History shows that Venezuela accepted the 1899 award

Feb 18, 2018 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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History shows that Venezuela accepted the 1899 award

History records that towards the end of the 19^th century, Venezuela sought and obtained the assistance of the United States of America in advancing certain territorial claims against the United Kingdom in right of the then colony of British Guiana. Under a threat of war by the United States, the United Kingdom felt forced to agree with Venezuela, in what came to be known as the Treaty of Washington 1897, to submit the dispute to an international arbitral tribunal.
The tribunal itself consisted of five persons, two representing Venezuela, two representing the United Kingdom and a fifth selected by the other four.
Two senior judges were appointed on behalf of the United Kingdom. Venezuela elected to have as her two representatives on the tribunal, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and another leading member of that same court. The four members chose a distinguished Russian Jurist as the fifth member and the President of the Tribunal.
In keeping with Venezuela’s reliance on American support, Venezuela elected to be represented before the tribunal by a team of four American lawyers including Ex-American President, General Benjamin Harrison and ex-American Secretary of War, General Benjamin Tracy.
After fifty-four days (54) of oral arguments in Paris and the examination of the voluminous historical records, on October 3, 1899 the Tribunal unanimously issued an award laying down the boundary as successive generations of Guyanese and Venezuelans have known it.  The boundary as defined by the award was duly demarcated on the ground by a British/Venezuela Mixed Commission. It was also delineated on a map signed by representatives of both sides and formally submitted to each government by the Mixed Commission under a joint report dated January 10, 1905.
It is significant that in the course of the demarcation, a suggestion by the Commissioners that due to certain difficulties of terrain, the boundary in one place might be made to vary a little from that prescribed by the 1899 award, was categorically rejected by the Venezuelan government on the ground that it was necessary to give strict effect to the award. The Venezuelan view prevailed.
TERRITORY LOST
Under the 1899 award, Guyana lost the mouths and lower reaches of the Amakura and the Barima as well as the upper reaches of the Cuyuni.
Notwithstanding these losses, we have consistently respected the award in accordance with article 13 of the Treaty of Washington, under which Venezuela and the United Kingdom engaged “to consider the result of the proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration as a full, perfect and final settlement of all the questions referred to the Arbitrators”. So too did Venezuela until comparatively recent times.
VENEZUELA ACCEPTED THE AWARD
Both Venezuela and Great Britain accepted the award of the tribunal and, in keeping with it, a mixed boundary commission appointed jointly by the two countries, carried out a survey and demarcation, between 1901 and 1905, of the boundary as stipulated by the award with an adjustment based on the British Guiana-Brazilian arbitration award.
The resulting boundary line was set out on a map signed by the boundary commissioners in Georgetown, British Guiana, on January 7, 1905. A separate agreement signed three days later by the commissioners stipulated: “That they regard this agreement as having a perfectly official character with respect to the acts and rights of both governments in the territory demarcated. . .” [Agreement Between the British and Venezuelan Boundary Commissioners with Regard to the Map of the Boundary, January 10, 1905]
Twenty-six years later, in 1931, a boundary commission made up of representatives from Great Britain, Venezuela and Brazil made special astronomical, geodesical and topographical observations on Mount Roraima so as to fix the specific point where the boundaries of Brazil, Venezuela and British Guiana should meet. Diplomatic notes were exchanged among the three nations on October 7 and November 3, 1932, by which they expressed agreement on the specific location of the tri-junction meeting point of the boundaries. A concrete pyramid marker was soon after erected there. The matter of the border was then considered permanently settled.
It was clear from everything that they said and did that Venezuela had accepted the 1899 award as a final settlement of the border controversy. Even as late as 1941, the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Esteban Gil Borges agreed that the frontier with British Guiana was well defined and was a closed issue. Borges told the British Representative in Caracas that his government was definitely of the opinion that the Venezuela-British Guiana frontier was final and well defined and that anyone questioning the 1899 award, “had obviously never has access to the archives of his Ministry.’

1. MALLET PREVOST

A relatively junior lawyer on the Venezuelan team was a Mr. Mallet Prevost. Nearly fifty years after the award was given, and after all the other actors in the drama had died, Mallet Prevost left a posthumous note which sought to impugn the validity of the award, on the alleged ground that it was the result of a political deal between the United Kingdom and Russia. Based on this note from the dead, in 1962 Venezuela raised the issue of the boundary between our two countries at the United Nations and drummed up a whole programme of hostility to Guyana as we moved forward to independence.
It is apposite to note that Mallet Prevost’s posthumous note was examined by scholars, including American historian Clifton Child. Having consulted all the volumes in the British Foreign Office, the verbatim records of the Tribunal, as well as dispatches passing between London, Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and New York during the relevant period, the conclusion he drew from the study was that there was, “not a single document which by the wildest stretch of imagination could be considered to indicate a deal between Great Britain and Russia of the sort suspected by Mr. Mallet Prevost.”
In 1962, the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) which governed British Guiana at that time agreed to certain discussions being held on the subject between Venezuela and the United Kingdom. The government of the day entrusted the discussions to the British Government. The dialogue led to further discussions in later years.
In the light of the posture assumed by Venezuela, it was considered wise shortly before independence to agree to set up a Mixed Commission to examine the matter. The arrangement was set out in the Geneva Agreement which was signed by the three governments concerned namely Venezuela, the United Kingdom and Guyana on February 17, 1966.
Through the years, Venezuela has steadfastly refused to produce material or argument in support of her contention that the 1899 Arbitral Award is null and void.

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