Suriname restates claim to New River Triangle

Jun 10, 2011 News

Suriname’s President, Desi Bouterse

– Bouterse eyeing int’l resolution

Suriname is not backing down from its claim on the New River Triangle area, in Berbice, with President Desi Bouterse making it clear that the territory is theirs.
According to the De Ware Tijd online news, Bouterse is quoted as saying to the National Assembly that his country will be pursuing actions, based on international laws, to explore the possibility of the issue being handled by means of a “friendly settlement”.
Suriname expects the issue over the disputed land will feature for discussion during a future parliamentary sitting.
Since assuming the Presidency in 2010, Bouterse had met Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo several times, holding bilateral discussions on further cooperation between the two countries. Already, agreements have been signed for bridging the Corentyne River and for increased trade of goods.
The New River Triangle dispute between Guyana and Suriname dates back since 1840 when Robert Schomburgk surveyed the then British Guiana’s borders. Taking the Corentyne River as the border, he sailed up to its source, the Kutari River, in order to delineate the boundary.
In 1871, however, Charles Barrington Brown discovered the New River, which he deemed the true source of the Corentyne. Thus the New River Triangle dispute was born.
The tribunal which dealt with the Venezuela Crisis of 1895 also awarded the New River Triangle to British Guiana. The Netherlands, however, raised a diplomatic protest, claiming that the New River, and not the Kutari, was to be regarded as the source of the Corentyne and the boundary.
The British government in 1900 replied that the issue was already settled by the long acceptance of the Kutari as the boundary.
In 1936, a Mixed Commission established by the British and Dutch governments agreed to award the full width of the Corentyne River to Suriname, as per the 1799 agreement.
The territorial sea boundary was deemed to prolongate 10° from Point No. 61, three miles from the shore. The New River Triangle, however, was completely awarded to Guyana.
The treaty putting this agreement into law was never ratified, because of the outbreak of World War II.
In 1936, the Dutch representative Conrad Carel Käyser signed an agreement with British and Brazilian representatives, placing the tri-point junction near the source of the Kutari River.
Desiring to put the border issue to a closure before British Guiana would gain independence, the British government restarted negotiations in 1961. The British position asserted “Dutch sovereignty over the Corentyne River, a 10° line dividing the territorial sea, and British control over the New River Triangle.”
No agreements were made and Guyana became independent with its borders unresolved. In 1969 border skirmishes occurred between Guyanese forces and Surinamese militias.
In 1971, the Surinamese and Guyanese governments agreed in Trinidad to withdraw military forces from the Triangle.
The maritime boundary has long been disputed between Guyana and Suriname as well, and led in 2000 to skirmishes between a CGX oil rig doing work for Guyana and the Surinamese coast guard.
A five-member tribunal was convened under the rules set out in Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which in 2007 set out its own boundary that differed from both parties’ claims.
The tribunal did award sovereignty over the full width of the Corentyne to Suriname, and also awarded Suriname with a 10° territorial sea boundary three miles from the shore, according the 1936 agreement.
The rest of the territorial sea boundary, which extends 12 miles from the shore under modern international law, and the boundary separating the Exclusive Economic Zones of both countries, was awarded following a ruling on the Law of the Sea by an international panel.
Both Guyana and Suriname appeared before the panel and argued their case.