A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) shadow foreign minister, Deborah Backer said government must, as a matter of high priority, deal decisively with the backtrack operations between Guyana and Suriname. She said that the difficulty in the task would be great, but “do it we must, because by turning a Nelson’s Eye towards these operations is to erase a part of our eastern border”.
The backtrack crossing at Corriverton has been a source of much distress to security officials in Guyana, but government two years ago refused Suriname’s invitation to regularise the route.
Backer told the National Assembly last week during her budget debate presentation that safeguarding the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity remains central to the APNU’s foreign policy. She said government and the opposition need to focus on improving the image and the substance of Guyana’s foreign policy.
APNU MP Deborah Backer
She cited the land discrepancy claims made by both the governments of Suriname and Venezuela as one reason the country should place more attention on safeguarding its borders.
She said as a result of the porous borders and the weaknesses in internal security, unhindered and unregulated flow of illegal drugs, goods, weapons, undeclared gold and most importantly illegal migrants are rampant.
Backer stated that the flow of illegal migrants into Guyana “is as much a threat to our sovereignty and territorial integrity as Venezuela’s and Suriname’s unjust claims”. Backer citied various instances in which both the Venezuelan and the Surinamese governments have sent security forces to their borders with Guyana to take control of their internal security issues. She said that while Suriname and Venezuela are taking the threat of porous borders seriously, the same could not be said of Guyana.
Backer referenced Professor Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith’s 2011 paper “Drugs and Crime as Problems without Passports in the Caribbean: How Secure is Security, and How Sovereign is Sovereignty?”, and noted that Guyana had to invest more into foreign policy to curb the level of corruption that results in the porous borders.
Only recently, Suriname Police Force Deputy Public Relations Officer, Inspector Humphrey Naarden had called for the regularisation of the backtrack route as well. In an interview with Guyana Times International during the recently concluded Caricom meeting in Paramaribo, Naarden said politicians need to make a definitive pronouncement on the regularising of the Guyana-Suriname backtrack operations.
He said the issue has been in existence for many years, and it is for the governments of Guyana and Suriname to make a firm decision on the backtrack service. The backtrack service continues to flourish, as many persons traverse the Corentyne River to enter Nickerie, Suriname, or Springlands, Corentyne, Guyana.
“The backtrack thing is not a thing of now. It is not for me to say what to do about that, I think it is something for higher order in our political establishment. We call it backtrack, but it is tolerated,” Inspector Naarden said.
He told Guyana Times International that Surinamese police are only concerned about when persons attempt to enter the country. He said persons who have nothing to conceal would not cross the border in “the middle of the night”.
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