The gigantic territorial area of Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world, also provides a vast border region with most of the continental South American countries, except only for Chile and Ecuador.
Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay participate in Mercosur together with Brazil. Thanks to gas exports, Bolivia also has an important relationship with the national economy.
Colombia and Peru are two of the favorite destinations for Brazilians on the continent, while Brazil has become a refuge for Venezuelans during the country’s economic crisis.
But what about Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname? Why do these two countries and the overseas territory of France have little or no connection to Brazil and the Brazilian people?
According to professors from the UFRR (Federal University of Roraima), there are many reasons why these territories are distant from the rest of the continent despite being neighbors.
Colonized by France, the Netherlands, and England, the language barrier with South America, predominantly Portuguese and Spanish-speaking, is one of the many obstacles.
According to UFRR international relations professor Américo Alves de Lyra Júnior, the three nations north of Brazil are closer to the Caribbean countries, despite the geographical barrier created by the Atlantic Ocean.
“The gaze of these countries is more turned toward the Caribbean. Just remember that the headquarters of Caricom, the Caribbean community of nations, is in the capital of Guyana, Georgetown,” Lyra Júnior explained in an interview with R7.
A large part of the population of these territories, which together total about 1.5 million people, lives in the coastal region, farther from the Brazilian border and closer to the Caribbean.
According to João Carlos Jarochinski Silva, professor of the master’s degree in Society and Frontiers at the UFRR, the Amazon forest itself is a factor that separates the region from Brazil.
“The first element that leads to this ignorance is where [the territories] are located geographically. They are in the North of the Amazon forest, in a region of very dense forest and with little population presence,” he explains.
LACK OF KNOWLEDGE IS REFLECTED IN GOOGLE SEARCHES
An exclusive survey sent by Google to R7 shows that the main searches by Brazilians related to the three northern neighbors are: location, capital, and currencies. There are also searches to know if the Guyanas and Suriname are safe.
The states that most search for information about the territories on Google are, consequently, the ones that border the region.
The population of Amapá searches six times more about Suriname and 30 times more about French Guiana than the rest of Brazil.
Roraima, neighboring Guyana, searches 51 times more about the country than the Brazilian average.
Although the inhabitants of these two northern states are the ones who do the most research about their neighbors, the distance between most of the region’s residents is the same as the rest of Brazil, according to Lyra Júnior.
“The perception Brazilians from the South have of this distancing is also ours in the North. We have something very timid there, something more propositional on the part of Suriname, in terms of educational cooperation.”
The little relationship that the Brazilian population has with these countries occurs with the “sacoleiros” (traders) who cross the border in search of lower prices and the “garimpeiros” (miners) who have moved from the Brazilian Amazon to the three northernmost territories in recent years.
“When you have a decrease in mining, a fight against the garimpeiro activity in the North region of Brazil, part of this population that used to be dedicated to this type of activity ends up going to Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname,” explains Silva.
EXPENSIVE AND DIFFICULT TOURISM
One tool that could bring Brazilians closer to these three territories in the North of the continent is tourism. However, the region’s beaches do not bear the beautiful image of the Caribbean coasts.
“There is not strong tourism because circulation is difficult, from the structural point of view. Tourism in the Caribbean region is linked to the issue of beaches, and [in northern South America] you have a predominance of a coastline with mangrove formation,” says Silva.
R7 searched to find the cheapest flights from São Paulo to Cayenne (French Guiana), Georgetown (Guyana), and Paramaribo (Suriname) between July 28 and August 28. The tickets, which do not include the return trip, range from R$1,359 (US$263) to R$14,100, with stopovers in up to two countries.
To Georgetown, the cheapest flight costs R$4,289 and requires a 35-hour pilgrimage and two stopovers. The passenger takes off from Guarulhos airport, lands in Bogotá, Colombia, waits 12 hours and flies to Miami, USA. After another nine hours between stopovers, the journey finally has its final leg with the arrival at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Guyana.
The trip from São Paulo to Paramaribo is easier and cheaper. For R$1,359, the passenger takes off from Congonhas and lands in Brasilia, where he waits five hours for the flight that will take him to Belém, in Pará. After another hour of waiting, the tourist makes the trip’s final leg to the international airport Paramaribo-Zanderij.
Using Google’s flight search tool, R7 could not find any flights to Cayenne. Silva warns that it would be easier to travel to France, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, as a tourist than to the capital of French Guiana.
“In France, [Brazilians] can enter without a tourist visa, but not in French Guiana. You have greater control; you need authorization from the French state to be able to reside there or even do tourism in that space.”
LAND BORDER
The geographical limitations caused by the Amazon forest, linked to territorial disputes between countries, hinder Brazilian efforts to build a road network that connects the region more easily.
“We have the problem with road construction itself. You have a Guyanese area still contested by the Venezuelans and in which several Brazilian attempts to invest in highways were destroyed by the Venezuelan state’s attitude,” emphasizes Lyra Júnior.
One of the few land connections between the last city of Roraima (Bonfim) and the first city of Guyana (Lethem) is the bridge Prefeito Olavo Brasil Filho, better known as the Tacutu river bridge.
The curiosity of this work is that it forces Brazilian drivers to change to the right lane on the Guyana side since the country adopts the English hand, a legacy of the British colonizing past.
“The lack of a more proactive dialogue from the point of view of diplomacy makes these places unattractive for Brazilians and somehow also for them [on the other side of the border],” says Lyra Júnior.
“We end up worrying more about the countries that are seen as more powerful, more relevant in the international system, and even within South America, countries with which we have a more intense relationship, whether economically or due to political disputes,” concludes Silva.
With information from R7