The week before last former President Bharrat Jagdeo opened a little window onto the nature of the negotiations his government had been pursuing to resolve the boundary controversy with Venezuela. He told the media that during the PPP/C’s tenure five possible solutions had been under consideration by his government, although he mentioned only one of these, namely conceding maritime space to Venezuela. This would have entailed, he said, giving Venezuela a channel out to the sea, and the maritime boundary would have started off “the Orinoco [River] just on the border.”
It is interesting that Mr Jagdeo did not specify precisely where in the area of the Orinoco the terminal point of the maritime boundary would be in this scenario. The terminus of the land border is Punta Playa, and any maritime boundary, therefore, should take that as its starting point. Since the former head of state was not forthcoming in this regard, one is left to wonder whether his government was toying with the idea of ceding a strip of territory as well in order to create this “channel.”
Venezuela’s agitation for a concessionary strip for the purposes of what was claimed was access to the sea from the Orinoco, goes back at least as far as the 1970s and the days of President Carlos Andrés Pérez, who said that this would settle the issue. Then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham was not persuaded. In fact he coined a term for the consequences it would produce, labelling it the “salami effect,” since after Venezuela had taken one slice, she would be back for more. The same argument applies even if we are talking only about a “channel” and not a concessionary strip as well.
Most Guyana governments since then have adopted Burnham’s position. As Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge pointed out last week, Venezuela’s record of adhering to international agreements is very poor, since it was only after the passage of 63 years that Caracas challenged the 1899 Award, and it certainly could not be trusted to behave any better in current circumstances.
It might be added that even if a given government in Caracas was sincere about adhering to a treaty relating to a channel and/or a strip, there could be no guarantee that some future government would not reject it, on the grounds that their predecessors in office had sold the Venezuelan nation down the river, so to speak. In any case, if any concessions, however apparently minor, were made to the 1899 Award in particular, it would automatically be undermined, and if our western neighbour did come back to demand more, it would have lost its sanctity since we ourselves would have already subverted it.
It is a pity that Mr Jagdeo did not inform himself better on boundary matters, otherwise he would have known what Mr Ralph Ramkarran explained to the public in his column last Sunday, viz, that “Venezuela already has innocent passage to the Atlantic under the Law of the Sea Convention, even though it is not signatory, and doesn’t need a ‘maritime’ channel.”
Fortunately for this nation President David Granger has made it clear that under his administration there would be no compromise on the integrity of our border. “We cannot sell out. We cannot give away. We cannot offer the adversary any corridor or any passage,” a release from the Ministry of the Presidency quoted him as saying last week.
Information on the negotiations relating to the maritime channel was not the only unsettling thing Mr Jagdeo had to say. He also queried whether the current administration’s strategy for a juridical settlement of the controversy was available at all, and if it was, whether it represented the best option. For the past quarter century Venezuela and Guyana have been utilising the Good Officer process under the auspices of the United Nations in an attempt to arrive at a resolution of the controversy, but it has produced no result. Venezuela has indicated it would like to continue on this route, but Guyana, as mentioned earlier, is now seeking a juridical settlement.
Mr Jagdeo’s publicly expressed concern about whether the UN Secretary-General could make the decision to send the controversy to the World Court, was answered clearly by Mr Ramkarran last Sunday in the affirmative. It was also evident from what was said in his column that Venezuela’s acquiescence was not required for Mr Ban Ki-moon to refer the controversy to The Hague.
Mr Jagdeo’s opposition to a recourse to the ICJ is in any case a little strange, considering that it was not this government which first publicly advocated following this avenue, but the last PPP/C administration under then President Donald Ramotar. It was former Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett who mentioned it at her end-of-year press conference last December, thereby revealing to the citizenry that administration’s thinking on the matter. In view of what Mr Jagdeo said, one can only infer that he was not in agreement with Mr Ramotar’s approach.
As a general observation the impression is being conveyed that Mr Jagdeo does not appear to be receiving briefings from very knowledgeable sources. If that is so, it might be in his interest to remedy this deficiency, since the opposition will have to play a part in the construction of a national position.
It fell to Mr Greenidge last week by implication to answer Mr Jagdeo and put the case for going to the World Court, and what he had to say would certainly have persuaded all rational people. However, he introduced a novel and perhaps puzzling element, first proposed publicly by Professor Duke Pollard in a letter to the editor of this newspaper, namely, that Guyana should seek a legal opinion from the ICJ first. He said that it would only be advisory, but that the world would see that Venezuela’s claim was not supported.
One could argue that it would not be in Guyana’s interest to pursue an advisory opinion if she intends to seek a juridical settlement; Venezuela would go to great lengths not to end up in The Hague after the handing down of such an opinion, and as such, a resolution would be further away than ever. So what, therefore, would be the advantage of it?
The Foreign Minister had something curious to say which might have bearing on this question, and which echoed Mr Jagdeo at one level and contradicted Mr Ramkarran. He was quoted as saying, “If, for example, as we are suggesting the SG [UN Secretary-General] puts to the court ‘give us an opinion on this matter’, the court could do so without the agreement of Venezuela. If it is, however, that you are asking them to deal with a matter of substance…as I understand, Venezuela’s concurrence will be required.”
There are two immediate possibilities to account for this discrepancy: one is that there is a disagreement between the lawyers about how to interpret the various legal instruments having bearing on the case – although it must be said that to a layperson’s eye Mr Ramkarran’s explication seems persuasive enough – and the other is that at a practical level (as opposed to a legal one) the Secretary-General feels he would need to secure the concurrence of Venezuela before he could refer the controversy to the ICJ. Whatever the case, the public – and no doubt Mr Jagdeo as well ‒ would appreciate some clarification; after all, Mr Ramkarran was Guyana’s facilitator in the Good Offices process for many years, and is therefore no stranger to the issues involved.
