Firming up South African links
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
GUYANA'S links with South Africa are getting stronger. The late President Cheddi Jagan visited South Africa and met former President and towering international figure Nelson Mandela. Since then, Guyana has been benefiting from that country's invaluable lessons in crafting a constitution more suited to national needs, including visits and lectures here by eminent South African personalities. Guyana can benefit enormously from the experiences of South Africa and in this respect we welcome yesterday's formal conclusion of a deal under which a South African firm has got permission to check for gold and diamonds in the Roraima region here. The geological and geophysical reconnaissance survey which involves drilling in the final stages, is expected to cost more than US$3M, officials said at the signing yesterday. There is a certain kind of deep symbolism in this development in the links that go back billions of years. The South African interest has been stirred by studies that indicate similarity between the Roraima Formation's geological environment with that of the Withwatersrand deposits of South Africa, Prime Minister Sam Hinds explained at the signing of the agreement. The geological theory is that millions of years ago, when all the continents were together, and South America was up against Africa, the river flows were different, depositing sediments in the Roraima Formation with Guyana, Brazil and Venezuela. Experts used layers of the earth in the Roraima area and tried to determine the flow of the streams to see the way material was being deposited, to find out where deposits of interest were. And now it seems that what may have worked in South Africa can work here. "A new South Africa is making efforts to reach out to other underdeveloped countries; to share technical and professional knowledge and mining expertise, and to have cooperative programmes to assist development on both sides," Guyana Geology and Mines Commission Chairman, Mr. Robeson Benn said at the signing of the agreement yesterday. The two countries have recently been sharing experiences in democratic restoration and consolidation and charting a better course for the future, including for people of different ethnic backgrounds living peacefully together in one country. Sharing experiences in tapping the resources to create the wealth to make that living more comfortable is another important plank in forging closer ties between the two countries - ties that seem to have been forged long before men walked in either place.
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