Country Snapshot

Population: 435,449 (July 2003 est.) Size, comparable to U.S.: slightly larger than Georgia Per Capita GDP, not adjusted for PPP (year): (2001): $1,672 Defense Expenditure as a percentage of GDP: 1.6% (1997 est.) Size of armed forces: 2,000 (2001) U.S. military personnel present: 3 (2003)

The United States provides a relatively low level of police and military assistance to Suriname. Anti-drug cooperation is expected to grow, however, with the 1998 signing of a bilateral maritime counternarcotics agreement. According to the Department of State, both countries “are working to ratify and implement the agreement in 1999."¹

The State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) provide advice, logistical support and funding to a new narcotics investigative unit within Suriname’s Civil Police. According to the State Department’s February 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), the DEA is considering establishing an office in Suriname in 2000.² Meanwhile the Caribbean regional fund of the State Department’s International Narcotics Control (INC) program supports training of police units to improve their ability to fight crime and drug trafficking.³

Small numbers of Suriname military personnel receive U.S. training funded by the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. The State Department's Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations describes the IMET program for 2000 as “contributing to professionalizing Suriname's military and improving its ability to promote political stability by acting in an apolitical fashion and under civilian authority."⁴ About twenty students were trained in 1998, including three who attended the Pentagon’s Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. A similar number of trainees was planned for 1999.

Suriname hosted U.S. military-sponsored Humanitarian and Civic Assistance (HCA) activities in 1998. In the province of Brokopondo, Para, U.S. military personnel delivered medical, dental and veterinary services to the local population.⁵In 1999 Suriname is scheduled to participate in the U.S. Southern Command’s Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarian multilateral military seminar.

Suriname is eligible to receive Excess Defense Articles (EDA), though none have been delivered in recent years. Suriname made no Foreign Military Sales (FMS) weapons purchases in 1998. That year Suriname received export licenses for the purchase of $198,222 worth of military equipment, mostly spare parts for aircraft, through the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) program.⁶

Sources:

¹ United States, Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998 (Washington: February, 1999) <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/carib98_part3.html>.

² Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

³ United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000 (Washington: February 1999): 924.

⁴ Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000 924.

⁵ United States, Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Humanitarian and Civic Assistance Program of the Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 1998, (Washington: March 1, 1999).

⁶ United States, Department of State, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 98 (Washington: July 1999): 99.