Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rudy Insanally said Guyana was awaiting a report from Venezuela on the military operation it carried out in the Cuyuni River on Thursday last in addition to a report from the joint services before any steps were taken.
There had been no further communication between local authorities and Venezuela within the last 24 hours, according to the minister, but exchanges were expected over the next few days. Though the facts were still to be had, he said, a transgression on Guyana’s territorial limits was evident.
Insanally emphasized that information from the ground was critical at this stage and he added that the ministry was relying on the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the Guyana Police Force, both of whom were in the area conducting an investigation to provide a report on the incident.
Guyana’s Ambassador to Venezuela Odeen Ishmael when contacted yesterday said that his embassy staff were currently trying to contact Guyanese in the border area (on the Venezuelan side) to obtain details as to what occurred and of the damage to property.
Since the incursion of a 36 member military team led by a general from Venezuela last Thursday there have no sighting of Venezuelans in the area though Venezuelan Ambassador to Guyana Dario Morandy had told Stabroek News the military was carrying out a three-day operation called ‘Tepuy’ in the area.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that the joint services’ team which flew into the area to conduct an investigation wrapped up yesterday and was likely report to Minister Insanally today.
A source on the team said one aspect of the investigation involved using the satellite-based navigation Global Positioning System (GPS) to accurately determine whether the incident had happened in Guyana and they had been able to confirm that it had.
The area in the Cuyuni River where Venezuela blew up two local mining dredges is patrolled regularly by the GDF and according to the source the Venezuelan military had never been sighted there. After explosions had been heard in the area, the GDF which is based at Eteringbang some 40 miles away, reportedly went out immediately but arrived to find that the Venezuelans had already left.
On Friday the Venezuelan Ambassador stated in an interview that the area from which the dredges had been evicted belonged to his country and Venezuela had been “protecting its natural resources and we need to remove all illegal miners from the area.”
In the event that a local GDF patrol confronted a Venezuelan military team in the Cuyuni River in Guyana’s territory, this newspaper was told that protocol stipulated that the GDF patrol should ask the Venezuelans to leave and maintain cordial interactions.
An authority on foreign affairs told Stabroek News yesterday that if Guyana wished to internationalize the recent incursion by Venezuela, the matter could be taken to the Security Council of the United Nations as an aggression against Guyana.
Guyana could also claim for compensation for the damaged pontoons at the bilateral level, the authority said, adding that the desired option depended on the objective.
Further, the authority noted that the bilateral formal complaint was important, particularly if Guyana would rather not have an incident of a similar nature occurring. But there was also the option of taking the matter up to Caricom, the Rio Group or the Association of Caribbean States.
The boundary between Guyana and Venezuela was decided by an Arbitral Tribunal which met in Paris in 1899. Under the terms of the award the whole of the Cuyuni River as far as the Wenamu belongs to Guyana, while in the case of the Wenamu the boundary follows a median line to its source.
