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Guyana conceded to TCL from the outset
Oct 16, 2009 Letters
Dear Editor,
Further to my letter entitled “Why Cry Foul Now?” published in Kaieteur News on the 15th October 2009, I would like to make the following addendum which had escaped me in my haste to get the letter to you.
That Guyana was in breach of the provisions of the revised treaty of Chagauramas was a fact that was conceded by Professor Massiah S.C., lead counsel for Guyana at the trial.
The audio transcript of the trial proceedings available on the CCJ website reveals Professor Massiah at the very beginning of his address to the Court saying in no uncertain terms that he could not and would not attempt to deny that Guyana was in breach of the Treaty.
So the fact that Guyana was in flagrant breach of the treaty provisions was expressly admitted and therefore was a non issue for the Court.
The next point to note is that the lawyers for Guyana failed to cross-examine TCL’s witnesses. A “cross -examination” of those witnesses was actually done by the judges of the Court themselves and the evidence elicited therefrom showed that TCL had suffered no loss which would have entitled them to the damages claimed and the Court so found. In this sense it can be said that the Court assisted Guyana.
It is to be further noted that the President of the Court Justice De La Basitde had asked Professor Massiah, whether the Government of Guyana would have been prepared to re-impose the CET on cement until such time that a waiver could lawfully have been applied for and obtained. Such an agreement by the Government of Guyana would have obviated the necessity for the Court to have imposed the mandatory order that it eventually found it necessary to impose.
In answer to this Professor Massiah declared that he had no instructions from the Government of Guyana to so agree.
This caused Justice De la Bastide to remark that it seemed to him that the Government of Guyana was not treating such an important case with the seriousness it deserved.
It is therefore clear that the entire mess in which Guyana found itself in that case was created by Guyana itself, orchestrated by Jagdeo as puppet master.
There was certainly on the facts no bias on the part of the Court. The truth is that the Court bent over backwards to assist Guyana and its handicapped legal team and offered Guyana an honourable way out, which Guyana declined to take.
Jagdeo’s statements about bias, unlearned as they are, are ill-advised and contemptuous and seemed to have emanated from a rum-shop lawyer.
The court should find some way to sanction him after all such crass ignorance ought not to be allowed to go unpunished.
Bibi K. Nandram
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