President David Granger yesterday used his inaugural address to CARICOM Heads to denounce Venezuelan aggression against Guyana, piling pressure on the regional body to strongly condemn this country’s western neighbour whose President, Nicolas Maduro is expected at the summit today.
Declaring that gunboat diplomacy has no place in the 21st Century Caribbean, Granger used most of his address to pillory Caracas over its May 26th maritime decree that aims to swallow up the lion’s share of Guyana’s Atlantic waters.
Granger also hitched Guyana’s fate to the rest of Caricom warning that Venezuela’s hegemonic actions threatened an arc in the region stretching to its easternmost member Suriname.
Amid reports that several Caricom members which have strong ties with Caracas were trying to defuse the crisis with Guyana by having Maduro address leaders today on it, Granger asserted that Georgetown would use all diplomatic levers to have Venezuela’s spurious claims rejected.
After thanking his host, Barbadian Prime Minister Freundel Stewart for the gracious welcome, Granger waded straight into the imperative of regional integration and the `monkey’ on Guyana’s back as it approached its 50th independence anniversary.
“It was right here that it all started. Fifty years ago on 4th July, 1965, Antigua’s Vere Bird, Barbados’s Errol Barrow and Guyana’s Forbes Burnham — three busy ‘Bs’ — met here in Bridgetown. Their intuition and initiative led, five months later, to Dickenson Bay which led to the establishment of the Caribbean Free Trade Association which in turn led to Chaguaramas and the creation of the Caribbean Community on 4th July 1973. The rest is history”, he said.
Granger, who is seven weeks into his term, said that the heirs of this trio must protect against the dangers of domination and disintegration. In recent years fears have arisen here that Venezuela’s oil largesse could peel away support in Caricom for Guyana’s position.
“The task facing the Community today is to reaffirm its collective support for the principles enshrined in international law for safeguarding our territorial integrity and sovereignty and our national independence and in our charters and agreements for deepening the integration of our Community.
“Guyana, even as it approaches the 50th anniversary of its independence next year, hand in hand with its sister Barbados, is still carrying a ‘monkey on its back.’ That monkey, is the unbearable burden of an oppressive and obnoxious claim on our land and sea space”, he said, adverting to Venezuela.
He noted that CARICOM has been a source of solace and steadfast support for Guyana’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the years and added “We never needed that support more”.
He then traced decades of Venezuela’s undermining of Guyana’s development in advancing its claim to the county of Essequibo despite the 1899 arbitral award which settled the matter.
“Guyana has borne the brunt of having funding for a major hydro-electricity project blocked; of having investors intimidated; of having its citizens in border areas harassed and of having petroleum exploration vessels expelled and seized by gunboats.
“Guyana’s border with Venezuela was fixed …116 years ago. It was determined, defined, delineated and demarcated by international arbitration. Maps were drawn. Atlases were adjusted. Border markers were cast in stone. Any state that systematically, cynically and sedulously seeks to repudiate solemn international agreements and to undermine the security and sovereignty of another state must be condemned. Our national boundaries have been recognised internationally.
“Venezuela over the past 50 years, alas, has become regressive and even more aggressive. That country continues to threaten the development of Guyana, a CARICOM member state, both on land and at sea. That country, mindful, of its superior wealth and military and naval strength – and unmindful of the plight of the poor people of one of the world’s smallest and least populated states – has again resorted to intimidation and the threat of the use of force”, Granger, a historian, declared.
He added “Guyana seeks the support of its sister states in the Caribbean Community. We clamour for the succour of the Commonwealth. We yearn for the security of the United Nations and the shelter of international law to bring a peaceful end to Venezuela’s rejection of the validity of a boundary which has been defined as a ‘full, perfect and final’ settlement and which all parties, at that time, vowed to accept and respect for all time.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has presided over the good offices process in the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy is also in Barbados and will be present at the summit. Also in Barbados is Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma who on Saturday in Georgetown expressed full support for Guyana’s territorial integrity.
Granger warned that Venezuela’s known naval superiority cannot be allowed to supplant the supremacy of the law, adding “Gunboat diplomacy has no place in the 21st century Caribbean and must be condemned where ever it occurs”.
He said that Guyana wanted to assure the representatives of the international community of its adherence to international law.
“We assure the Secretary General of the United Nations; we assure the Secretary General of the Commonwealth; we assure the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States and we assure the Secretary General of the Caribbean Community, that Guyana, today and for all time, will pursue the principles of mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression; mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs and mutual cooperation for peaceful co-existence between neighbours and among states. Guyana calls on the Caribbean to condemn in the strongest terms any state that seeks to undermine these principles”, Granger said.
He warned that without the cooperation of CARICOM member states, the region risks being miniaturised and marginalized.
“We have already demonstrated the capacity to collaborate to confront some of the most challenging transnational threats. These threats have demanded that we increasingly seek regional rather than purely national responses. They form the basis of regional cooperation. Transnational threats, formidable as they are, pale in significance to a much more portentous threat – the threat to our territory, the very land and sea space on which we rely for our everyday existence.
“Our exclusive economic zones are integral to our national territory. They are essential to our survival because we depend on these waters for our economic sustenance — travel, trade, tourism, fishing and petroleum exploitation.
“Our exclusive economic zones are rich in resources. These zones represent potentially lucrative economic frontiers. Many of the exclusive economic zones of our member states are interlocked. More importantly, some have not been demarcated. This absence of maritime demarcation represents a possible source of conflict within the Community. It can also be exploited from forces external to the Community”, he said in a clear reference to Caracas.
He said that the region’s maritime zones are of economic and strategic importance.
“These waters are our common patrimony; they are ours to possess, ours to protect, ours to bequeath to posterity. We must remove any potential sources of conflict among our member states by ensuring the process of maritime delimitation in accordance with the international Law of the Sea.
“We must be prepared also to exercise absolute sovereignty over our maritime waters and resources. We must protect these resources from being invaded and annexed. We must pursue the principle of collective security which provides that a threat to any of our members represents a threat to our entire community”, Granger said.
“Guyana faces such a threat. Decree No 1787, promulgated by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, was timed to coincide with Guyana’s Independence Day on 26th May and the actual day of my inauguration as President of my country. The Decree lays claim to much of the coastline and most of the exclusive economic zone of Guyana. This Decree has dire implications for the entire Region but most particularly, the eastern tier of states – Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
“We consider the issuance of the Decree by Venezuela as an act of aggression against Guyana’s sovereignty. It is an assault on our right to access and to develop our maritime resources. We ask this Conference to affirm its solidarity with Guyana to repudiate this Decree”, he urged.
He said that Guyana has always been in the forefront of regional integration for 50 years and remains steadfast in its commitment to the regional project.
Earlier in the day, GINA said that Granger said he was prepared to meet with Maduro in Barbados with the aim of having the decree withdrawn.
He noted that if that meeting is not fruitful in terms of having Maduro withdraw the decree, his next option will be to look for support from the Commonwealth, the United Nations (UN), the Organisation of American States (OAS) and CARICOM.
ExxonMobil, on May 20 disclosed that it found a deposit of a ‘significant’ amount of oil in the Stabroek Block, about 120 nautical miles offshore Guyana. Shortly after this announcement, the maritime claim was made by Venezuela.
