EDWIN CARRINGTON, Secretary General of the Caribbean Community, may well have put to rest doubts and speculations about Suriname’s continuing active presence in the councils of the region’s economic integration movement under new head of state Desi Bouterse.
Taking advantage of his one-day official visit to Guyana for a meeting with President Bharrat Jagdeo last Monday, President Bouterse paid a courtesy call on Carrington at the Community Secretariat in Georgetown. He reassured him of Suriname’s commitment to the 15-member community.
“You would find my government more regionally oriented and our relations with CARICOM will become more intensive,” he told Carrington, who retires at year end after 18 years of service.
For his part, Carrington assured Bouterse that it was his “pleasure to see Suriname transformed from being a newcomer (in 1995) to one of the most active members of the community. This is a tribute to the dynamism of your country . . . ,” he said
Earlier that day, Bouterse and the Guyanese head of state discussed a range of issues pertaining to strengthening of Guyana-Suriname relations including, most significantly, the pursuit of plans for the building of a bridge across the Corentyne River which separates the two neighbouring states.
Cooperation on combating narco-trafficking, increased trade and economic relations were included in what the two presidents declared to be “fruitful discussions”.
His Guyana visit and meetings with President Jagdeo, and later the CARICOM general, would undoubtedly have been a diplomatic and morale booster for Bouterse who continues to be treated with hostility by Suriname’s former colonial power, the Netherlands. He had been convicted, in his absence, by a Dutch court for cocaine trafficking in 1999, and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment that was never served.
No extradition treaty exists between the Netherlands and Suriname, and Surinamese law prohibits extradition of a national to any foreign state. Now, as the democratically elected president of Suriname, Bouterse chose to engage in some tit-for-tat politics last month by denying the Netherlands’ ambassador to Paramaribo an invitation to his ceremonial inauguration.
The Netherlands would also be aware of CARICOM’s decision to continue active cooperation with Suriname with Bouterse as president, and of his coming involvement with other community leaders at next month’s session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Still pending, of course, is the outcome of a military court trial for Bouterse’s alleged involvement in the killings of 15 political opponents in 1982 when he was Suriname’s military ruler. He has consistently denied involvement.
We shall see what unfolds at his first Inter-Sessional Meeting of CARICOM leaders scheduled for Grenada next February.
