At foreign mission’s request…
PRESIDENT Bharrat  Jagdeo disclosed yesterday that the Guyana government was approached but declined a request from “a particular foreign mission” to arrest Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse while he was on a visit to this country. The Head-of-State made the disclosure in response to a senior Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officer’s question, premised on remarks he made regarding the WikiLeaks issue in his feature address at the opening of a two-day Annual Officers’ Conference.
Mr. Jagdeo was speaking in the Officers’ Mess, Base Camp Ayanganna, Thomas Lands, Georgetown, where the theme for the occasion is ‘Re-Engineering to Enhance National Defence and Security’.
He had also expressed an interest in WikiLeaks when he said whatever comes out on Guyana he will be happy to see.
The GDF officer had asked, during the question and answer segment, whether recent WikiLeaks disclosures about the Surinamese President and convicted drug trafficker Roger Khan, if proven to be true, would have any effect on the relationship between Guyana and Suriname and bilateral agreements signed by the two countries.
President Jagdeo said that in addition to saying no to the request, he told the foreign mission: “You need to get some other countries to do this. If the people of Suriname overwhelmingly chose him (Bouterse) as their leader, who are we, as Guyanese, to say who we could work with?”
“If the people of Suriname, through a democratic system, chose their leader, we have to work with their legitimate representative,” he recalled telling the emissary.
Mr. Bouterse was elected on July 19, 2010, as President in his country’s Parliament by more than two-thirds of the votes, even as he faced a sentence, in absentia, for drug trafficking by a Court in The Netherlands.
In September, 2010, he paid his first visit to Guyana as President of Suriname, and held fruitful talks with President Jagdeo.

Agreed
A communiquй, issued after the meeting, said the two leaders agreed to the establishment of appropriate mechanisms to implement decisions, including the construction of a bridge across the Corentyne River linking the two countries, and closer cooperation and coordination between their law enforcement agencies, if their respective policies, strategies and programmes, aimed at combating crime and threats to public security are to be successful.
On November 19, President Jagdeo returned a visit to the neighbouring republic for the first part of an exchange by the two Heads-of-State, when discussions on greater partnership between the two countries, among other things, continued.
The following day, President Bouterse and a delegation accompanied the Guyanese president back to Guyana, and toured several areas in Berbice.
The two countries are also keen on establishing cooperation between the University of Guyana and Suriname’s Anton-de-Kom University, and Surinamese accessing the Eye Care Centre at Port Mourant, Corentyne, Berbice.
WikiLeaks, a website developed by Julian Assange and operated by the Sunshine Press in Sweden, is revealing information previously unknown to the public.
The WikiLeaks issue, President Jagdeo told yesterday’s audience, amongst whom was Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and other Cabinet Ministers, other Joint Services Heads, GDF Chief-of-Staff, Commodore Gary Best, as well as senior and junior Army Officers, “will change America and make diplomacy more transparent.”
As such, President Jagdeo urged the participating officers to pay attention to the issue which, through its exposure of information in the public domain, will now force countries to rethink how diplomacy works, and the security of their connections.
He said Western diplomats often report on people’s personal and domestic matters and, acknowledging that polices are based on information picked up at functions, such as cocktail receptions, challenged the military officers to ensure that they will never be pawns in anyone’s scheme. (Wendella Davidson)