Dear Editor,
“The Secretary General praised the willingness of Presidents Granger and Maduro to uphold their countries’ tradition of dialogue while a path toward resolution of the controversy is crafted that will be beneficial to both countries and their peoples.”
The foregoing is an excerpt from the statement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon following his meeting with Presidents Granger and Maduro during last year’s UN General Assembly.
At that time, and even now, it remains to me unclear what the Secretary General means by “while a path toward resolution of the controversy is crafted that will be beneficial to both countries and its peoples”. How would the resolution of the controversy be beneficial to the two countries and their peoples other than through some new arrangement(s) through which Venezuela gets something? The evidence which would be presented in the judicial process will certainly be in Guyana’s favour since Guyana’s position is firmly rooted in international law and therefore would have the current demarcations remaining intact.
However, there continues to be a school of thought in some circles that shared or joint exploitation of the resources of the Essequibo region including its maritime space would represent “a path toward resolution of the controversy that will be beneficial to both countries and their peoples.” This path is unacceptable and such thinking must be countered in no uncertain terms.
At a press conference at the UN last year President Granger said that it could not be lost on the Secretary General that the resources of the Essequibo region and the waters off its coast belong to Guyana and will be developed for the benefit of Guyanese.
It will soon be one year since the UN Secretary General has had this issue before him to rule on a mechanism for resolving this controversy. Yesterday (Wednesday), I was invited to be a part of a round table discussion on the Venezuelan controversy with Guyana and again the suggestion of joint or shared exploitation of the resources, especially Guyana’s oil and gas resources emerged as a popular school of thought, if not argument in support of ending the controversy.
I posed the question whether one can expect Ban Ki-moon to rule on a mechanism before he leaves office at year’s end and the answer was a resounding no. None of the participants expect him to do so and a majority was confident he wouldn’t and perhaps is of the view he shouldn’t.
It is said that former US Vice President Dick Cheney’s internal code name for the Iraq war was “Operation Iraqi Liberation”…OIL. Notwithstanding the movement toward green energy, oil and gas will remain critical commodities in the conduct of international relations and geopolitics.
So what does this mean for Guyana? In my view Guyana must continue to push ahead with the development of our oil industry but we must be cognizant of the geopolitics associated with this industry, particularly against the backdrop of what future governments of Venezuela and the United States may turn out to be.
At yesterday’s forum maps of Guyana and Venezuela were mounted. The Venezuelan map did not have the ‘Zona Reclamacion’ wording. From my reading it seemed that the word Venezuela was spread right across the map to include the area that previously would have been identified as the “zone to be reclaimed”. If my reading is accurate, this map suggests that Venezuela has ‘taken back’ what is not theirs.
It is clear that Venezuela is relentless in maintaining its claim. It is also clear that the opposition in Venezuela and the Venezuelan diaspora is convinced that the claim is valid and must be pursued. This was clear during the forum. I must therefore once again point to the need for Guyana to intensify its public outreach efforts to help shape public opinion in its favour. It is time that President Granger met with the editorial board of the New York Times, Washington Post and other influential dailies and that our embassies, consulates and diaspora organizations reach out to various organizations such as the Council for the Americas not merely to inform and educate various audiences as to invalidity of the Venezuelan claim, but to demonstrate the seriousness of this issue and the negative impact it potentially has for the future development of our country and the quality of life of Guyanese.
Editor, the last time I shared information about the thinking of some influential and respected Venezuelans expressed at a forum in New York earlier this year, one of your bloggers characterized my letter as “treasonous”. That characterization was outrageous. What I am doing here is sharing information about the thinking of key personalities on the Venezuela issue with the hope that it might help Guyana shape its own strategy to have this issue resolved once and for all, in its favour.
Yours faithfully,
Wesley Kirton
