-captain tells SN
The MV Lady Chandra I was virtually at the Skeldon wharf on Tuesday when it was intercepted by a Surinamese gunboat with eight soldiers which then called for back-up boats and forced the sugar transport vessel to Nickerie.
Captain of the MV Lady Chandra 1, Arnold Garraway made this disclosure in a telephone interview with Stabroek News while he and his crew were returning to Guyana from Nickerie mid-afternoon yesterday.
Garraway also disclosed that when he was in the Suriname lock-ups on Tuesday, a captain of a Guyanese fishing vessel shared the cell with him. The captain and the crew of another vessel which had been seized a week earlier was also released and his vessel returned to Guyana without their catch, shortly after the MV Lady Chandra 1 was escorted by a pilot vessel from Port Nickerie yesterday.
He added that shortly before they left Nickerie yesterday a third Guyanese captain and crew were also given the go ahead to return to Guyana. The captain of that crew, he said, was from Number 65 Village on the Corentyne and they had been held for almost a week. In their case, he said the captain had to face the court in Paramaribo where he was made to pay a fine before he was released.
Relating his experience, Garraway, who said that he had been plying the route regularly over the past thirteen years transporting bulk sugar from the Skeldon terminal for export, said it was the first time that he was pulled in by the Surinamese authorities.
He and his crew had left Port Georgetown shortly before midnight on Monday, October 13. It was about 12:35 pm on Tuesday that they were stopped by the Surinamese gunboat.
He said MV Lady Chandra I was “right up near to the wharf” at Skeldon when a Surinamese gunboat with about eight soldiers accosted the vessel. The Surinamese coastguards, about eight, boarded the vessel and told them they were in Suriname waters and that they have to go to Nickerie.
“We say we are not going to Nickerie,” he said and explained the journey they were on. They told him that the MV Lady Chandra I could not go to Skeldon because they were in Surinamese territory. He told them that he and his crew had been travelling on the river carrying out the same tasks for the past 13 to 14 years and they were never harassed. They told him that Guyanese would have to stop using the river. Feeling indignant, he said he asked them if “we have to dig another channel to go about our business.”
He said he never stopped the vessel. Because of the resistance, he said they called for backup and two other gunboats arrived with more soldiers and policemen. “They surrounded the boat,” he said. Those who boarded his vessel asked for his documents and that of the vessel and they confiscated them. They were returned after he was released.
In the meantime, he said that he called the Guyana National Shipping Corporation (GNSC), which had contracted the vessel to transport the sugar on behalf of the Guyana Sugar Corporation, and the owner of the vessel Kampta Persaud to inform them about their whereabouts. He said he had received a telephone call from the Guyana coastguard, which promised to call back but they never did.
When they got to Nickerie, he said that as captain, he was the only one held in the lock-up. The others had to remain on the boat. “They (the Surinamese authorities) never allowed them to go ashore,” he said.
He spent from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening in the lock-up sharing the space with the captain of the Guyanese fishing boat, who was released on Thursday. He had been held even before Garraway in the concrete cell which had no bed and no roof. “If the rain had fallen, I don’t know what would have happened to us,” he said. They gave them food but he said that he could not eat and only drank the liquid.
When they were leaving yesterday, he said that the captain for the fishing boat who had been taken to Paramaribo had been released and he too was preparing to return to Guyana. The catches of both vessels had been confiscated.
“Somebody has to do
something”
Based on discussions with the captain who was incarcerated with him, he said it would appear as though a number of vessels have been seized in recent weeks and nobody in government seems to know “what is going on. Nobody can’t go about their regular business, or, even go home in peace? They harassing everybody. Somebody has to do something,” he said adding, “I don’t know what the government is doing but we have to get some assurances.”
Guyana has deemed the seizure of the vessel as another act of aggression and has registered its protest in a note verbale but it has had no response from the Suriname government.
Suriname is contending that the MV Lady Chandra I sailed the Corentyne River without a Surinamese pilot on board as requested by the Maritime Authority of Suriname (MAS), which in May 2006 restarted the piloting of (international) ships on the Corentyne River.
However, President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that Guyana does not recognize Suriname’s administrating the waterway. He said that the Corentyne River was a border river on which both countries should have user rights. In the case of Suriname, he said that the neighbouring country was trying to impose sovereignty unilaterally over the river even though Guyana has indicated a willingness to discuss the issue.
Garraway and his crew were scheduled to pick up a cargo of sugar from the Skeldon terminal last evening and leave there this morning for Port Georgetown.
This is why I have no particular regards for the so-called “Caricom Unity” that is often talked about.
Such aggression against another member state begs the question how did they even enter the group?
If memory serves me well I think the President had said something about revisiting the roll of the GDF, or something like that. and shortly afterwards “Camp Buxton” was commissioned.
Anyway, don’t worry though, the administration is working on this……… they are now wiretapping all guyana in an effort to confront the Suriname challenge.
This thing have to stop the Guyana President have to stop being easy he wants to have a peaceful ending in things but the other countries does not want that. those surinamese people were in Guyana water they are the ones that should be in jail and paid a fine.
Sn ,, i ask u to release my post ,, so that those in suriname can read it ,, and feel the disrespect we / i harbour for them in the face of their malcontented aggression ! their very highly provocative demeanor is worse than uncivilised poeople !,,,,
i am asking the Surinamese govt ,, why do they not exercise the same aggression on the St. Laurent river which separates suriname from french guiana ,, they would never dare any such action against the french colony ,, but they take their demented reasons to humiliate us while we go abt our business quite peaceful ,, in our own space !……….
Myself and half of the Guyanese population are really upset about the seizure by Suriname of MV Lady Chandra in a river shared by both countries. And this is ongoing. If it’s not Venezuela, is it Suriname being aggressive, taking advantage of us. How about if we expel their ambassador and staff from their embassy in Guyana as a warning to stop the eye pass? It’s only because so many Guyanese live both in Suriname and Venezuela that this action would be serious as it would affect our nationals who live in these countries. Another way of dealing with this troublesome nation is to urge national buyers and businesses, not to purchase their goods or services. In other words, implement an embargo.
At every international or even national conference (with a possibly suitable forum) that the president attends, inform the attendees of our plight and the unnecessary trauma it is causing our people. He should also urge other Caribbean and South American nations to become our allies against this nonsense. Guyana is a beautiful country and “we not giving no river that belong to we”. Huge governments are behaving like kids fighting over sweetie in the 21st century, with no proper M. O.
Excellent comments DreamAtlanta. Every one of them.
I just hope the Guyana Government is reading your message.
The embargo idea is quite interesting because the Surinam people are now visiting Guyana to buy stuff too.
This matter needs a slow build-up of pressure by the Guyana Government to send a clear message that we will defend our borders and we will not accept bullying because they have many gun-boats and our only gun-boat has broken down.
While I will agree that this is a bit unusual, the Surinamese unfortunately have the right to do what they want within there territory.
Lest we forget that the Corentyne river is Surinamese territory up to the High water mark on the Guyana side by International law.
If they say you have to use a pilot – Bharrat can’t say they won’t. Its a sovereignty issue.
Nah fuhget New River and the recent Maritime issues – dem bai seh well if yuh wan dah so, dis is how tings gun wuk now.
We juss gah fuh tow deh line – nuttin we can do bout it udder dan mouth off!! Dem bai in deh legal right!!
SSDD
I would like concerned citizens like CN Sharma, Mark Benchop and the Maritime associations and unions to stage a protest with plac cards outside the Suriname Embassy at 304 Church Street fora couple days with coverage from CANA and Reuiters. I want the event covered internationally. If I was there I would be with them. I would like the media houses to prompt the Surinamese Ambassador for a statement on his country’s constant aggression.
Perhaps you can leave Hotlanta or where ever you are on continental USA and fly down to GT to mobilise that demonstration
I repeat, when the head of the household does not have a commanding presence & is disrespected even by himself, the neighbours disrespect the entire family.
Maybe we should raise some money for the gov, to GET the some RPGs and a few gunboat. Or the GoG should hire Blackwater to come in for 6 mths and restore order on the river.
i think we should do jus that!!!!!!! but we ha to open an account)
ah like how aluyh saying “we”, ah hope when time come to push alyuh hand in alyuh pocket alyuh going push deep
Guyana has ENOUGH natural resorces let the govt invest WISELY, ACT RESPONSIBLY and them we can think of fund raising, in the mean time GAAGTON KID “U” push yuh haan in yuh paket. The money I would give to the government “A”kan feed de whole DHARAMSALA an gee dem Ä fine change to!
They came all the way in Guyana waters and take the boat. we need people like them working for Guyana and safeguarding our boundary so as soon as they come we can do the same that they are doing to us. We need coast guards and army ships too for venezuela border
“Guyana don’t own any part of the Corentyne River.”
Martin I will spell it out to you; “Guyana don’t own any part of the Corentyne River.” Please read my two previous posts above, that is the reason I suggest that we should go to court and legally demand the middle of the Corentyne River as Guyana’s border with Suriname.
Thats the respect our neighbor has for us