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Venezuelan fighter jets fly over Eteringbang
– Guyana issues ‘Protest Note’
By Shervin Belgrave
One of the Jets that flew over Guyana’s airspace on Tuesday.
Kaieteur News – It appears as if Venezuela might be taking a further step in its military aggression towards Guyana. Concerns in this regard were raised after two of the country’s fighter jets flew over Eteringbang on Tuesday.
Eteringbang is a small community located along the Cuyuni River in Region Seven. It also borders a Venezuelan village, San Martin de Turumbang, located on the other side of the river.
According to a statement sent out yesterday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, two Venezuelan army Sukhoi SU 30 fighter jets flew over Eteringbang and its airstrip at around 13:20 hrs.
The ministry detailed that the jets circled the area once at a low altitude of 1,500 feet before flying away in an eastern direction.
Video seen by this media house showed one of the jets darting through the sky over the Eteringbang airport.
Kaieteur News’ sources on the ground revealed that there has been an increase presence of the Venezuelan Military at its Anacoco base, which sits opposite the Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF) Base at Eteringbang.
A few of the residents, who have been living in the Eteringbang community for years, told this newspaper that the last time they saw Venezuelan fighter jets circling the area was some 10 years ago.
They explained that back then the army would target illegal mining in its territory located on the other side of the Cuyuni River.
The Venezuelan army, they continued, would also conduct aerial surveillance for “contraband fuel.”
Guyana, however, has since moved to describe Tuesday’s flights over its airspace as the latest act of aggression by the Venezuelan armed forces.
In its statement, the Foreign Affairs Ministry added that the “incursion of Guyana’s airspace by Venezuelan fighter jets is a clear indication that its government is prepared to use aggression and intimidation to accomplish what cannot be accomplished by legal means – the surrender by Guyana of its patrimony.”
Foreign Affairs Minister, Hugh Todd, has also summoned the Venezuelan Ambassador to Guyana, Luis Edgardo Diaz Monclus, and has provided him a Protest Note in response to this latest development.
He informed Monclus that such a move not only challenges the good neighbourly relations between the two countries, but threatens the peace and stability of the region as well.
Monclus, according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, expressed the Minister’s disappointment upon learning of Venezuela’s latest act of aggression. The Venezuelan ambassador reportedly said that he is only aware of a reconnaissance mission within his country’s territory to monitor narco-trafficking and illegal activities.
Nevertheless, he told Todd that he will pass on the Protest Note and information to his government and should be able to give Guyana a feedback as soon as possible.
Guyana and Venezuela have been caught up in a territorial controversy over Essequibo for a number of decades. The matter has been brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where it ruled on December 18, 2020 that it has jurisdiction to resolve the issue. Guyana’s argument is that it has sovereign rights over the coast and land territory because it was awarded to the then British Guiana in the 1899 Arbitral Award.
In response, Kaieteur News had recently reported, the Venezuelan president, Nicholas Maduro Morro, has chosen an offensive against Guyana.
His aggressive approach had led to the illegal detention of two Guyanese fishing boats and their crewmembers by the Venezuelan Navy in January.
The fishing vessels were at the time operating in Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) just off the coast at Waini point, a part of the Essequibo territory that Venezuela wants to claim.
The fishermen were detained for two weeks in Venezuela before Maduro himself gave orders for them to be released.
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