Suri­name’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness and In­ter­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion, Al­bert Ramdin, on Fri­day, sent a protest note to the gov­ern­ment of Guyana, fol­low­ing re­ports that the gov­ern­ment of the neigh­bour­ing coun­try wants to de­vel­op in the dis­put­ed bor­der area be­tween the two coun­tries.

Ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent of Guyana, Ir­faan Ali, his ad­min­is­tra­tion will hard­en the airstrip in the Tigri area at the so-called ‘Camp Jaguar’.

Camp Tigri or Camp Jaguar is a mil­i­tary camp and airstrip lo­cat­ed in the Tigri Area – the area is dis­put­ed be­tween Suri­name and Guyana.

Ramdin, on Fri­day, sum­moned the Guyanese am­bas­sador Vir­janand De­poo to hand him a protest note.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, the state­ments of Ali were dis­cussed, who wants to start the pave­ment work on the airstrip in the Up­per Coran­ti­jn area be­fore the end of this year. An ear­li­er re­port from the Guyanese gov­ern­ment that plans to build a new school on Kasjoe Is­land, al­so in the dis­put­ed area on the Up­per Coran­ti­jn Riv­er by Guyana, was al­so dis­cussed.

Ramdin al­so ex­pressed con­cern “about the pub­lic an­nounce­ments made to per­form acts on Suri­namese ter­ri­to­ry with­out per­mis­sion from the gov­ern­ment of Suri­name”.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, the am­bas­sador was al­so in­formed that the pres­ence of Guyanese in the Tigri area is not in ac­cor­dance with the agree­ments made be­tween the two coun­tries in Ch­aguara­mas, Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1970.

The min­is­ter al­so in­di­cat­ed that the pub­lic an­nounce­ments from Ali and his gov­ern­ment “may un­nec­es­sar­i­ly dis­rupt the in­ten­si­fied, friend­ly and con­struc­tive co­op­er­a­tion be­tween both coun­tries”.

In 2015, then-pres­i­dent of Guyana, David Granger, said that Suri­name should go to an in­ter­na­tion­al tri­bunal re­gard­ing the bor­der is­sue with Guyana. The Guyanese leader could not ac­cept that Suri­name would con­tin­ue to claim with­out fur­ther steps. “If Suri­name is so con­vinced of the le­gal­i­ty of its claim, it should sub­mit the mat­ter to an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized body,” Granger said in the Guyanese par­lia­ment.

In 2011, Pres­i­dent De­siré Bouterse of Suri­name ad­vo­cat­ed an am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tion to the bor­der dis­pute and put this is­sue back on the bi­lat­er­al agen­da.

“The Tigri area is and re­mains Suri­name’s,” Bouterse said in the Suri­namese par­lia­ment.

“Let it be clear: it is our ter­ri­to­ry,” he con­tin­ued.

Ac­cord­ing to the then Suri­namese leader, it there­fore made lit­tle dif­fer­ence that the heads of state of both coun­tries had a good re­la­tion­ship with each oth­er. The claim is not di­min­ished by this. The gov­ern­ment will work to­wards a so­lu­tion, cer­tain­ly a peace­ful one. A “friend­ly set­tle­ment”, ac­cord­ing to Bouterse.

The Tigri Area, called by the Guyanese New Riv­er Tri­an­gle is a forest­ed area in the South-West­ern re­gion of Suri­name. The Tigri Area it an in­te­gral part of the Co­eroeni Re­sort lo­cat­ed in the Sipali­wi­ni Dis­trict. In 1969, three years af­ter its in­de­pen­dence, the Guyana De­fence Force (GDF) seized con­trol of the dis­put­ed re­gion when Suri­name was still a con­stituent state of the King­dom of the Nether­lands.

On Au­gust, 19, 1969, bor­der skir­mish­es oc­curred be­tween Guyanese forces and Suri­namese mili­tias at Camp Tigri, which was sub­se­quent­ly con­quered by Guyana.

On 18 March 1970, Er­ic Williams, Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go of­fered to me­di­ate the con­flict. In No­vem­ber 1970 the Suri­namese and Guyanese gov­ern­ments agreed in Trinidad and To­ba­go to with­draw their mil­i­tary forces from the Tri­an­gle.

Guyana has not held up on this agree­ment and con­tin­ue to oc­cu­py the New Riv­er Tri­an­gle. —PARA­MARI­BO, Suri­name (CMC)