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Once more, the hand-out of logging concessions in Suriname looks imminent. Local indigenous peoples' organisations are asking for international support in their appeals to government to first recognize their land rights.
After months of deliberations, the Surinamese Government's special commission reviewing draft contracts granting several huge logging concessions to foreign companies has finally submitted one contract to the National Assembly for approval.
The contract, which allegedly grants the Malaysian company, Berjaya Sdn. Bhd. a one million hectare concession in the eastern part of Suriname, is being fiercely opposed by the indigenous and Maroon peoples who inhabit the interior of the country.
The interior peoples are dissatisfied that the Government continues to give priority to foreign companies while it refuses to honour promises made to them in 1992 to recognise their rights to their ancestral territories.
The contract was passed through to the Assembly in mid-January but in view of the opposition in the interior the Assembly chose not to accept it immediately and asked for two weeks to consult with the leaders of the local peoples in the concession area. On February 6, the Assembly demanded a further extension as the local leaders had forcefully expressed their opposition to the contract. Fierce debate now rages in the capital, Paramaribo, over whether the concession should be granted. Domestic timber companies have also expressed opposition to the contract since they claim Berjaya will be granted fiscal benefits that the local sawmills do not enjoy, thus making them uncompetitive.
Berjaya claims that it has already invested US$20 million in Suriname and has expressed considerable impatience over the delays. However, in response to objections raised by the Maroon and indigenous leaders, the company has also stated that it will not log areas where the local communities are opposed to its presence. A Berjaya spokesperson has been quoted in the press as stating that if the forest communities in eastern Suriname are opposed to the logging they would prefer to be granted a concession further west, perhaps in the area initially slated for the Indonesian transnational Suri-Atlantic which appears to have withdrawn its bid for the forests south of Apura.
The Berjaya company has been embroiled in equally heavy controversy in the Solomon Islands. Last year, after being accused of bribing government officials and then getting caught up in a land dispute with the indigenous communities, the company pulled out and embarked all its machinery for South America. It is uncertain whether this plant will be sent to Suriname or neighbouring Guyana, where Berjaya has already secured control of an existing but unexploited concession previously granted to local companies UNAMCO and Case Timbers.
Meanwhile the Indonesian logging company MUSA, which has been operating in Suriname for several years, has also become embroiled in a land dispute with a local plantation owner having expanded its milling operations far beyond the small 50 hectare site it had acquired. Even after a judge concluded that 90% of MUSA's activities at the site were outside its legal holding, MUSA refused to pay compensation, leading the courts to seize the company's machinery, buildings, land and lumber.
The controversy over foreign loggers has gained significance as Suriname is to hold general elections in only four months. Opposition members of parliament are contesting the concessions as they would present any incoming government with an uncomfortable fait accompli. Efforts to secure the votes of the interior communities in the upcoming elections have raised the political temperature.
At the end of January, local human rights, indigenous and environmental organisations placed a full page advertisement in the national press opposing the concession as politically irresponsible, economically unprofitable, environmentally ruinous and as an affront to the rights of the interior peoples. They have called on the Government to: postpone the granting of the concession; legalise the granting of land rights; provide educational, health and social services in the interior; involve the local communities in future decision-making; and strengthen the capacity of government to regulate the timber industry.
The Maroon and Indigenous organisations are demanding that their territorial rights should be fully and legally recognised and effectively secured before any concessions are granted in the interior. They also demand that they be fully involved in negotiations with the companies and allowed to represent themselves through their own institutions.
The indigenous organisations have asked for international support for their appeals to Government and invite you to send supportive faxes urging the Government to delay the hand-out of logging concessions until the territorial rights of the indigenous and Maroon peoples are secured.
For further information contact:
Forest Peoples Programme
8 Chapel Row, Chadlington, OX7 3NA, England
Tel: 01608 676691
Fax: +44 1608 676743
Email: wrm@gn.apc.org
Send faxes to:
President Ronald Venetiaan : +597 475266
Jaggernath Lachmon,
Chairman of National Assembly : +597 410364
please send copies of any faxes sent to:+ 597 479480
Fourth World Bulletin • Spring/Summer 1996
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
Created by Aigis Communications, Ltd