Venezuela’s aggression has hindered Guyana’s development

Feb 04, 2018 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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Venezuela’s claims to over 150,000 km² of Guyana’s land space and a large part of its hydrospace have their origins in its rejection of the 1899 award of the international tribunal as a nullity. The land boundary, subsequent to the award, was surveyed and the details embodied on maps and certified by agreement of January 10, 1905.
Guyana has long recognised that Venezuela’s aggression has hindered the development of its five Essequibo regions– Barima-Waini; Pomeroon-Supenaam; Cuyuni-Mazaruni; Potaro-Siparuni and Upper Takutu Upper Essequibo – through lost foreign investments and blocked projects. Guyana had to seek safety beneath the shelter of international law in order to guarantee its territorial security and attract foreign investment in a competitive international environment.
Venezuela, under President Raúl Leoni Otero, placed an advertisement in the Times newspaper of London on June 15, 1968 to the effect that the Essequibo belonged to Venezuela and that it would not recognise economic concessions granted there by the Guyana Government.
President Leoni then issued Decreto No. 1.152 of July 9, 1968 purporting to annex a nine-mile wide belt of sea space along Guyana’s entire Essequibo coast and requiring various agencies, including the Defence Ministry, to impose Venezuelan sovereignty over it.
Guyana suffered another maritime reversal in July 2000.
President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frias issued a blunt rejection of the agreement between the Government of Guyana and Beal Aerospace Corporation of the United States to establish a satellite launch facility in the Waini, part of Guyana’s territory claimed by Venezuela. His Minister of External Affairs José Vincente Rangel followed this by announcing that Venezuela would begin granting oil concessions in Guyana’s Essequibo region.
At the first sign that Guyana was ready to harness its natural resources in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Venezuela unleashed its aggression, which for years, had been restrained by diplomatic protocols.
The seizure and subsequent release of the Teknik Perdana, a seismic vessel hired by the United States oil company, Anadarko in October 2013 was Venezuela’s way of reviving the border conflict, which the rest of the world acknowledges, has been settled in 1899, 119 years ago by an international tribunal. That Arbitration Award, which was set up in 1898, clearly established the boundary of what was then British Guiana.
During that arbitration process, Guyana was still being ruled by the British, who effectively argued its case and provided evidence to show that the Dutch and not the Spanish had occupied Essequibo as Venezuela was claiming.
After months of deliberations, the tribunal awarded Britain ownership of the territory west of the Essequibo River  and granted Venezuela about 13,000 square miles of land, which includes part of the Barima district on the right bank of the Ori-noco River and about 5,000 square miles of territory in the upper Cuyuni. At the end of this process, the controversy came to an end but resurfaced again in 1962.
At that time, the Government and people of Venezuela claimed that the 1899 award was null and void, a position that current Head of State, Nicolas Maduro is pushing in his bid to claim ownership of two-thirds of Guyana’s landmass.
According to an article written by Dr. Odeen Ishmael, while Venezuela regards the 1899 award null and void, it could not produce any document to prove its claim. This notwithstanding, Venezuela, Great Britain, and British Guiana, in February 1966, signed an agreement at Geneva, Switzerland to establish a bilateral commission to settle this matter.
Dr. Ishmael, a veteran Guyanese diplomat, who once served as Ambassador to Venezuela, in his article, stated that since 1966, Venezuela has spread the propaganda that the arbitral award is null and void and by doing so, contradicted the terms of the Geneva Agreement.
“More recently, it has been expressing the view that the territorial dispute is inherited from British colonialism, the view is patently false since the land boundary between Guyana and Venezuela was permanently and definitively delimited by the international arbitration on October 3, 1899,” he said.
On May 26, 2015, when Guyana was celebrating its 49th independence anniversary, Venezuela issued Decree 1787 which claimed a significant portion of Guyana’s territorial waters. This Decree was subsequently retracted and a new one was issued.
The new Decree justifies the actions of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) in defending the newly created Integrated Defense Maritime Zones and Island, which encompasses most of Guyana’s exclusive economic zone, including the Stabroek Block where exploratory works are being conducted by Exxon Mobil, a major oil company from the United States.
The new Decree was followed by a military show of aggression on September 22, 2015 when Venezuela’s army deployed over 200 troops with missiles, machine guns and a military boat on Guyana’s frontier between San Martin and Ankoko Island. This military build-up was done on the eve of the 70th General Assembly of the United Nations (UN).
The troops retreated as the UN forum got underway. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon facilitated a meeting between President Maduro and Guyana’s Head of State, David Granger. This led to some agreements, which included, the return of Venezuela’s Ambassador to Georgetown and Venezuela’s agreeing to accept Guyana’s Ambassador to Caracas.
Upon assumption to office in 2015, President David Granger made it clear that Guyana wanted a permanent solution to this matter which has been on-going for over 100 years. He said, “It is a legal problem that has to have a legal solution; it is not a political matter that we can negotiate, I cannot overturn the award of an international tribunal…I am obliged under the constitution to protect the full territorial space of Guyana.”
The controversy was placed before the Secretary General of the United Nations, in accordance with the Geneva Agreement of 1966. In December 2016 outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon which had been ongoing since 1990, would continue for one final year, until the end of 2017, with a strengthened mandate of mediation.
He also reached the conclusion that if by the end of that2017, significant progress has not been made towards arriving at a full agreement for the solution of the controversy; he would refer the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the next means of settlement.
On January 30, 2018 President David Granger was officially notified by Secretary General of the United Nations His Excellency Antonio Guterres that the controversy would go to the World Court. Guterres said he had fulfilled the responsibility within the framework set by his predecessor, Mr Ban Ki-moon in December 2016, and had chosen the ICJ as the means to be used for the solution of the controversy.

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