President David Granger will address the National Assembly today on the controversial May 26th maritime decree by Venezuela which has rocked relations with Guyana.
Caracas issued a new decree on July 6 which may help to ease tensions.
Following its May 26th decree which sought to appropriate most of Guyana’s Atlantic waters and to have this enforced by the Venezuelan navy, Caracas has been stung by a diplomatic offensive mounted by Georgetown which has seen strong support from the Commonwealth for this country’s territorial integrity and a statement from Caricom on Sunday calling for a withdrawal of parts of the decree.
In the aftermath of the Caricom summit from July2-4 which was dominated by the decree, there had been intimations that Venezuela was prepared to take steps to limit the uproar from the maritime escapade which had also angered Colombia to the west and Suriname to the east. This appeared to have found form in the July 6th decree which has since been welcomed by Colombia. The July 6th decree is now stripped of detailed co-ordinates which had been present in the May 26th version. Importantly, in the maritime area pertaining to Guyana’s Atlantic waters: the Zones of Maritime and Island Integral Defence (Zodimain), the new decree says that the Zodimain pertains to borders “that are to be determined between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Republic of Guyana according with the Geneva Agreement of the year 1966”. This had not been contained in the May 26th decree. The Geneva Agreement is the foundation for settling the border controversy between the two countries and would therefore move the discussion back to this track as opposed to being seen as a new claim on Guyana’s territory. The new decree also deleted a reference to the mouth of the Essequibo River.
After the May 26th decree, Guyana had declared that Venezuela had essentially ended the quest for a settlement of the controversy under the auspices of the United Nations and that Guyana would now move for a juridical settlement. This sentiment was conveyed by President Granger to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when the two met on the sidelines of the Caricom summit in Barbados last week.
On Monday, the same day on which the new decree was issued, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro addressed the country’s legislature and announced that Caracas’ envoy here was being recalled for consultations and relations with Guyana would be reviewed. He had also accused Granger of unacceptable language against Venezuela. The belligerent tone in the legislature appeared to be cover for the issuing of the new decree.
Venezuela’s May 26th decree came days after US oil giant ExxonMobil confirmed a possible large oil deposit in Guyana’s waters. These waters were encompassed by the May 26th decree and had never been the subject of any prior claim by Venezuela. Analysts noted that Venezuela is firmly set against Guyana tapping its petroleum potential and has interfered in this area for decades.
Speaking to reporters at his weekly post-cabinet meeting yesterday, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said that the issue was discussed at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting and the President informed of his intention to address the nation. The President will also inform the nation of Guyana’s response to the issue locally and internationally and to the statements made by Maduro.
Georgetown has said that the Decree of May 26 was a “baseless and shameless” bid to usurp Guyana’s territory and a “flagrant violation” of international law.
In his inaugural address to Caricom Heads at the summit Granger had underlined the threat that the maritime decree posed to the rest of the region and had accused Venezuela of aggression against Guyana.
“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.
