“We have come to a solution,” said President Irfaan Ali in August last year after discussing with President Chandrikapersad Santokhi the problem our fishermen face in obtaining fishing licences from Suriname. Despite the fact that there was an agreement in writing between Guyana and Suriname to issue 150 licences to Guyanese fishermen, it appears there is still no solution because our eastern neighbour is simply ignoring the settlement. This will come as no surprise to those familiar with Paramaribo’s long-established practice of defaulting on covenants. There was, for example, the case of the Corentyne ferry which took years to inaugurate simply because of the additional requirements demanded by Suriname outside the terms of the original treaty. In that instance the purpose was to ensure that Paramaribo would have jurisdiction in the Corentyne River.
Now in conjunction with our neighbour we are engaged in working towards a bridge across the river, but if we can’t get a relatively straightforward matter like an accord on fishing licences implemented, one wonders how long it would take for something infinitely more complex to materialise, more especially given the history of the ferry and other matters. The Corentyne River per se is a boundary issue, of course, but the matter of the fishing licences falls largely in a different category. That notwithstanding, there is no guarantee that the authorities to the east of us are going to prove any more complaisant or more punctilious about observing current agreements which do not impact directly on the boundary than they have been in the past.
Prior to the ‘solution’ fishermen had been complaining to the government about their boats being seized by the Suriname Coast Guard and being forced to pay a ‘fine’ to retrieve them, among various other forms of harassment. According to what they told the government recently, they were still being stopped and searched excessively while on the water, and that sometimes their vessels were seized for minor issues and sold. One fisherman told this newspaper that they also now had additional expenses, since they had to leave their boats in Suriname and could not sail them back to Guyana. When they were ready to return here they had to “catch a small boat and come over.” Others complained that the location where they had to leave their vessels was causing damage to them because it was far out. If that was not enough, they said, they were forced to sell their catch in the neighbouring country for very little.
Earlier this year Chairman of the No 66 Fisheries Co-op Parmeshwar Jainarine had drawn attention to the anxiety of fishermen that if a rope cut while their boat was in the Nickerie River − presumably while the crew was in Guyana − then it would be lost at sea leaving the owners with a huge loss and fishermen unemployed. Furthermore, it was said, the BV boat owners were now being requested to reduce the size of their vessels which currently measure 40ft by 33ft. If this were to be done, said Mr Jainarine, then they would not be able to move around the boat comfortably and would not have sufficient storage space for gasoline and ice. In addition, it would be dangerous because water could come in.
Our Business editorial the week before last placed our problems with Suriname agreements in the context of an ongoing border issue. That is undoubtedly true. However, in addition there are grubbier considerations intruding in this particular instance. As we reported, Guyanese fishermen have been renting licences from Surinamese. We were told that one licence used to cost around US$3000 per boat per annum, but some fishermen reported to Stabroek News that the price had now risen to US$4500 per boat. What the Guyana government had requested was for licences to be issued directly to Guyanese fishermen, since the Surinamese who secured licences were not fishing themselves, but were purchasing them with the purpose of renting them to Guyanese for profit. It is this which led to the ‘solution’ the two Presidents announced in August last year.
The week before last President Ali said he had “reached out” to President Santokhi on the problem over the licences, and that a high-level meeting would take place within two weeks. He went on to say that Surinamese officials had told him when they issued licences to Guyanese, they in turn rented them out to other Guyanese. “That is one of the grey areas over there,” he commented. That the Surinamese were engaged in a renting operation has never been in much doubt, but given the impediments to making much money from a Suriname licence at present, it is difficult to imagine that there is much of a renting operation, if one at all, on this side of the Corentyne. It appears on the face of it to be a case of the accused inverting the story to indict the accuser.
In addition to his comments about renting, the President gave the assurance that there was active work going on in relation to the boats being held on the Suriname side of the river. “That matter is being resolved right now,” he said. Given Suriname’s record perhaps he should not be too sanguine about that.
The quota of 150 licences was fixed by Suriname, and early on that country’s Minister of Agriculture had said that a company would be set up to issue the licences. Not surprisingly no such company has been established, and one has to wonder whether it was ever the intention to create one. After all, why should it need a company to distribute a mere 150 licences a year which originate with the official authorities? Is that really too much for them to handle?
So now we are in a situation with no 150 licences, no company to issue the licences, the harassment of Guyanese fishermen, and, it seems from what Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has said, no acknowledgement either that an agreement on fishing licences even exists. To old hands this sounds like a classic stance on the part of Paramaribo.
On Friday the Vice President did not mince his words. “We have to start playing hardball now,” he was quoted as saying. His analysis of the situation will not endear him to Suriname. He said there was “Massive, massive corruption in the allocation of these licences and a huge attempt to profiteer on the backs of Guyanese fishermen by many in authority in Suriname.” He also pointed to the fact that the Suriname authorities had reneged on their commitments, and denied that they had made them, although Guyana has them in writing.
If that were not enough, Mr Jagdeo went on to say that they had discovered that a “particular minister in Suriname is linked to many people who are controlling these licences, and they are then renting the licences to Guyanese so when we then exposed that, because we gave the information about the people in Suriname who were profiteering, we had the intelligence and we gave it to the Surinamese authorities, they then became upset because the matter came out in the public domain.” He also did not refrain from a dig at President Santokhi. He said the Minister of Agriculture “seems to be more powerful than their President” as he has been “enforcing a different set of rules.”
As a result the Vice President said that the Guyana government would be writing Caricom on the issue.
Certainly, there would appear to be little point in further presidential talks in the immediate term considering those in August last year have produced no result. For many years Paramaribo got into the habit of believing it could bully this country because of its economic weakness, but the situation has changed. Endless talks to resolve a problem which was supposedly already resolved just underlines a position of weakness. This time Mr Jagdeo is right: diplomacy has its place, but why keep negotiating with a government which is clearly operating in bad faith.
