From Primitives to Refugees: French Guianese Categorizations of Maroons in the Aftermath of the Surinamese Civil War

Abstract

This paper focuses on the turning point in Maroon categorization by the State that happened in the 1980's. Previously considered as "primitive" or "indigenous", Maroons progressively became categorized by the French government as foreign migrants, and later as illegitimate refugees, following the outbreak of Surinamese civil war. In 1986, 10,000 people of whom most were Maroons, fled from the civil war and spilled over the border from Suriname. Instead of granting them legal refugee status, the French deemed them "Temporary Displaced Persons from Suriname" (Personnes Provisoirement Déplacées du Surinam), thus depriving them of the legal protection granted to refugees. They settled in camps far from the city center and were only informally referred to as "refugees". I will analyze the processes that led to the categorization of Maroons in the first urban removal policies that occurred in the 1980's, and in state refugee policies. My objective is to investigate the diverse identification processes at work in these policies, the production of official categories that make Maroons "legible" to public authorities. For this purpose, I will rely on archival research in the local Department of Public Works (Direction Départementale de l'Equipement) and of the local Sub-Commissioner's Office (Sous-préfecture).7 This information comes from the State Department of Public Work Archive (DDE), file "Camps de réfugiés". 8 Ibid.

Hidden Rice Diversity in the Guianas

“…Tropical plant breeders Budelman and Ketelaars (1974) advised that dryland rice cultivation in the interior should be terminated, ‘as this is a difficult crop for permanent cultivation on these grounds’ and recommended oil palm plantations as a more suitable cash crop. In 1992, the French government made violent attempts to force the Maroon refugees from the Surinamese civil war to leave the area and sprayed pesticides on their rice fields (Le´obal, 2016). Maroon farmers around St. Laurent, illegal immigrants and legal French citizens alike, considered the ongoing harassment by the French police as a serious problem affecting their agricultural practices.…”

“…Commercial rice entered their diet decades ago (Geijskes, 1955; Bilby et al, 1989), but did not replace their own landraces. New waves of Ndyuka Maroons arrived in French Guiana as refugees during the Surinamese civil war in the 1980s, which led to a rapid urbanization of the region around St. Laurent du Maroni and the abandonment of agriculture (Fleskens and Jorritsma, 2010; Le´obal, 2016). This provided more farmland for those that stayed in their forest villages and created a market for homegrown rice in St. Laurent.…”

“…Shortening of fallow periods in shifting cultivation plots and limited use of fertilizers keep soil productivity low, with yields rarely exceeding 1000 kg/ha and arguably not meeting local demand (Baumgart et al, 1998; Fleskens and Jorritsma, 2010; Nascente and Kromocardi, 2017). The increasing influence of evangelical churches in Maroon territory, development organizations and government policies have resulted in the perception of traditional Maroon farmers as ‘backward’ and in need of modernization (Heemskerk, 2003; Fleskens and Jorritsma, 2010; Le´obal, 2016). These factors actively discourage traditional Maroon farming, and put their landraces at risk of disappearing.…”