Talks a good first step in Venezuela-Guyana row, says former J’can diplomat
Published:Friday | December 15, 2023 | 12:16 AM
The Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) facilitation of a meeting between Guyana and Venezuela on Thursday gave President Nicholas Maduro an avenue down from a precarious peak, former Ambassador Byron Blake has assessed.
Blake, a former assistant secretary general of the CARICOM Secretariat, said the meeting between Maduro and Guyana President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali was a solid initiative by Dr Ralph Gonzalves and could be the first step towards cooling simmering tensions.
“It might not resolve anything, but at least it shows both leaders meeting and talking. It is difficult to walk away from talks and then proceed to do nonsense,” Blake, Jamaica’s former deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told The Gleaner on Thursday.
He said the meeting was expected to de-escalate tensions in South America amid a long-running dispute between the two countries over the oil and mineral-rich Essequibo region, which makes up more than half of Guyana.
The two countries are claiming the territory that is now the subject of deliberations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), though Venezuela has maintained that the body has no jurisdiction over its affairs.
The dispute over the territory has heightened anxiety about the possibility of military conflict in a largely strife-free region.
Only last week, Venezuelans rejected a referendum that the ICJ had jurisdiction over the Spanish-speaking nation’s territorial dispute with neighbouring Guyana, backing the creation of a new state in the Essequibo.
Blake said Thursday’s meeting, which was attended by six regional heads of government, is likely to “take the Venezuelan president off the hook”.
“Right now, he is on a peak, where he has to find a gracious way to climb down or at least hold brakes,” said Blake.
Maduro, two days after the referendum on December 3, instructed the country’s state-owned companies to “immediately” begin to explore and exploit the oil, gas, and mines in the Essequibo long claimed by Guyana.
On Thursday, Ali told journalists during a press conference during a break of the multiphased meeting in Kingstown, that Guyana would not back down from its position.
“There’s absolutely no retreat by Guyana in ensuring that this matter is determined by the ICJ and that the outcome of this matter at the ICJ be respected by all,” Ali said.
Further, he said that CARICOM, of which Guyana is a member state, restated its position at the meeting that it has consistently recognised not only the 1899 Paris Arbitral Award, but that the matter must be determined by the ICJ and the outcome respected.
Venezuela has maintained that the Essequibo formed part of its country during Spanish rule in the region. The country has argued that the 1966 Geneva Agreement between itself, Britain and then-British Guiana, now Guyana, nullified a border drawn in 1899 by international arbitrators.
Still, Ali insists that Guyana has no other ambition than to pursue peaceful co-existence with Venezuela and every country in the region.
“I made it very clear that Guyana has all the right to exercise its sovereign right within its territorial space to approve of and facilitate any development, any investment, any partnership, any trading, any collaboration, any cooperation, the issuing of any licence and the granting of any concession within our territorial space and within our sovereign space,” said Ali of his direct meeting with Maduro.
“I made it clear that the controversy must be resolved at the ICJ and we are unwavering and resolute in ensuring that Guyana’s case is presented, defended, and that the ICJ will issue its decision on the merits of the case,” he added.