Great day for Guyana!

Dec 18, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

It is not even Christmas and the good news has arrived. The Secretary General of the United Nations has given his decision in relation to the border dispute between Guyana and Suriname, and that ruling has been generally along the lines that Guyana was demanding.
It was Guyana which had referred the dispute with Venezuela to the Secretary General after Venezuela began to up the ante following the news that oil has been discovered offshore. Guyana, worried more about the scare tactics of Venezuela than about the protraction of the controversy, decided to invoke a provision of the Geneva Agreement which allows for the Secretary General to make a determination should Venezuela not be able to agree on a settlement.
The Geneva Agreement had provided for the establishment of a Commission to look into ways of resolving the controversy. That Commission did not meet an agreement. The UN had in the meantime appointed persons to help the two sides to talk and reach agreement, but no agreement was ever reached.
In the 1970s, the controversy had been frozen by virtue of an agreement which Eric Williams, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago had brokered with the two countries. That agreement was known as the Protocol of Port of Spain.
Burnham and Carlos Andres Perez, the former Venezuelan President, had sought a solution during the life of the Protocol of Port of Spain. Recently declassified documents indicate that Burnham was giving serious consideration to offering Venezuela a solution, which is believed to be granting of access to the sea. But for obvious political reasons that never materialized, and it is most likely also that Venezuela would not have wanted that alone.
The Secretary General later exercised his option under the Geneva Agreement. He had appointed good officers. The option is not a one-off option. The Secretary General is required to make as many interventions as necessary until such time as the controversy is resolved.
The Guyana government was pressing for him to go the juridical route. The Venezuelans were insisting that he stay with the good offices process. Both sides got what they wanted. There will be one more year of mediation and if no results are forthcoming, the matter will be sent to the World Court.
Guyana has laboured for the past eighteen months to obtain the latter outcome. It is a great day for Guyana. The incoming Secretary General of the United Nations has concurred with the decision of the outgoing Secretary General, which means that this decision is irreversible.
The decision is a compromise, as most diplomatic decisions are. It gives Guyana what it wanted. It gave Venezuela what it wanted.
But for Guyana there is a stronger advantage, because no one reasonably expects that mediation will produce any positive outcomes. As such, the matter is likely to go to an international court.
The real battle lies ahead. Guyana has to find a stingingly large sum of money to prepare its case. It also has to find a further large chunk of money to undertake the case which will take years to complete. Where will that money come from? Your guess is as good as mine, but not even all the VAT in Guyana will pay for those legal bills which Guyana will have to pay to present its case before the World Court.
Finding the money will be just as hard as prosecuting the case.

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