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Venezuela demands Guyana withdraw case from World Court
Neighbouring Venezuela is again rattling its sabers at Guyana.
President Nicolas Maduro
In a statement Wednesday, the Spanish-speaking country’s National Assembly urged Guyana to withdraw its “unilateral action: from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in favour of a practical and satisfactory solution in accordance with the provisions of Article 1 and the spirit of the Geneva Agreement”.
Guyana, following an aggressive stance by Venezuela in 2015, went to the United Nations and complained, asking for its intervention.
The UN agreed for Guyana to take the matter to ICJ to be settled once and for all. Guyana went ahead and filed a case which could take about five years to resolve.
Guyana has submitted documents in preparation for the case but Venezuela has been insisting it will not recognize any decisions by the Hague-based UN court.
The Hague court.
With Guyana about to start producing oil and Venezuela claiming the offshore waters in which US-owned ExxonMobil is operating, it was widely felt that Venezuela was using the claims, which Guyana said has been settled decades ago, to divert attention from the state of affairs in that neighbouring country.
Venezuela is facing runaway inflation, shortages of food and medicine and hundreds of thousands of its citizens fleeing to other countries including Guyana.
Venezuela in its statement Wednesday said its attention was drawn to CARICOM’s recent meeting in St. Lucia recently where a public statement was made.
“The Special Commission of the National Assembly for the Defense of the Essequibo Territory and its Atlantic facade, the only legitimate power currently in the Venezuelan State, is in urgent need of responding to the CARICOM communiqué by virtue of the bias and imprecision of it.”
Venezuela said that its President, Nicolas Maduro, through agreements approved by the National Assembly on January 8, and April 16, 2019; have decided that the UN Secretary General is in violation of the Geneva Agreement, whose “object and purpose consists in the search for a satisfactory solution for the practical settlement of the dispute that is acceptable to both parties.”
That agreement was signed in 1966 and would have settled once and for all the border issues.
“Submitting the dispute to a judicial proceeding would distort the Geneva Agreement, since it would prevent the parties, through a negotiation mechanism, from reaching a practical agreement on the dispute, which is mutually acceptable to the parties.”
Venezuela said it is respectful of International Law and the principles and norms that rule it.
“In this regard, she calls for the greater neutrality and impartiality of CARICOM in a matter that concerns two countries of the region, since Venezuela is also a Caribbean country.
“As is known to the public and in particular to the International Court of Justice and the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, since the creation of the IJC in 1945, Venezuela has never recognized the jurisdiction of that high court; as well as it has not expressed in an informed manner or expresses its willingness to recognize jurisdiction in any special agreement or international instrument.”
Venezuela said it can therefore hardly attend to a judicial proceeding as it does not recognize or has historically recognized the ICJ.
“Consequently, Venezuela urges the Caribbean Community to maintain a balanced and neutral position so that Venezuela and Guyana can resolve this controversy through the political and diplomatic means contained in Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Venezuela is claiming a large swath of Essequibo, which includes gold-rich areas, and where thousands of Amerindians live, as well as part of the ocean that has been under Guyana’s control.
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