Suriname ‘shocked’ Guyana took maritime dispute to UNCLOS

Suriname was genuinely shocked that Guyana referred their maritime dispute to the International Tribunal of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and had always tried to ensure that in efforts to resolve the issue the three segments of the boundary – land, river and sea – were not disaggregated but were treated as one in order to get leverage for a settlement, a cable released by WikiLeaks has revealed.

In a comment at the end of a cable sent from the US Embassy in Paramaribo, Suriname to Washington on March 4, 2004, Robert Faucher referred to the New River Triangle/Tigri as being “ultra sensitive” from Suri-name’s point of view, and that Paramaribo had always sought to “bundle” the maritime, riverine and land components of the boundary together in order to “leverage closure.“

He went on to tell Wash-ington that Suriname believed that the blocks to progress were “a) the Guyanese refusal to resolve all three aspects of the dispute at the same time and b) the Guyanese military presence in the disputed land border region.” Once Guyana had