Suriname must be restrained

Oct 24, 2008 Peeping Tom

Imagine a ship sailing up the Orinoco River and Venezuela immediately dispatches gunboats to seize it, tow it to a port in that country, imprison the crew then demand a fine. Imagine a boat sailing along the Amazon and Brazil does the same thing.
These are all border rivers and the countries that share the river allow each other unlimited and unrestricted use. There is no talk about one country demanding that a pilot from that country escorting any vessel entering that river. This is simply not done. International law dictates that where a river forms a natural border then the countries enjoy unlimited use.
Restrictions only apply to military naval vessels from countries other than those that share the river. The foreign military vessel must notify the sovereign state that it proposes to use the river to access one port or the other.
Suriname, therefore, must be the only country in the world that attempts to restrict use of a border river and the only country that appears to be on the receiving end is Guyana because of the disrespect that the neighbouring country exhibits toward Guyana.
This disrespect became more evident after the United Nations Law of the Sea Tribunal ruled heavily in favour of Guyana after Suriname used force to remove an oil exploration rig off the Guyana coast on the ground that the area belonged to Suriname. This ruling is binding and puts to rest forever, any claim that Suriname might have had to the area.
What is surprising is that both Guyana and Suriname are poor countries with limited resources; both were colonies and while Suriname got what is considered a golden handshake—millions of Suriname guilders—on the attainment of independence from Holland, Guyana got nothing from its colonial parent, Great Britain.
One would have expected that Guyana and Suriname would have used what limited resources they have to develop their respective economies. In fact, in the wake of the forceful removal of the oil rig, Guyana approached Suriname with an offer to explore the marine resources jointly for the benefits of the people of both countries. Suriname declined. Today that offer is no longer on the table so Suriname stands to lose.
In the wake of the removal of the oil rig by Suriname, there were those who accused Guyana of being too soft. They did not consider the cost of retaliation. However, the political opposition supported the government because it knows that any threat to the country affects every Guyanese, regardless of political affiliation.
The recent action by Suriname almost forced Guyana to adopt measures that would have proved costly and might have had far reaching effects on neighbourly relationships. The current close relationship that the people of Guyana and Suriname share would have been so severely affected that it could have been years before any semblance of neighbourliness could have returned.
Diplomacy has long been the strong point in Guyana’s action. It was diplomacy that allowed Guyana to thwart Venezuela’s claim to almost 60 per cent of this country. Similarly, diplomacy caused Guyana to make a mistake that has come back to haunt this country.
The then Foreign Minister, Fred Wills, when he led the local delegation to meet with Suriname in the Corentyne way back in 1977, he agreed that the border between the two countries should be the high water mark of the Corentyne. This meant that a section of the Guyana shore would be Suriname.
It might have been better for Mr. Wills to force an agreement that stipulated that the channel would have formed the boundary.
But Fred Wills also got Suriname to agree to unlimited access by Guyanese vessels. Economic activity was controlled by Suriname and not long after, that neighbouring country decided that fishermen wishing to operate in the Corentyne needed to be registered by Suriname. This is the case today.
But the very Suriname recognizes that it has an open border and allows almost unrestricted passage of its nationals and Guyanese. On the few occasions that it closed that border it recognized the importance of the undocumented Guyanese trade and pretty soon it opened its border.
Guyana may wish to clamp down on the illegal departure and entry of the Guyanese, much to the discomfort of the Surinamese and people would blame the government

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