 September
21, 2007: The much awaited ruling on the centuries-old border dispute between Guyana and
Suriname, was handed down Thursday by the United Nations Tribunal arbitrating the matter.
The disputed line between the two run down the Corantijn
River which divides the countries and extends into the sea.
It existed long before the two South American members of
CARICOM gained independence and remained after Guyana gained its independence from Britain in 1966 and the Dutch
cut Suriname loose in 1975. At that time the region was deemed as a relatively
worthless area home to farmers and poor fishermen.The discovery of vast off-shore oil
reserves in the contested territorial waters in the decades following
independence attracted major international corporations and fueled the
quarrel, nicely depicted in the corpwatch.org graphic below.
Source Corpwatch.org
In Guyana CGX Energy Inc. of Toronto, Canada supported
their claims while Suriname’s claim was being supported by
Spain’s Repsol YPF and Denmark’s Maersk Oil. Often,
compromise attempts between both countries seemed opposed to
the desires of the corporations.
In 2004, Guyana took the dispute to the U.N.
International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea over the
demarcation of the border as it extends into the ocean.
Thursday, the Tribunal ruled on the matter establishing a single maritime
boundary between the two neighbours. According to a release, the boundary for the most part follows the equi-distance line
between Guyana and Suriname.
Both countries have been told that they violated the obligations under a 1982
convention to make every effort to enter into provisional arrangements of a
practical nature.
Suriname was found to have acted unlawfully when it expelled a drilling rig
from Guyana operated by Canada's CGX Energy that was in the disputed area in
2000.
Canada's CGX Energy immediately welcomed the
Tribunal's
decision. "It works very well for us," the company's
chief executive, Kerry Sully, said in a telephone interview
with Reuters.
Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo declared it a
"great day for Guyana" and said in a nationally
broadcast address the ruling meant the Canadian
company could resume its operations right away.
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