Latest update April 17th, 2025 9:50 AM
Guyana comes out ahead in recent agreement
Former Venezuelan diplomat says
Sadio Garavini, a diplomat and former Venezuelan Ambassador to Guyana, questioned the content of the joint declaration issued by the Venezuelan and Guyanese foreign ministers after the high-level meeting held last Friday in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
He claimed that the terms of the document are favourable to Georgetown rather than to Caracas.
Garavini said that the parties are “not negotiating an arbitral award but a satisfactory and practical” settlement of the dispute as established in the Geneva Agreement signed in 1966.
Garavini described as nonsense the following paragraph of the statement endorsed by the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Recognizing that the dispute concerning the Arbitral Award of 1899 on the border between Guyana and Venezuela continues to exist…”
Sadio Garavini
“With this ‘recognition’ of the award, Venezuela accepts the Guyanese stance, even though the goal of the Geneva Agreement is the practical settlement of the dispute that is a satisfactory and admissible to both parties. The statement underpins the Guyanese position of prioritizing the Arbitral Award of 1899, which is very serious.”
The diplomat thinks that Foreign Minister Maduro “was very badly advised on the legal and political aspects of the statement.” In his opinion, the joint statement should have mentioned only the Geneva Agreement which, he reiterated, is the only valid legal framework of the dispute.
Garavini also rejected the fact that the statement refers to the delimitation of maritime and submarine areas of Delta Amacuro (an eastern Venezuela state) along with the claim of the Essequibo territory:
“This mixture could be very dangerous to the Venezuelan interests. Both processes are different but are related and complex. A decision in relation to a base point in the Delta Amacuro coast for delimitation purposes could adversely affect the claim,” the diplomat concluded.
And in view of the joint statement signed by the Venezuelan and Guyanese foreign ministers, the Unified Democratic Panel (MUD) said in a statement that the delimitation of maritime and submarine areas between the two countries is linked to the settlement of the territorial claim, based on the Geneva Agreement.
“It makes no sense to take the risk that an eventual settlement on the maritime area has irreversible effects on our territorial dispute.”
The MUD added that the work of facilitators is to seek a “satisfactory and practical” settlement for the parties, as the Geneva Agreement provides. “Their task is not related to the negotiation of maritime areas.”
“A new threat to Venezuela emerges from the silence of the (Venezuelan) government apropos the delimitation of maritime and submarine areas between Trinidad and Barbados, and between Guyana and Suriname, including some maritime areas over which Venezuela has rights.
In addition to this, Guyana intends to extend its continental shelf. The MUD believes in integration, but does not put it above territorial integrity,” the text stressed.
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