– Media keep issue in focus
The Surinamese Government is yet to issue an official comment on a statement by the Government of Guyana on maintaining sovereignty after reports emanating from Suriname of presidential instructions under the previous Surinamese Government to invade Guyana’s territory.
During his post-Cabinet media briefing yesterday, Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon made this disclosure to the media.
“Officially the Surinamese Government has not ventured a response to our public statements and our engagements with international bodies over those disclosures about invading the territory of Guyana made in their Parliament by members of an earlier administration. They have not made any formal response,” Dr. Luncheon said.
Noting that it is currently an elections period in the neighbouring country, Dr. Luncheon stated that the Surinamese media have responded to the thrust of the electoral campaign and the land disputes and border issues between Guyana and Suriname will continue to be an electoral issue to be commented on. He stated that for this reason, the Surinamese media have been contributing to keeping the focus on this issue.
Following the reports, Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett reiterated the tri-junction point which clearly recognises the New River Triangle as being within the sovereign territory of Guyana.
The Minister, during the budget debate in the National Assembly, read a brief statement saying that it is a well established fact that in 1936, the governments of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Great Britain and the Netherlands identified the tri-junction point at which the boundaries of British Guiana (now Guyana) Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) and Brazil meet.
The Minister stated that in spite of that conscious act, successive governments of Suriname have sought to illegally annex Guyana’s territory, and there was an unsuccessful armed invasion in 1969 that ended when the GDF expelled Surinamese military personnel from the area.
Minister Rodrigues-Birkett described the public statements reported upon in the Surinamese press as confirmation that in the year 2000, when Suriname violated Guyana’s exclusive economic zone and forcibly removed the CGX rig from Guyana’s waters, the then Government of Suriname also had formulated plans for the invasion of the New River Triangle.
Given the confirmation of the stated hostile plans of Suriname in 2000, Minister Rodrigues-Birkett said she met with the Surinamese Ambassador in Georgetown and registered Guyana’s concerns not only of the admitted invasion instruction, but also the failure of the current government to ‘reassure Guyanese and the international community that the use or threat of the use of force is not an option that Suriname currently embraces.’ (GINA)