The Suriname Connection

Feb 19, 2012 Editorial

President Donald Ramotar’s one-day visit to Suriname at the invitation of his counterpart President Desi Bouterse this early in his regime sends a strong signal that the strengthening of the linkages between our two countries is high on the administration’s agenda.
The eleven-point communiqué issued at the end of the visit, which adumbrated at least six substantive areas of collaboration, confirmed that the meeting went far beyond the symbolic.
But we cannot dismiss the significance of the symbolic between two neighbouring nations that were literally rattling sabres at each other over disputed borders (by Suriname) that spilled over in one instance into the Surinamese expulsion of a Guyanese oil rig from seas they claimed as their own. The symbolism of the visit by President Ramotar was accentuated by the fact that the oil rig had just returned and had resumed drilling at the same spot, while presidents were engulfed in bonhomie.
President Bouterse revealed a new line by the Surinamese on the border issue by explicitly declaring that it was on the ‘back burner’. While it is not our desire to raise contentious issues at this juncture, it might have been useful if the status of the structured meetings of the national Border Commissions of the two nations was clarified. That mechanism at least suggests that the issue might be resolved rather than just shelved.
The issues covered by the two presidents ranged from the urgent short-term to the strategic. There is the issue of cross-border crimes in general and piracy at sea in particular. The latter first appeared out of Surinamese waters but has now metastasised into a virulent plague across our coastline. The presence of high level officials from our security sector and their Surinamese counterparts at the meetings attend to the seriousness accorded to the problem.
More substantive discussions and operational agreements must be aimed for at the second Presidential Security and Intelligence Exchange Meeting between Suriname and Guyana scheduled for next month in Paramaribo. The agreement to establish a Border Security Committee as a direct mechanism for information sharing and monitoring, to deal with this challenge in all its aspects is a positive first step. BASS and their Surinamese counterparts must be brought into the picture.
Strategically, the two South American members of CariCom appear to appreciate the need to infuse some energy and sense of urgency into the decade-old goal of economic and industrial integration of the bloc. The concrete proposals of President Bouterse towards this end were noted by President Ramotar.
But these two gentlemen, who have been in the political arena for decades, cannot believe that CariCom will be pushed out of its lassitude merely by words. We are suggesting that Guyana and Suriname embark of specific projects together to demonstrate the benefits that cooperation can engender.
The initiative that might be most appropriate could be on an item that was specifically discussed at the meetings: food security. This is the area where both Suriname and Guyana have a comparative advantage over their CariCom partners but those colleagues have absolutely refused to get behind the almost decade-old “Jagdeo Initiative” that even they agreed had addressed all the identified constraints. Suriname and Guyana can take the lead in moving into the mega-farms that can take agriculture and food production to the next level.
Bouterse’s plan to mobilize natural, financial and human resources fits right in with the demands of the Jagdeo Initiative.
Finally, there is the bridge – the conceptualisation for which was first floated during the Jagdeo Presidency also along with Mr. Bouterse. Now this is certainly a strategic necessity for the future development of the two countries. One of the major constrains of industrialisation here has been the extremely small domestic markets that are supposed to provide a base line for the consequent products. Even the combined markets may not have the necessary critical mass.
But taken in tandem with the bridge across the Takatu and the projected Linden- Berbice- Lethem Highway, the comparatively large markets of North Brazil comes into the picture. Let the integration continue.