Kourou, a truly rocket-age town

KOUROU, French Guiana (JP): Nestled in a picturesque coastal area, Kourou, a French territory in the horn of Latin America, has turned from a backward, insignificant, area into a well-known name on the map.

The territory of 150,000 people, including the 20,000 who are cramped together in Kourou township, was almost unknown three decades ago when the French government decided to construct an aerospace station in the colony.

"In the 1960s there were only around 350 people in the area ," said Claude Sanchez, a spokesman for Arianespace.

Thirty years later not only has the name of Kourou skyrocketed onto the world map, bypassing the name of the territory, but its population has also swelled with the area being used as the launching site for the European consortium of Arianespace satellites.

Latest data shows that 1,200 people, mostly experts in aeronautics and skilled technicians, work in the space center which stands proudly on a site 16 kilometers from Kourou township.

The experts live with their families in town and commute daily to the space center.

"Some employees drive to their workplaces, while others use the transport provided by the company", Claude said.

To avoid the road going from southern to northern French Guiana, a main road passing through the current launching site has been closed and a new and wider one built by the space center management.

Not only has the road leading from the airport to the space center been widened and resurfaced but the verges have been regreened in line with the township regreening program.

To give more comfort to visitors and experts working for the space center, the township administration, in cooperation with private companies, has built star-rated hotels, luxurious apartments and an international airport big enough to accommodate Concorde or a giant Antonov cargo plane.

Within the space center itself the number of modern and strong multi-story buildings housing Arianespace's main facilities - from launching pad to the control building - has grown rapidly in the last few years.

But entry to the space center and areas surrounding it are strictly restricted.

"Only persons holding electronic cards can enter the restricted area. More importantly none can live within the launching site and its periphery," said Eckard Weinrich, Arianespace's mission director.

French Gendarmerie Nationale and Arianespace's internal security, backed by a regiment of French Legionnaires equipped with a modern radar system and surveillance planes, are responsible for security in the space station.

Kourou, which borders Suriname to the southeast, Brazil to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the north, is about nine hours by plane from Paris or three hours from America's coastal city of Miami.

"The area was selected as Arianespace's launching site because it is French and not located in hurricane or earthquake-prone zones and is located near the equator," Weinrich said. "This helps put the satellite in the geostationary orbit station."

The selection of Kourou as Arianespace's launch base has brought a new livelihood for thousands of people -- skilled technicians working for the mega-project in particular and the Kourou population in general.

Thousands of new jobs have been created in the space center's related projects, such as owners and drivers in the transportation sector, and in the business and tourism industry.

The job openings benefit all French Guiana's multiracial community, which includes Europeans, Africans, Indians, American Indians and Indonesians.

Many of the territory's Indonesians moved from Suriname, a Dutch colony bordering French Guiana, to French Guiana in the early 1950s to find a better standard of living in line with the country's fast economic growth. Most have opened restaurants or work for Arianespace in Kourou.

Kasid Kartadinama and his brother Nuryadin Kartadinama, two French Guianans of Indonesian ancestry who moved with their parents several decades ago from Suriname to the French territory, are among the migrants who enjoy a prosperous life in the new land.

Both work as middle level employees for Arianespace and live in Kourou's highclass residential area and drive European vehicles.

Dutch colonials brought Indonesians, many of them from Java, as laborers for their plantations and to work in a mining company in Suriname a century ago.

Now, according to the Kartadinamas, there are around 250 Surinamers of Indonesian origin who live in French Guiana. Many live in Cayenne, an area 1 hour's trip by car from Kourou and are now fully-fledged French citizens. (has)