Suriname’s Foreign Minister’s summoning of our ambassador should remind us that we still have TWO active border controversies. In addition to Mad Maduro’s claim to our Essequibo, there’s Suriname’s claim on our New River Triangle (NRT). While we’ve been all chummy with Santoki and Suriname we should recall that 55 years ago, on August 19, 1969, some very brave soldiers from our GDF had to repulse the Surinamese from physically seizing and occupying 6000 sq miles of our country!! That’s more than THREE TRINIDADS, buddy!!
Six months after we’d become independent in 1966, Venezuela seized our half of Ankoko Island – which they still occupy! And even as Suriname’s government was jawboning our govt that they owned NRT, they snucked in troops to create military bases to take physical possession of our remote piece of real estate. What to do?? Well, what followed should remind our present crop of leaders that while they talk softly (or even “skin teeth”), we’d better have a stick ready at all times!! There are no permanent enemies or permanent friends – there are only permanent interests – OUR interests!!
The land and water (river) approach to NRT was treacherous but the GDF’s air transport of troops went to the drawing board to figure out how to remove the Surinamese. Our intel revealed that the Surinamese troops were creating an airstrip (“Tigri airstrip”) that was almost complete – but they’d blocked it with oil drums. The GDF had two Twin Otters whose notable feature was they were STOL – Short Take Off and Landing – needing less than 300 meters to land! The GDF recruited three civilian pilots to join them and they practiced short landing – and got it down to 100 meters!!! All the while manoeuvring between oil drums until they were satisfied, they could pull off the operation. They waited until the runway by the Surinamese army was long enough and Aug 19 was designated for “Operation Climax”!!
Captain Martin Nascimento commanded No. 1 company; Captain Asad Ishoof, No. 2 company; Lieutenant Harry Hinds, the Medium Mortar Platoon and Lieutenant Marcus Munroe, the Reconnaissance Platoon. The aircraft was piloted by captains Roland da Silva, Michael Chan-A-Sue, Philip Jardim and Anthony Mekdeci. But what was unique was, since the Twin Otter has a small 3-foot baggage space in the nose of the aircraft, then Warrant Officer Liverpool agreed to squeeze himself in – armed with a machine gun!! Guyana had its first “nose-gunner”!!! This had to’ve taken real guts!!
Our troops took off from Apoteri, 90 miles away. The first plane with Liverpool zeroed in on the airstrip with his guns blazing. The Surinamese troops were shocked out of their wits and fled!!
We converted their base into “Camp Jaguar”!! NRT is ours!!
…America??
You dear readers might be wondering why your Eyewitness returns too often to Matters USA!! Well, lest we forget not only are we in America’s backyard, but as Cheddi found out back in the day when the Yanks have a beef with somebody their size, minions like us can get squeezed with the blink of an eyelash!! Well, Trump just announced that it will impose 25% tariffs on goods from its friends and neighbours Canada and Mexico – plus an additional 10% on the already high tariffs on some goods from arch-enemy China!!
Now the US is the largest destination by far for exports from Mexico (83%) and Canada (75%) so we can just image what will happen both in those countries and – as importantly- in the states!! Take Mexico, it manufactures and ships in most of the pick-up trucks sold in America and the tariffs should raise their unit price by US$3000 at least!! The thing is, most of these pick-ups are bought by Trump’s rural, redneck, blue-collar supporters!!
…from China
The point about tariffs – which raise the prices of the goods entering a country – is whether substitutes can be produced locally or elsewhere. For China – supplying over US$400 BILLION worth of goods to the US, they’re gonna have conniptions substituting!!
