GUYANA: Govts make another attempt to settle the border issue

• by IPS Correspondents (georgetown)
• Tuesday, November 22, 1994
• Inter Press Service

GEORGETOWN, Nov 22 (IPS) - A group of officials from the two South American neighbours -- Brazil and Guyana -- are now meeting in the capital of this former British colony to discuss the markers identifying the border the two have shared for nearly six decades.

This is the first meeting of the Guyana/Brazil Joint Commission for the demarcation of boundaries since the 134 markers identifying the more than 1,600-kilometre border were implanted between 1930 and 1939.

The border markings have been a source of constant disagreement between the two governments since scores of errant Brazilian miners, called garimperos began making numerous incursions into Guyana.

These miners have even established illegal gold mining operations and built several airstrips to fly in mining equipment and supplies and to take out raw gold collected during the illicit activities.

In recent years equipment valued at millions of dollars have been found at the border by Guyanese soldiers patrolling the area and several Brazilians have been arrested.

Now both governments are trying to agree on ways of identifying and repairing the markers to ensure an end to the illegal operations.

"I urge ... that we do not underestimate the importance of the exercise... as we lay the foundation for the slow, onerous and painstaking task of identifying and repairing the markers along Guyana's 1606-kilometre boundary with Brazil and add additional markers to better define the boundary," said Guyana's legal affairs minister, Bernard de Santos.

"In a very basic and practical sense, we will be underpinning the structure of intensive neighbourly cooperation for the development of our natural resources including human resources, with which our region has been so handsomely endowed," he added.

A two-day meeting of the Guyana/Brazil group on cooperation will follow the border consultations. This meeting is expected to focus on all aspects of cross-border trade and immigration security matters, including drug smuggling and the movement of people across the border.

The two bodies were set up when Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Guyana's president visited Brazil last year.

Guyana is separated from Brazil in the south by the narrow Takatu river, which can be crossed on foot at certain dry periods of the year.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service