UN Arbitral ruling

Opposition vows to oust Suriname Government

Says Guyana got oil but Suriname left with “water and fish”

PARAMARIBO, Suriname: Angered over the ruling of a UN Tribunal on the maritime boundary dispute with Guyana , which is believed to be in favour of Guyana , the opposition party in Suriname has vowed to take action to oust the government.

The Venetiaan administration is being blamed for poor preparation to challenge the claims Georgetown laid at the UN Tribunal in February 2004. Guyana has been awarded a large swathe of sea area claimed by Suriname .

An outraged former president and leader of opposition party VVV, Jules Wijdenbosch, argued that the government failed to treat this matter as an issue of national interest and excluded political opponents from participating in the preparations.

“When you do that, this is the result you will get. This is unacceptable,” Wijdenbosch told reporters.

The ex-president further noted that he was in office when the dispute with Guyana flared up in June 2000 and he sought a solution under the auspices of CARICOM at the highest political level with President Bharrat Jagdeo.

“But when this government came into office they downgraded the issue by putting it back in the hands of the Border Commission. The Surinamese Government should have pursued the course of finding a solution with Guyana at the political level,” said Wijdenbosch.

According to Desi Bouterse of the main opposition party, NDP, in 2000 it was all about the area that the UN panel has awarded to Guyana .

“We got water and fish, and Guyana got the oil,” said NDP's Member of Parliament Rashied Doekhie. According to Doekhie , Suriname should be in mourning for a week.

“That is the nature of our opposition,” says President Ronald Venetiaan in response to the criticism from the opposition.

“When this matter came up in 2000, we, the then opposition, stood firmly as one man behind the then government. We also supported the government when it expelled the CGX oil rig from the disputed area and today we still stand firmly by that decision. Even now we say that was correct,” said the Head of State.

He further argued that it was the Wijdenbosch administration, which in 1998 ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and in doing so accepted the jurisdiction of that UN body.

However, Wijdenbosch and several other opposition leaders maintain that if the opposition had been consulted and involved in the preparations, the outcome would have been in favour of Suriname .

Meanwhile, the joint opposition has issued a statement hinting at action to oust the Venetiaan administration.

“The International Tribunal on the Convention on the Law of the Sea handed down a ruling that is disadvantageous for our country and people—an irrevocable verdict which is sempiternal and has taken away tremendous development opportunities for our people. Structural exclusion of all other Surinamese experts has resulted in the fact that today our nation is faced with a disastrous ruling of this International Tribunal,” said the opposition.

Further, it noted that the joint opposition from now on is considering steps in order to prevent the government continuing “to bargain the interests of our nation and continue to impoverish our people”.

President Venetiaan, during a press conference Thursday, noted that Suriname respects and accepts the ruling, since with this settlement the long-standing maritime boundary dispute with Guyana has come to an end. Both countries could now proceed to develop the natural resources in the sea areas awarded to them.

The former disputed area is believed to be a potentially rich oil and gas basin.