Drama as border talks fold
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Drama as border talks fold
- Patterson's salvage bid failsby Sharief Khan
Guyana Chronicle
July , 2000
HOPING: President Bharrat Jagdeo, Jamaica Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and his Foreign Trade Minister Anthony Hylton and Foreign Minister Clement Rohee, at a reception Patterson hosted Friday night in Montego Bay. (Photo by David Wilson of the Office of the President.)
LAST minute attempts up to late last night by Jamaica Prime Minister P.J. Patterson failed to salvage the Guyana-Suriname border talks which folded dramatically after several extended marathon sessions that began Saturday night.
The end in the Jamaica capital Kingston came at about 2200 hrs (10 p.m.) Guyana time with the two sides reportedly failing to agree on an interim formula to share resources in the offshore zone from which Suriname gunboats June 3 forced out the Canadian CGX oil drilling rig.
Foreign Minister Clement Rohee, leading the extended negotiations after President Bharrat Jagdeo left Sunday for an official engagement in Trinidad and Tobago yesterday, confirmed there was no agreement in an interview with Jamaica Observer Editor-in-Chief Paget deFreitas.
DeFreitas said even circumstances seemed against an 11th hour bid to get an agreement at Jamaica House, the official offices of Patterson, where the talks were shifted yesterday from Montego Bay.
An official at Jamaica House told deFreitas that a phone call from Mr Jagdeo to Rohee was cut just before Rohee drove away from the meeting venue last night.
"We lost the call", the official told deFreitas.
According to the official, "...half the telephone lines in Trinidad are down and we had been able to contact somebody in Trinidad who volunteered to drive to the (Trinidad) Hilton (Hotel) to get (President) Jagdeo to call Jamaica House".
The President got through on the phone to Jamaica House, but the call was cut and he was unable to speak to Rohee.
Mr Jagdeo was the feature speaker at a gala dinner last night for a regional conference in Trinidad on infrastructure financing.
Rohee, who had planned to fly home from Kingston early yesterday afternoon but stayed on into last night, could not say when and where the talks will be resumed.
Asked if the talks had failed, he told deFreitas, "I would not say so. We have to see negotiations as a process."
He said he was leaving Kingston with mixed feelings, the same mood he reflected when the talks first failed at ministerial level in the Suriname capital Paramaribo last month.
Rohee said the talks will continue with Patterson as mediator at some point, but he did not know when and where.
He also maintained that the Guyana position at the Jamaica talks should not have prevented a resolution.
Details were not available on the sticking points but it was clear that the two countries found it difficult to reach agreement on the return of the CGX oil rig to the potential giant Eagle oilfield from which it was evicted last month.
The Suriname gunboat action in what Guyana maintains is its territorial waters triggered the latest border row that has soured relations between the two neighbours.
Guyana has insisted on the unhindered return of the rig and proposed joint exploration/exploitation and joint administration of the offshore zone at issue while talks to settle the maritime boundary were put on fast track.
Toronto-based CGX Energy Inc. last night announced it was waiting on the results of the Jamaica talks to decide what it will do with the rig that has been on standby.
In a short statement, CGX said it will make a decision on the rig when it "receives notification of the outcome of these talks."
CGX President and Chief Executive Officer Kerry Sully said last week the rig will leave the region if no decision was reached in Jamaica.
Suriname Foreign Minister Errol Snijders, who led his country's side after President Jules Wijdenbosch flew out of Montego Bay Saturday afternoon, declined comment as he was leaving Jamaica House last night.
Snijders and his team were due to fly out of Kingston at 1900 hrs (7 p.m.) Guyana time yesterday but were scheduled instead to depart by charter flight to Curacao last night.
Sources said Patterson held back both sides for several hours to try to reach agreement, continuing the marathon bid he started Saturday when the Surinamese side seemed intent on flying out of Montego Bay without an accord.
The difficulties at clinching some kind of agreement at the talks which started Friday at the plush Half Moon Golf, Tennis and Beach Club in Montego Bay's tourist resort, were clearly evident Saturday even as Patterson tried to be optimistic.
As he was leaving Montego Bay Monday morning for Trinidad, President Jagdeo told Guyanese reporters there were still difficulties in reaching an agreement.
"We have had difficulties", he confirmed, adding that up to that point the two sides had not been able to agree on a proposed memorandum of understanding.
The Montego Bay round of talks, scheduled to end Saturday, was extended into Sunday as Patterson hoped to clinch an agreement.
Wijdenbosch and his delegation planned leaving early Saturday afternoon without reaching an agreement but Patterson indicated he was intent on getting something definite from the sessions.
Patterson Saturday night reported movement on the process to settle the longstanding territorial dispute between the two countries (involving the Corentyne River and the New River Triangle in south east Guyana) and the maritime boundaries.
But there was no word on the return of the CGX rig to the Eagle site.
Patterson was mandated by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to be facilitator of the talks between the two countries and the discussions began Friday in the Jamaica tourist city on the north coast.
By Saturday night, he was able to announce the two countries were close to agreeing on getting a border commission going to finally resolve the age-old territorial border row and the maritime boundaries.
Patterson said the issues that had to be resolved in Montego Bay were identified Friday and by late Saturday the talks had reached the stage where "we now have a draft text and we hope to be able to finalise that within the next 24 hours."
He said that based on the discussions between Friday and Saturday, "we have been able to draft a memorandum of understanding that, apart from any question of an agreement between the parties, needs to be reflected in a certain form, and we wanted to ensure that we had in place things that were workable to give effect to the agreement."
In particular, he said, questions of the composition of the border commission that would enable the work to proceed on both fronts "were matters to which we gave urgent consideration."
Patterson said "certain matters" related to both issues "require legal refinement and very careful textual consideration".
As a result, both Presidents agreed to use the Montego Bay meeting to "bring these two matters to finality insofar as the processes and procedures are concerned", he reported.
Sources said Wijdenbosch had planned on leaving a low-level team, headed by Suriname Ambassador to Guyana, Dr Humphrey Hasrat, behind to continue the talks but Patterson did not agree.
The Jamaica Prime Minister afterwards reported that Snijders and a "competent group" were staying back to finalise the memorandum of understanding with the Guyana side headed by Rohee.
President Jagdeo cancelled plans to leave Montego Bay Saturday night and remained behind to be involved in the extended negotiations.
The priority issue of the return of the Canadian CGX oil rig at the centre of the fresh territorial row was addressed from around 2030 hrs (8:30 p.m.) Jamaica time Saturday until about 3:30 hrs (a.m.) Sunday.
The talks continued Sunday but by Sunday night, the two sides were nowhere near an agreement.
Guyana has been trying to settle conditions under which CGX can return to drill at Eagle.
The Jamaica Observer yesterday reported that Jamaica had proposed a rejuvenation and restructuring of the Guyana/Suriname Border Commission which would give a specific timetable to reach a settlement, including a delimitation of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of both countries, working in accordance with Article 74 of the Law of the Sea convention that covers arrangements for countries with opposite or adjacent coasts.
Jamaica signalled its willingness, if asked, to continue to facilitate the negotiations and made it clear that it would help to find the expertise to deal with issues, the newspaper said.
In addition, Jamaica suggested that the countries, while working on the overall border and delimitation settlement, fall back on a section of Article 74 that allows for sharing of resources.
The newspaper said the relevant paragraph states: "Pending agreement as provided in paragraph 1, the states concerned, in the spirit of understanding and cooperation, shall make every effort to enter into provisional arrangements of a practical nature and, during this transitional period, not to jeopardise or hamper the reaching of the final agreement. Such arrangements shall be without prejudice to the final delimitation."
The search for a resolution started last month in Trinidad and Tobago, shifted to Georgetown, to the Suriname capital Paramaribo, moving this month to the luxury tourist resort island of Canouan in St Vincent and the Grenadines, to Montego Bay and then Kingston.
From Sunday to yesterday, Rohee, Ambassadors Elisabeth Harper, Rudy Collins and consultant Dr Barton Scotland, with Guyana Geology and Mines Commission head, Mr Brian Sucre, continued the negotiations with Patterson's facilitating team of Solicitor General, Dr Kenneth Rattray, Foreign Trade Minister, Mr Anthony Hylton and High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Mr Lorne McDonnaugh shuttling between the two sides.
Others in the Guyana delegation in Jamaica up to Saturday were former Foreign Minister Rashleigh Jackson and Lands and Surveys Commissioner, Mr A.K. Datadin.
CGX believes Eagle is one of two world class giant oilfields in its 15,464 square kilometre concession.
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