The influx of illegal Brazilian miners into Guyana’s hinterland, their involvement in the mining industry, its impact on the environment and the incidence of trans-border crimes have been security concerns for the last two decades.

The Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association recently called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission to address the question of foreigners working illegally in the hinterland. One association official claimed that some unlicensed dredges are operated by the Brazilians. Another claimed that Brazilians do not contribute significantly to the economy and much of the gold they produce does not reach the local market. These infractions affect state revenue but there have been some security problems as well.

It is known also that many of the handguns used by crooks to commit armed robberies are of Brazilian manufacture and were brought into the country illegally. It is suspected also, that narcotics have been trafficked across the border. It is recalled that a Trans-Guyana commercial aircraft was hijacked at gunpoint in the Rupununi and the pilot was forced to fly to Brazil back in November 2001.

The Brazilian government seems to think that these are Guyana government problems. Their huge country has a vast 17,000 km-long frontier with ten countries and it has become quite blasé about border issues. In an interview with this newspaper, outgoing Brazilian Ambassador Arthur Meyer was cool about the prospect of an influx of Brazilians into Guyana. He thought that the Brazilian community in Guyana was “quite small” adding, for good measure, that “In the same way there are Brazilians living in Guyana there are many Guyanese citizens living in Brazil and especially in the regions closer to the border.”

Guyana government policy seems to be ambivalent. When he was Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, Mr Robeson Benn asserted that “Brazilian miners have brought energy, investment and technology to the small-scale mining sector” and emphasised that their presence in the mining industry benefited the communities surrounding mining areas, as well as the Guyanese government as a whole, through contributions to the state exchequer by means of taxes and duties.”

The Ministry of Home Affairs, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance’s Guyana Revenue Authority did embark on a large-scale ‘regularisation campaign’ aimed at arresting illegal Brazilian residents in 2001. This initiative soon petered out, things are back to ‘normal,’ Guyana’s 1,100 km border remains as porous as ever and aliens can come and go as they please. While some rich Brazilian miners travel by aeroplane and enter the country legitimately, others travel by land and river through informal border crossings, strike up dodgy deals with local men of straw which involve the payment of a percentage of profits and try to avoid contact with law-enforcement and revenue authorities.

When Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited Guyana in February 2005, the Guyana-Brazil Joint Communiqué “recognised the importance of strengthening cooperation to promote security on the borders and decided to convene during the first semester of 2005, the meetings scheduled under the appropriate bilateral mechanisms in the areas of Drug Interdiction, Police cooperation and Customs.”

Windy diplomatic communiqués often remain unimplemented and, at best, are blunt tools to stanch illegal immigration, gun-running and narco-trafficking. The Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo Region is a zone of proven vulnerability and the Guyana government must overhaul its strategy there. Policy-makers need to think about putting more police officers and customs, immigration, mines, port health and revenue officials on the ground to ensure the security of the Guyana-Brazil border.