as back-tracking, contraband-smuggling, illegal fishing and piracy across the Corentyne River have eroded official credibility. The uninformed positions of its untrained political negotiators who misunderstand the territorial problem have contributed to Suriname’s disdain for the Guyana Government.
These perceptions are reflected in Suriname’s impertinent treatment of Guyanese nationals resident in that country. It is manifested in the official harassment and arrest of Guyanese fishermen, seizure of their fishing vessels and imposition of heavy fines. These have all been expressions of an administrative culture of unfriendliness.
The chronicle of diplomatic relations tells a tale of disdain and distrust. The establishment of the Guyana-Suriname Cooperation Council to concretise relations did not take place until May 1986. It then took three years for the inaugural meeting of the Council to be held in July 1989. Scheduled meetings of the Cooperation Council have been deliberately derailed by Suriname’s insistence on raising its territorial claim against Guyana, a matter which should properly be addressed through the Guyana-Suriname Border Commission. Events such as these set the tempo of dilatoriness and indecisiveness in bilateral relations.
The Guyana-Suriname Anti-Narcotics Agreement was signed in July 1989, for example, but was not ratified until five years later, in June 1994. Discussions on fisheries cooperation have been slowed by Suriname’s insistence on exorbitant levies for licences for Guyanese fishermen operating in the Corentyne River and off the Atlantic Coast. Agreements to cooperate in the development of bauxite, gold, petroleum and hydro-power and have not been worth the paper on which they were written. Agreements for agricultural, commercial, economic and technical co-operation in the fields of fisheries, health, forestry, air services have yielded unsatisfactory results. Fitful meetings between officials of the University of Guyana and Suriname’s Anton de Kom University have dissolved into inertia.
Much of the formal diplomatic contact between Guyana and Suriname has actually occurred at the consular level. It centred around Suriname’s propensity to occasionally arrest, ill-treat and imprison Guyanese fishermen operating in the Corentyne River and the way that problems associated with the large Guyanese resident community are handled.
Guyana must be concerned also, at the continental level, that President Bouterse will seek to strengthen the traditional Suriname-Venezuela entente cordiale that was employed to isolate Guyana in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Bouterse’s Suriname could become a candidate to join the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s ‘Twenty-First Century Socialism” movement that has taken root in some Andean states. President Désiré Bouterse, in his salad days, used to profess adherence to some form of socialism.
The USA has been apprehensive about President Bouterse’s election. Washington’s historic interventionist role in the Circum Caribbean – the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic; the 1983 invasion of Grenada; the 1981-1990 destabilisation of Nicaragua; the 1989 invasion of Panama and, most recently, the 2004 regime change in Haiti, a CARICOM member state, when the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced out of office in 2004 – will not be forgotten in the hemisphere.
Suriname is also still perceived as an export platform for illegal narcotics to Europe. Surinamese drug cartels are suspected of having negotiated with Colombia’s terrorist rebel movement – the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – in guns-for-drugs transactions. Narcotics-trafficking and everyday contraband-smuggling would likely continue or increase and other crimes could go unpunished. The free movement of persons that will be facilitated by the fact that Suriname is a member of CARICOM and, therefore, the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, could put the Guyana-Suriname border on the Corentyne River further under stress.
Guyana’s relations with Suriname are very important not only to the two states themselves but also to CARICOM, the OAS, UNASUR and other regional organisations.
President Bouterse inauguration could move bilateral relations either forwards or backwards. The quality of the statesmanship he evinces and the level of the leadership he gives to his ministers and officials will determine the direction of Guyana-Suriname relations and whether he is a trustworthy ally in regional development.