While the declaration signed by the Presidents of Guyana and Suriname on Tuesday supporting the joint exploitation of marine resources (among other things) is welcome, it by no means guarantees that there will be a resolution of the CGX impasse this year. This is not to suggest that the situation has not changed since 2000; that would be untrue. In particular, President Venetiaan must be taken at his word as seeking a warmer relationship with Guyana, and a rational approach to all those matters which have generated tension between the neighbouring states in the past.

Having said that, however, the little co-operation corial has to negotiate a series of rapids and whirlpools en route to its destination, any one of which could cause it to founder. President Venetiaan himself has identified the first of these - the fact that any agreement with this country will require Parliamentary sanction. It must be remembered that unlike the administration in Guyana, the President of Suriname heads a coalition government, and although at the moment that coalition is giving him unequivocal support, backing on the CGX issue will have to be sustained right through to the agreement stage.

Then there is the matter of the Parliamentary opposition, the larger part of which, according to De Ware Tijd (DWT), boycotted President Jagdeo's address to the Suriname Parliament on Tuesday. The members took exception, it seems, to the fact that President Venetiaan had not informed them in a timely fashion about the visit and the agenda.

One of the parties, said DWT, had an additional objection. It described Guyana as a military aggressor since 1967 - a reference presumably to the eviction of Suriname surveyors in that year from the New River Triangle, and Guyana's continued physical presence there. The daily also quoted Mr Desi Bouterse (whose party joined the boycott) as saying: "Of course, we have respect for the Guyanese President and we want to be friendly neighbours with Guyana, but not when Guyana keeps our territory occupied since 12 December, 1967. If Jagdeo had stated that the Guyanese would leave our territory and that he wants to co-operate with us, we would have been present."

Interestingly, Mr Bouterse's concern here in border terms, appears to have been not so much the Eagle drilling site where the CGX rig was to operate, but the New River Triangle. The few non-Parliamentary parties on the other hand, want an acknowledgement from Guyana that the area of the Eagle site is located in Suriname territory before there can be any talks on joint exploitation.

On their own, these parties have no leverage in the society, but they seem to have been joined by the large trade union, the Moederbond, and if they are given enough time there is always the danger that they will succeed in stirring up opposition to a rational agreement. Furthermore, no one on this side of the frontier is sure what the view of the Suriname military is on the issue. The previous government invested heavily in boats and aircraft for them, and it must never be forgotten that they have involved themselves directly in politics in the past. No administration in Paramaribo, therefore, can afford to ignore their views.

The root of the problem is that Suriname has made the same mistake as Venezuela. If our western neighbour is riding the tiger, Suriname in recent times has mounted a tiger cat from which it will have difficulty dismounting. The population at all levels has been led to believe that both the New River Triangle and the Eagle site are legally theirs. The maritime boundary is a complicated issue, but even on the most generous construction of international legal principles, and more particularly the Convention on the Law of the Sea to which both countries are signatory, the Eagle site will fall within Guyana's territory. In international law Suriname's claim to the New River Triangle too is entirely meretricious.

One cannot help but feel that Suriname has had access to advice on international law of the highest quality, and one cannot help but feel too that the most senior members of the government there must have been made aware of the defects of their case in relation to the New River and the maritime zone should the matter of the border ever go to legal arbitration. If they had felt totally secure about their position, would they not have been pushing Guyana hard to take the boundary dispute before some international legal body? Significantly, they appear not to want that.

As it is, CGX presented itself to President Wijdenbosch's government as a potential means of extracting border concessions from Guyana which might not be obtained in any other way. President Venetiaan may now appear to be approaching the problem of CGX in a practical and realistic fashion, but whether in the end he would be allowed to remove completely the one lever that Suriname has at her disposal to pressure Guyana on the matter of the frontier remains to be seen.

In this regard it is worthy of note that no effort has been made to lower the expectations of the Surinamese population in relation to the border; maps still carry the New River Triangle as part of the neighbouring state's territory, for example. In fact, when President Jagdeo was briefed on the operations of the state-owned Statsoolie oil refinery at Saramacca, the briefing included the presentation of a map of Suriname showing the New River Triangle as part of that country's territory.

When this is taken together with the statements of Mr Desi Bouterse, the possibility cannot be altogether dismissed that Suriname's current strategy is indeed to inch towards an agreement on the Eagle drilling site without prejudice to any subsequent settlement of the maritime boundary, but to try and exact concessions in respect of the New River Triangle instead. It is worthy of note, for instance, that the matter of joint hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation has been referred to the two Border Commissions, rather than to the Joint Co-operation Council.

If there are those on this side of the Corentyne who are cynical about this latest initiative to secure a meaningful agreement with Suriname, it is because history is on their side - the 1991 Memorandum of Understanding being a case in point. Let us hope that on this occasion President Jagdeo's optimism is justified. In case it transpires that it is not, however, let us hope that his administration has been looking at alternative strategies for dealing with our eastern border problems.