Venezuela’s foreign ministry has sent a note of protest to Guyana after the government’s recent gazetting of coordinates to establish the baseline for the Essequibo River.
In a brief statement issued on Saturday, Venezuela’s Ministry of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs said Caracas rejected the contents of the regulations, which were gazetted on July 23rd and was demanding a correction.
“…the regulation places the Point 1 [7° 08 31.40” North and 58° 28’ 22.83” West], which aims to establish the western end of the straight baseline corresponding to the mouth of the Essequibo River in Venezuelan territory under dispute (sic) under the 1966 Geneva Agreement,” the Ministry statement said, while adding that a note of protest was sent on Saturday to the Guyana government demanding an immediate correction.
It also condemned what it dubbed “recurring pro-vocations and aggressions” of the Guyana government.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge on Thursday announced that the government had enacted regulations to close the lines across the mouths of the three largest navigable rivers of Guyana, the Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice rivers.
Greenidge told the National Assembly that the government had enacted the Maritime Zones (Inter-nal Waters and River Closing Baselines) Regula-tions in compliance with the United Nations Con-vention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Maritime Zones Act 2010 of Guyana.
He said that the baselines constitute a fundamental aspect of the regime of zones of jurisdiction established by the UNCLOS, since the breadth of the maritime zones under national jurisdiction is to be measured from the baselines. The baseline, he said, is also the line which establishes the outer limit of the international waters in which the state exercises its full sovereignty.
“It therefore means that the proper implementation of the baseline provisions of the Convention by coastal States through, inter alia, their national legislation, will play an important role in the achievement of an adequate balance between the maritime interests of coastal states and those of the international community,” he added.
He stressed that as a State Party to UNCLOS, Guyana has an obligation under international law, by virtue of Articles 9 and 16 of that Convention, to properly delimit its internal waters.
The note of protest comes as the latest development in the continuing border controversy between Venezuela and Guyana, which was rekindled by Venezuelan Presi-dent Nicolas Maduro issuing a decree in May claiming a large part of the Stabroek Block, where US firm ExxonMobil discovered oil recently.
Following strong objections by the David Granger-led administration as well as Colombia over the claim, Caracas issued a new decree that omitted coordinates but created defence zones which included Essequibo waters and which Venezuela could patrol.
The Granger administration has since continued its international campaign to gather support in preserving the country’s territorial integrity.
Maduro
With the handing over last week in New York of a detailed summary of the ongoing border controversy with Guyana to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a promise to establish a committee to foster the Good Officer process, Maduro seems optimistic of a meeting with President David Granger in September.
“Maduro said that Ban Ki-moon had promised to establish a General Secretariat committee that would visit Venezuela and Guyana in order to foster the Good Officer process, pursuant to the Geneva Agreement. Maduro added that those efforts could result in a meeting in September with Guyanese President David Granger, in the context of the 70th anniversary of the UN,” the Venezuelan daily El Universal reported.
There has been no word on this newest revelation from the Guyana government especially as it relates to whether it is willing to meet with Maduro to discuss the controversy.
According to El Univer-sal, President Maduro refused to discuss other diplomatic issues, such as recent tensions with Spain. He insisted that his visit to the UN headquarters was only aimed at “discussing the issue of the defense of the Venezuelan Guayana Esequiba (Essequibo), all the other topics can be discussed with the Foreign Minister (Delcy Rodríguez),”
On July 20, Foreign Minister Greenidge while speaking at the Guyana Manufacturing and Ser-vices Association Ltd midyear luncheon said that Guyana has written to Ban indicating that after 25 years of the Good Officer process in the controversy this government is looking for other mechanisms which will bring relief.
He had told this newspaper that “…our strong view, is the Geneva Convention has been a fig leaf behind which the Venezuelans have engaged, in a sense, in disruptive, negative and in the extreme in the economic warfare against Guyana and therefore we can no longer embrace the mechanism of simply appointing another Good Officer because it seems not to contain Venezuela from either taking military action or from dealing with any specific problems.”
