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Monitoring airspace a challenge for government – Harmon
Earlier this week, Guyana lodged a complaint with United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, over illegal over-flights by neighbouring Venezuela.
Minister of State,
Joseph Harmon
Guyana has also asked for international assistance in gathering information about these occurrences. This was according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge on Wednesday.
The Minister said that he believes that the action is irresponsible, dangerous and something that the Government is concerned about. These concerns have been communicated to the Secretary General, the Minister had stated.
Meanwhile, information has been provided to the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) with a view to following up and substantiating the intelligence conveyed, the Minister stated. In addition, reports out of Caracas are that the aerial operations are being done to map Essequibo for a new Venezuelan atlas.
During the Post-Cabinet Press Briefings yesterday, the question was put to the Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, about Guyana’s radar coverage and its ability to monitor these kinds of
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge
occurrences.
Harmon said that the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and the Civil Aviation Department are part of an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and because of this, information is provided to these two government agencies.
However, sometimes that information is not always “real-time.” It is sometimes dated.
But as the smaller airstrips are concerned, since these are scattered across Guyana’s borders, it is indeed a major issue and Guyana is seeking international help to ensure that it can detect any aircraft which violates its airspace and land on any of these facilities, Harmon said.
He reiterated that that the issue poses a great challenge because of the vastness of Guyana’s borders and the huge amount of space that exists for small types of aircrafts to get below the radar and land.
“We have to depend quite a lot on human intelligence; people in the communities to report and our own limited resources as far as surveillance in concerned.”
Harmon added also that Guyana is a part of the United Nations system, and once there is a violation of Guyana’s airspace then it is the duty of State to report these violations.
The Minister said that government has to depend to a large extent on international cooperation with other countries.
“Certainly, we have recognised that it is important to report any violation of our air, land or sea space to the United Nations to make sure that we have on record these things…That is the course of action which we have taken.”
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