Evert G. Gonesh

The border dispute between Suriname and Guyana

Reflections on a contested territorial triangle

Preface

The border between between the Republic of Suriname and the Co-operative Republic of Guyana runs along the westbank of the Corentyne river.For decades, there has been a dispute regarding the continuation of the border at the upper reaches of the river. In the colonial period the mother countries, namely the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, failed to reach an agreement regarding this matter.

Suriname and Guyana have been in dialogue with each other since 1966 through their National Border Commissions – with interruptions due to internal developments. Historical documents were exchanged back and forth in order to gain a good insight into the history of the origin of the problem and to find leads to solve it.

The recent publication on this subject in the Dutch language by Ambassador Evert Gonesh also places this problem in a historical, political and legal context, aiming to create as balanced as possible a picture of the arguments put forward by both neighboring countries in support of their respective vieuws.

It seems to me to be recommended that knowledge of the contents of this publication, for which the author bears full responsibility, should be accessible to a wider audience than just a Dutch speaking public. Based on this consideration, in our joint search for a solution acceptable to both parties, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Business and International Cooperation of the Republic of Suriname, has made possible the translation of the book before you into the English language.

Paramaribo, August 2023

A. Ramdin

Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Business and International Cooperation

Introduction

Decolonisation not only led to the creation of a number of new states, but in many cases territorial disputes between neighbouring states also revealed themselves. The border inherited from the mother country did not always coincide with the boundary line claimed by new states on historical or geographical grounds. Such a situation occurs regarding the border between Suriname and its two neighbours French Guiana and Guyana. This study focuses on the border dispute between Suriname and Guyana.

On the 26 May 1966 British Guiana became an independent state under the name Guyana and on the 25 November 1975, Suriname, also known as Dutch Guiana, became independent. A dispute existing since 1900 between Great Britain and the Netherlands about the border between these then former colonies was transferred to the two new states by the respective mother countries at independence.

The Corentyne River has traditionally formed the border between the two countries. Upstream, this river splits into several source rivers, including the New River1 and the Curuni.2 In 1900, on hydrometric grounds, the Netherlands claimed the New River as its main source river and thus as a continuation of the border on the upper Corentyne. Britain, in response to the Dutch claim, argued that the Curuni with the Cutari as its source river was the boundary, since it would have been tacitly accepted by the Netherlands as the boundary between the two colonies for decades. The Curuni-Cutari was referred to by Britain as ‘Corentyne’, and in 1965 Suriname named the ‘New River’ as ‘Boven-Corantijn’ (Upper Corentyne).

The New River and the Curuni-Cutari enclose an area in the shape of a triangle, which is referred to by Guyana as the ‘New River Triangle’, and by Suriname as the ‘Tigri Area’.3 To indicate that it is the same area, our publication uses the designation ‘Tigri Triangle’ instead of ‘Tigri area’. Due to divergent views regarding the border at the headwaters of the Corentyne, sovereignty over this territorial triangle has been disputed since 1900. However, the area has been occupied by Guyana following a military operation since August 1969.

In February 1968 Guyana issued a publication entitled Guyana Suriname Boundary. Featuring Guyana’s coat of arms on the cover, this publication is considered Guyana’s White Paper presenting the view of the government of Guyana regarding the dispute about the sovereignty over the ‘New River Triangle’/’Tigri Triangle’ (Annex I).

Several publications on the subject appear to be broadly based on the content of the Guyanese White Paper (Pollard, 1976; Menon, 1978; Donovan, 2003; Donovan, 2004; Joseph 2010). This prompted us to devote a study to the historical and current context of the Surinamese-Guyanese border dispute, discuss the various views on it, and test the contrasting views against historical facts and international law criteria.

After a brief introduction, this study first examines how the border between the two neighbouring countries was established. Divergent findings regarding the border on the upper Corentyne are then considered. The resulting contrasting British and Dutch views are then discussed. The internal discussions and divergent views between the government and parliament in the Netherlands regarding the emerging border issue are also considered. The escalation of the dispute after Guyana’s independence in 1966 ending with Guyana’s military occupation of the disputed territory in 1969 is also discussed. Finally, some relevant aspects of international law concerning these border issues are touched upon. Each chapter ends with ‘Concluding remarks’.

This publication was produced on the basis of sources selected over the years from the Public Record Office and the British Museum in London, as well as from the then Algemeen Rijks Archief (now called Nationaal Archief) in The Hague. In addition to consulting relevant literature on the Surinamese-Guyanese border dispute, with regard to the discussions in the Dutch Parliament on this subject,the publications of Dr H.D. Benjamins, among others in various volumes of the magazine De West-Indische Gids, were mainly used.

We thank Dr Hans Ramsoedh, historian, for his comments and advice on an earlier version of the manuscript.

1 Since the literature generally uses the Guyanese designation ‘New River’ instead of ‘Upper Corentyne’, in this publication we will use the designation ‘New River’ as much as possible to keep the issues in focus, and in a few cases mention: New River (Upper Corentyne).

2 The Curuni is plainly referred to by Guyana as ‘Corentyne’. Various spellings for the Curuni with its source river Cutari are used in the literature such as Koeroeni and Koetari. We will retain ‘Curuni’ and ‘Cutari’ in the text and refer to that branch of the Corentyne as Curuni-Cutari.

3 ‘Tigri’ is a reference to the semi-military post established in the area in question by Suriname in 1968. See among others: Evert G. Gonesh, ‘Half a century of Tigri’ in Starnieuws, August 19th, 2019.

1 The colonisation of the ‘Wild Coast’

The ‘discovery’ of America in 1492 by Columbus marked the beginning of a European expansion drive in this continent. Merchants and trade organisations from various seafaring European countries such as Spain, Portugal, England, France and the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, travelled to the ‘New World’ when it became known that its fertile soil and climate offered interesting opportunities for large-scale cultivation of products that were in great demand in Europe, such as tobacco, cocoa, coffee and sugar.1 Moreover, stories circulated that gold could be easily mined in this area.

On April 23rd, 1593, Domingo de Vera took possession of the area on the northeast coast of the southern part of the newly discovered continent of the Americas for the King of Spain. At the time, the United Netherlands fell under the rule of the Spanish king, so the West India Company, founded in 1621, promoted the establishment of colonies along the various rivers in that area, which was also referred to as the ‘Wild Coast’. Thus, between 1616 and 1650, the colonies named after the respective rivers came into existence: Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice and Suriname.2

1.1 A shifting border between Suriname and Berbice

Along the Berbice River, the Dutchman Abraham van Peere had founded the colony of Berbice in 1627. Further east, the settlement of Suriname was established on the Suriname River in 1650, on the initiative of the Englishman Lord Francis Willoughby.3 Due to the country’s widely proclaimed fertility, an increasing number of English planters settled in Suriname.4 Because of his merits in the region of the West Indies, Willoughby was subsequently appointed governor of the British West Indies by King Charles II of England. Furthermore, through the ‘Act of Octroy’, the King formally granted the territory of Suriname to Willoughby on June 2nd, 1662. The assigned territory of Suriname was described as follows: ‘being part of the continent of Guiana in America called Serrinam also Surrinam lying in breadth East and West one English Mile next beyond the Westerly Banks of the River Copenam and Easterly one Mile from or beyond the River Marawyne …’ (Hartsinck 1770: 527). The western boundary of Suriname ended one mile west of the Coppename River, i.e., well before the present western boundary river Corentyne.

In 1667, Abraham Crijnssen conquered the area and took possession of Suriname for the Province of Zeeland, part of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. This possession was sold for 260 thousand Dutch guilders to the ‘Geoctroyeerde Sociëteit’ founded on May 21st, 1683, whose shareholders were the West India Company (WIC), the city of Amsterdam, and the family of Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck. Van Sommelsdijck took office as governor of Suriname in the same year.

Although, according to Hartsinck, it is not known exactly when, Van Sommelsdijck and Van Peere simply marked a pole as the boundary between the two colonies:5 ‘The Colony of Suriname is separated from that of Berbice, by a Boundary Pole, about half way between the Rivers Berbice and Corentin on the Breede water; which determination was made by Mr Cornelis van Aarssen van Sommelsdijk and Mr van Peere’ (Hartsinck 1770: 521).

In the gift-letter (‘proof of property’) to Willoughby, the western boundary of Suriname ended one mile west of the Coppename River, but this boundary now appeared to have shifted beyond the Corentyne River. According to Thompson, this was possible because ‘At the time of the cession of Suriname to the Dutch, virtually the entire stretch of coastline between Berbice and Copename rivers lay unoccupied by any European power’ (Thompson 1985: 66). Thompson further argues that it can be assumed that the West Indies Company allowed the colonies to expand their territories as much as possible in all directions, and concludes:

‘It is in this context, too, that one should view the efforts of the proprietors of Berbice and Suriname, in the late 17th century, to “close the gap” separating the two colonies’ (Ibid.).

The border between Berbice and Suriname was situated along a north-south line at the level of the Canje, a tributary of the Berbice River, on Abraham Maas’s map published in 1718 (Wekker 1984: 19).

The publication Hedendaagse Historie of tegenwoordige staat van Amerika II, (‘Current history or present state of America II’) published in 1767, includes a map by Isaac Tirion, which shows that in the vicinity of Devil’s Creek, an almost straight dotted line runs from the coast to the south marked: De Landscheiding van Suriname met de Berbiesjes (‘The boundary between Suriname and Berbice’) (Ibid. 21).

Finally, Van Sypesteyn mentions: ‘Later, a line running in a southerly direction through the mouth of Devil’s Creek, falling into the sea three miles from the Berbice river was adopted as the boundary’ (Van Sypesteyn 1854: 53). Hartsinck depicts this on a map as Post van de Limiet-Scheiding Tusschen Suriname en Berbice (‘Site of the boundary separating Suriname and Berbice’).

The case of the borders between Suriname and Berbice discussed above mentions only the border in the coastal area of both colonies (Annex II). After all, that is where the colonists with their plantations were located. In the large hinterland of Suriname and Berbice, indigenous tribes lived in small numbers scattered in various villages. How the border from the coastal area should continue into the hinterland was unclear in those years. Thompson considers it likely that expansion of territory of newly founded colonies in all directions was allowed and notes accordingly:

‘However, in so far as the boundaries of Berbice were never defined in the original grant to Van Peere nor by a subsequent decision of the WIC, it may be argued that the intention of the latter was that the colony should be allowed as much scope as possible to expand in all directions’ (Thompson 1985: 66).

1.2 Changing mother countries

The French Revolution in 1789 with Freedom, Equality and Fraternity in its banner replaced the established political order and made the minds in several European countries ripe for a similar upheaval. In 1794, the Republic of the United Netherlands was occupied by the French. This prompted Stadtholder Prince William V to go into exile in England on January 18th, 1795. On January 19th, 1795, the Batavian Republic was proclaimed as the successor to the Republic of the United Netherlands with predominantly patriotic Dutch as administrators, albeit under French supremacy.

In England, William V managed to come to an arrangement with the British administrators regarding the custodianship of the overseas colonies and possessions.6 The Prince apparently assumed that it was preferable to have the colonies temporarily administered by the English with his cooperation. Under such an arrangement, this could reduce the risk of those colonies being captured and retained by England by force of arms in the event of an Anglo-French war. From the English, the Prince was assured of the return of the colonies as soon as peace with France was concluded (Colenbrander 1908: 154).

On February 7th, 1795, William V ordered all administrators of those colonies and possessions to surrender to the English ‘as to a power which is in friendship and alliance with Her High Majesty, and whose troops and ships are coming to prevent the colony from being invaded by the French’ (Ibid.).

However, a Committee of Colonial Affairs set up by the Batavian Republic had ordered the governors to continue to govern the colonies, and recognise the French as allies.

In late 1795, a war between England and France ensued in which the Batavian Republic was also dragged along because of its alliance with France. Complying with the Stadtholder’s request, British troops moved into the various colonies and possessions to put them under the protection of England.7 On April 22nd, 1796, the amalgamated colony of Essequibo & Demerara, and on May 3rd, 1796, the colony of Berbice were occupied by the British in the name of the Stadtholder. The respective governors Antony Beaujon and Imbyze van Batenburg, as well as civil servants in these colonies, were allowed to remain in office if they so wished, provided they were not known to be French-minded. In these colonies, officials and military personnel were generally loyal to the Stadtholder, and English ships were therefore welcomed with open arms.

In the colony of Suriname bordering Berbice, things were different. Although governor J.A. de Friderici was a supporter of the Prince, the members of the governing board in Suriname were in majority supporters of the Batavian Republic. The bond with the fatherland was too strong to be broken just like that, so the side of the Batavian Republic was initially taken in Suriname.

A few years later, the colony of Suriname also came under British protection. On August 16th, 1799, the British ship Prince of Wales anchored off the coast of Suriname and, on board, Lieutenant-General Thomas Trigger and Vice-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymor addressed capitulation proposals to Governor J.F. de Friderici with as gist:

‘That the Colony of Surinam with its dependencies shall immediately be placed under the protection of His Britannic Majesty, and that it shall quietly and peacefully submit to His government.’8

The surrender of the colony of Suriname to the British followed on August 22nd, 1799.9 This brought the adjacent Dutch colonies of Essequibo & Demerara, Berbice and Suriname under British protection. De Friderici apologised to the Colonial Affairs Committee for his cooperation in surrendering the colony in the following terms:

That the Committee can be assured that the circumstances in which the Colony has found itself for some time have made this step inevitable and necessary and that no other means were available to free the Colony from total revolution and destruction.10

1.3 Rival claims regarding the border between Suriname and berbice

In Berbice, the coastal area between the Berbice River and the Devil’s Creek east of it, had already been brought under cultivation. The plantation owners wished to be given the opportunity to exploit the fallow land beyond the Devil’s Creek to the Corentyne River. Indeed, the area between the Devil’s Creek and the Corentyne offered lucrative opportunities when developed.11

Governor Van Batenburg, in a letter of March 23rd, 1794, to the Directors of Berbice, had touted the coastal area in question as ‘a perfect goldmine for the cultivation of cotton’ (Op. cit. Thompson 1985: 69). The governor therefore urged action that ‘the limits of this Colony and that of Surinam should be regularly and unvariably (…) fixed’ (Ibid.: 71).

Indeed, according to Hartsinck, the inhabitants of Berbice were convinced that the eastern boundary of their colony did not end at the Devil’s Creek, but lay even further east and as far as the Corentyne River (Hartsinck 1770: 280-281). Van Batenburg was even of the opinion that the eastern boundary of Berbice should be beyond the Corentyne. Indeed, in his aforementioned letter of March 23rd, 1794, to the directors of the colony of Berbice, he had pointed out that according to Charles II’s gift-letter (‘proof of property’) to Willoughby, the western boundary of Suriname was formed by the Coppename River, ‘which in fact lay several miles to the east of the Corentyne River and that in his view the land between the Copename and the Corentyne belonged to neither of the colonies’ (Collins 1970: 266). In the same letter, Van Batenburg further argued that Suriname was not entitled to ‘one foot of Land on this (western) side of the limit, nor does it have any claims whatever to the Corentin’ (Op. cit. Thompson 1985: 70).

In November 1799, the Duke of Portland, the British Home Secretary, asked Van Batenburg: ‘What is the size & extend of the Colony under your government & the nature of the soil & climate?’ Regarding the border with Suriname, the governor of Berbice replied:

‘The easterly boundary in my opinion extends to the West Bank of the Corentin. (…) The Surinam government claims the Sea Coast between that River & a Creek named the Devil’s Creek. (…) This difference of opinions between the two governments had become a matter of contest just before the Revolution in Holland took place. The subsequent events have put a stop to a minute investigation of the grounds where upon the respective governments establish their claim & no decision of course has yet been given upon that subject.’12

About the issuance of lands in the area in question, it was further asked ‘by whom, by what authority and upon what terms and conditions, the grants have been made on the coast between the Devil’s Creek and the Corentin.’ The governor of Berbice replied in a letter, dated March 21st, 1801, that the grant of land had been made by authority of the Dutch administration and long before Suriname was also placed under British rule. The governor did draw attention to the existence of a dispute over the boundary between the two colonies, writing further:

‘…that the dispute about the boundaries between the Colonies of Surinam and Berbice arose, because the government of Surinam made these grants upon a part of the coast, which that of Berbice considered to be within its limits: and that at the period when the above-mentioned difference had its beginning, both the colonies belonged to the Dutch.’13

Van Batenburg went on to point out the need to move Berbice’s border up the Corentyne and argued that:

‘…if that part of the coast did belong to Suriname, the proprietors of land upon it, would be subject to the government of that Colony. All matters concerning their Estates, as the Colonial charges, the clearing and shipping of their produce, all notarial acts and law transitions, a number of more things, they should be under the obligation to settle and pay at Paramaribo, at a distance of no less than one hundred and fifty miles from their Estates, which would be so great an inconvenience to them, that, rather to be subject to the trouble and expense of it, they would abandon the idea of settling upon the Coast at all and leave it in a perfect State of uncultivation.’14

By letter dated March 9th, 1794, the governor of Suriname had informed his counterpart from Berbice that he was authorised by his superiors to issue lands in the area between the Corentyne River and Devil’s Creek.15 In this letter, Governor De Friderici plainly claimed Devil’s Creek as the boundary, by stating that:

‘…these grants will begin from the mouth of the Devil’s Creek, where the Boundaries of this Colony run north by east, and south by west in the interior of the Country and towards the sea shore.’16

Van Batenburg submitted the governor of Suriname’s claim to the Court of Policy of Berbice. This administrative college of Berbice underlined Governor Van Batenburg’s view that the colony of Berbice extended to the west bank of the Corentyne. This was communicated by a letter dated April 19th, 1795, to Governor De Friderici, who responded on June 23rd, 1795, by indicating that the authority to issue lands was based on the consideration that the boundary had already been established ‘on indubatable grounds’, and that he protested against attempts by Berbice ‘to secure the territory for herself’ (Op. cit. Thompson 1985: 73)

After Berbice was placed under British protection, the highest responsible British authority in Berbice, Sir Ralph Abercromby, commander-in-chief of the naval forces, took no action against the governor of Suriname. Governor De Friderici, based on instructions previously received from his superiors of the Batavian Republic, therefore proceeded undisturbed with the issuance of land in the coastal area between the Corentyne and Devil’s Creek.17

Although the Berbice governorate had claimed sovereignty over the coastal area between Devil’s Creek and the Corentyne since 1794, it was only Suriname that carried out sovereignty actions in the area by issuing land. Thompson believes that the governor of Suriname’s policy, however, was not motivated by economic motives and states:

‘There is little doubt, therefore, that it was the need to preserve its claim to the territory rather than to enhance its economic development that caused Suriname to allocate lands in the disputed area to various individuals’ (Thompson 1985: 72).

Consequently, between 1795 and 1799, De Friderici issued eighty plots in the area in question. Relatives and friends of Governor Van Batenburg also submitted applications for land plots to the Surinam governorate and were also granted the requested lands. According to Thompson, this must have curbed the territorial ambitions of the Berbice governor, and he notes in this regard:

‘This must have embarrassed him greatly and possibly compromised his position concerning Suriname’s right to the area in question’ (…) It might well have been that, as time went by, Van Batenburg became convinced that the jurisdiction of Suriname over the disputed area was a fait accompli, which Berbice would be able to do nothing to reverse’ (Ibid.).

1.4 Concluding remarks: Need for regulation of Suriname-Berbice border

As stated earlier, it is not known when and on what grounds the Devil’s Creek was adopted as the boundary between Suriname and Berbice. In Berbice, the sympathy of the inhabitants increasingly developed for England as an increasing number of Englishmen with energy and money had settled in the colony. Since Suriname had not been under the administration of the Batavian Republic since August 1799, Governor De Friderici must have realised that there would be no point in continuing to oppose Governor Van Batenburg’s ambition to annex the coastal area between the Devil’s Creek and the Corentyne River to the colony of Berbice.18 Moreover, sticking to the Devil’s Creek as the border for Suriname would not make sense, because products from that area destined for the capital Paramaribo and for export would first have to be transported across the Corentyne, which would be time-consuming and cost-increasing. The political climate was favourable for the governors of both colonies under British protection to come to an arrangement on the border between the two colonies.

1 To this end, labour was needed that could withstand the hard work on the plantations. In 1510, Spanish King Ferdinand signed a decree to transport the first ship carrying enslaved Africans to the newly established colonies. This proved to be the starting signal for the large-scale transatlantic slave trade.

2 See L.A.H.C. Hulsman, Nederlands Amazonia. Handel met indianen tussen 1580 en 1680. Acad. proefschr., UvA 2009.

3 In 1613, a small Amsterdam trading company had been active on the Suriname River, and in 1630 Captain Marshall had settled in that area with 60 Englishmen to plant tobacco (ENWI 1981: 667). See also: M. Parker, Willoughbyland. England’s Lost Colony. London 2015: Hutchinson (translated into Dutch as Willoughbyland. England’s verloren kolonie, 2017).

4 Willoughby wrote of his new settlement, among other things: ‘It is commended by all that went, for the sweetest place that ever was seen: delicate rivers, brave lands, fine timber’ (ENWI 1981: 749).

5 Guyana’s White Paper incorrectly states that ‘Van Peere of Berbice and Van Sommelsdyk of Suriname, agreed that their plantations should be separated by the Devil’s Creek, a creek west of the Corentyne River’ (White Paper, par. 6).

6 In the Staatsregeling (State Regulations) of 1798, the distinction ‘colonies and possessions’ is made, inter alia, in Article 232. Abendanon notes that this is an uncertain expression without any legal provision indicating which territory is to be considered a colony and which a possession (Abendanon 1891: 2). In this regard, Bordewijk argues that this carelessness in the State Regulations adds new arbitrariness to already arbitrary wording (Bordewijk 1905: 15).

7 The following colonies and possessions were placed under British rule: the Cape, Ceylon, Coromandel, Malabaar, Bengal, Sumatra’s west coast, Malacca, Amboina, Banda, Essequibo-Demerara, Berbice, Suriname (not until 1799), Curaçao (not until 1800) and St Eustatius (1801). Retained were Java, Bandjermasing, Makassar, Ternate, the Deshima office, and the Gold Coast.

8 ARA, Archives of the Committee on the Affairs of the Colonies and Possessions of the Batavian Republic in America and on the Coast of Guinea, November 2nd, 1795 – January 2nd, 1801, Inv. no. 122 C.

9 Ibid. Inv. no. 14.

10 Ibid.

11 Also by organs of the Batavian Republic, in a Pro Memoria dated July 26th, 1797, it was mentioned that the lands in the area were very suitable for cultivating all kinds of products ‘and by all this the prosperity and wealth of the Colony are considerably increased’ (ARA, Archives of the Committee on the Affairs of the Colonies and Possessions of the Batavian Republic in America and on the Coast of Guinea, November 2nd, 1795 – January 2nd, 1801, Inv. no. 80a).

12 PRO, C.O. 111/73, Answers upon the querries, which it has pleased His Grace of Portland, to send to the Governor of Berbice.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.