On Tuesday, President David Granger reprised last year’s appeal to the UN General Assembly in relation to the border controversy with Venezuela, and accused that country of obstructing Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s efforts for a final resolution. In elegant language he described the nature of the “unworthy” claims against our land and sea space, and the threat they represented to this country’s security.
The President told the gathering that he had placed hope in the fact that the process for a final resolution lay in the hands of the Secretary General, but that “Venezuela, for a full year since I spoke has stalled by every means as it intensified its aggression against Guyana and thwarted all … efforts to pursue a way forward…” This was said in the context that this country was ready to place the controversy before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for a final determination, and that the Geneva Agreement of 1966 to which Venezuela was committed as a signatory placed the decision in the hands of the UN Secretary General to choose the means of settlement. Included in those means is judicial settlement.
A juridical decision from The Hague on the validity of the 1899 Award which finally settled our western boundary and which Venezuela has dishonestly claimed is null and void, has always been Guyana’s best option for a route out of the controversy; however, Caracas has resisted that route for decades. The reason, as has been observed by various commentators before, is that our western neighbour doesn’t want a final resolution at all. The strategy is to maintain pressure on Guyana so that at some point a government in Georgetown, either out of weariness, impoverishment or both, will cede some territory. It is a credit to all our governments of whatever political persuasion that they have not been prepared to countenance this since Venezuela first raised the nullity issue in the United Nations in 1962.
As an extension to their primary strategy, Caracas has put every impediment in the way of Guyana’s development, using her influence to illegally block major foreign investment in Essequibo over the decades. The idea is to keep this country poor, for the simple reason that in that condition it will be more susceptible to intimidation and less able to resist Venezuela’s threats as well as periodic blandishments. At no time was that more evident than following the sinking of an oil well by ExxonMobil in the waters offshore Demerara, not, it might be noted, Essequibo, although the block granted to the company – the Stabroek Block – extends well into Essequibo waters.
The possibility that Guyana might become an oil producer (the find is substantial, the nation has been informed) and be able to place her economy on a stable footing, triggered an irrational reaction in Miraflores, which issued a maritime decree claiming control of this country’s Essequibo waters in May last year. Its coordinates were amended somewhat subsequently because they impinged on the territorial waters of other nations, but there was no revision as far as our maritime space was concerned. This decree has no more credibility than does the territorial claim, and it is not internationally recognized; it is just another bullying weapon retrieved from our neighbour’s bottomless arsenal.
As far as the UN Secretary General’s dealings with the border issue are concerned, it was twenty-five years ago that a Good Officer was appointed under his auspices. The last Good Officer, Norman Girvan, died in 2014, and no one has been identified to replace him because Guyana indicated that it no longer wanted to pursue that road after it had produced no results. It was in fact the last government, not this one, which first indicated dissatisfaction with the Good Officer process, and raised publicly the possibility of seeking a juridical settlement. In July 2015, Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge repeated clearly for the benefit of the public that Guyana did not want to return to the Good Offices process, and had written Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to this effect.
Venezuela, of course, is happy with the Good Officer arrangement and had called on the Secretary General to appoint someone to succeed the late Mr Girvan. The process is just a convenient way for Caracas to frustrate any move to a resolution, while giving the appearance that something is happening.
Technically speaking under the Geneva Agreement, the UN Secretary General does not need Venezuela’s assent to refer the controversy to The Hague, although up to this point Secretaries General have sought the accord of both sides on the matter of finding a means of moving forward. It seems that Guyana wants SG Ban Ki-moon to decide on a juridical resolution, whether Venezuela agrees or not; however, it looks as if he has taken the route of first seeking the concurrence of the government in Caracas in this regard.
It is difficult to know whether SG Ban Ki-moon (not, one suspects, the boldest of men), is likely at this stage to make a decision in defiance of Venezuela’s strongly held view. For one thing, he is nearing the end of his term, and with crises in other parts of the world besetting him, he might not opt for what he regards as too adventurous a path in this issue when it could potentially affect his legacy.
Venezuela is after all in internal crisis, and a referral of the controversy to the ICJ would cause an outcry in that country, and could potentially have unpredictable consequences. The SG, therefore, may be reluctant to take any decision which might even conceivably (although not necessarily) lead to further destabilization of the situation.
All that notwithstanding, however, it is good that the Head of State said what he did at the podium of the General Assembly, and that it was done in such a persuasive and sophisticated way. It is an opportunity for a small country which has only very limited representation in foreign capitals, to broadcast its message, and sensitise the representatives of nations who might otherwise know nothing about the controversy to the challenges which Guyana faces from an acquisitive and truculent neighbour.
On that note too, it was commendable that our Ambassador to Caracas, Ms Marilyn Cheryl Miles, addressed the Non-Aligned Summit in Margarita, Venezuela, on the border controversy last weekend. The summit was nothing more than a damp squib, if only because so few heads put in an appearance, and those who did tended to be left-wing associates of President Nicolás Maduro. Nothing daunted, Ambassador Miles quoted to the participants the words of the Caricom heads of government from their last meeting, when they diplomatically exhorted the Secretary General “to exercise urgently his authority under the 1966 Geneva Agreement for a choice of option that would bring the controversy to a definitive and judicial conclusion…”
As an aside it might be mentioned that among the listeners was the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, whose country is a member of Alba ‒ an organization created by the late Hugo Chávez ‒ and by definition a supporter of President Maduro. If nothing else it is symptomatic of the success Venezuela has had in undermining Caricom, and underscores the need for this country to continue to make its case at every appropriate international forum which presents itself.
