The joint services team which flew into the Cuyuni region on Friday to investigate the incursion by the Venezuelan military on Thursday has returned to Georgetown and has submitted a report which is being studied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Details of what the report contained could not be had by this newspaper yesterday as none of the officials dealing with the issue was available for a comment. However, yesterday’s edition of Kaieteur News carried information on the incident which it said derived from the “police report,” and which had been released to it by the police. The Guyana Police Force in a statement yesterday denied that it had issued any official press release on the matter. The Kaieteur News had reported that Guyanese soldiers stationed at the border location had confronted the Venezuelan soldiers before they blew up two dredges belonging to the Guyanese miners.
A military source had told this newspaper again on Saturday that Venezuela had invaded Guyana’s air and sea space, and this had been established by using the satellite-based navigation Global Positioning System (GPS). 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 Saturday Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rudy Insanally had told this newspaper that Guyana was awaiting a report from Venezuela on the military operation it had carried out as well as the one from the joint services before any steps were taken. Insanally told Stabroek News that though the facts were still to be had, a transgression on Guyana’s territorial limits was evident. The minister emphasized that information from the ground was critical at this stage adding that the ministry was relying on the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the Guyana Police Force, both of whom had gone into the area to conduct an investigation.
Since the invasion by a 36-member military team led by a general from Venezuela last Thursday there has been 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. Last Friday Ambassador Morandy 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.”
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 River, the boundary follows a median line to its source.
Meanwhile, responding to questions from members of the media on Saturday, President Bharrat Jagdeo said that his government had formally lodged a protest and was awaiting further clarification on the issue. “The Ambassador was summoned
