Venezuela suffers from something of a Lewis Carroll syndrome where conducting diplomacy with this country is concerned: everything is upside down. When Caracas ratchets up the tension, it accuses Georgetown of doing so; when it is guilty of aggression, it blames Guyana for exhibiting a belligerent stance; when it refuses to follow the only logical path to a resolution of the border controversy, it says this nation is trying to block the route to a solution.
True to form, Miraflores and its foreign ministry had another hallucinatory outburst last week, but then the language of restraint does not come easily to the current presidential incumbent, who according to El Universal recently called President Mauricio Macri of Argentina a “haggard person”, “a loser”, an “imperial puppet” and a “political hitman.” This was in connection with President Nicolás Maduro’s quarrels with Mercosur, some of whose members prevented Venezuela’s accession to the pro tempore presidency of the organization. In addition, the country may be suspended from Mercosur on December 1, over its failure to follow the rules, especially those pertaining to democratic norms.
But then of recent times Mr Maduro has been having a hard time in the world at large. His Non-Aligned Movement summit fizzled out with barely a gasp to its credit and with only a handful of heads in attendance. Included among their modest number were presidents such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Hassan Rouhani of Iran, while the rest too for the most part would not be easily identified as doyens of democratic practice.
Then last week one of Venezuela’s standbys, namely, China, indicated that further funds will not be forthcoming for Caracas – hardly a vote of confidence in our neighbour’s potential for economic recovery, at least in the short term. There is still Russia, of course, the major supplier of military hardware to the Venezuelan armed forces, whose president, Vladimir Putin is to receive Venezuela’s very own peace prize – the Hugo Chávez Peace Prize for the sovereignty of the Peoples. This, the world has been informed, is in answer to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the war with the FARC guerillas. One is tempted to think that if Mr Maduro has not quite reached the bottom of the rabbit hole as yet, he is nevertheless on his way down.
But returning to Guyana, Venezuela’s initial eruption emanating from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs was timed for the anniversary of 1899 Tribunal Award – October 3. It started off in high dudgeon referring to the “117 years of the fraud suffered by our republic, executed by the action of imperial agents that stripped us of a part of our territory…” After a flurry of vituperative words directed at the former “British Empire”, the statement warmed up to the crux of what it wanted to say: “The current government of Guyana,” it began, “motivated by dark transnational interests and imperial favour for corporate centres, has taken an arbitrary, illegal and unilateral action by attempting to rebut the Geneva Accord and try to wriggle out of the Good Officer process.”
But that was not all. On Thursday we reported Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge as saying that Guyana had registered its concerns with the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over reported overflights of this country for the purposes of digital mapping, and to complete an atlas to include three-fifths of Guyana. The source of the information, the Foreign Minister said, was the state-run Venezuelan press.
The Venezuelan government was not amused, and denied the “tendentious, dangerous and unfounded” statements of Minister Greenidge, going on to express its profound concern over the “behaviour” of the Government of Guyana. Once again the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry made reference to what it regarded as this country’s attempts to impede the reactivation of the Good Officer process in accordance with the Geneva Agreement. In fact the Good Offices process is only one of the means of settlement possible under the Geneva Accord.
And Guyana’s wish to abandon the Good Offices process which produced no results in twenty-five years is the essence of Venezuela’s problem, and the reason for the apoplectic tone of some of its releases. It does not want a settlement of the controversy over the validity of the 1899 Award; it wants to continue to keep Guyana weak, impoverished and off-balance in the hope that some day a government in Georgetown will give way and cede territory. For its part, Guyana has asked the UN Secretary General to refer the nullity issue to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to bring an end to the controversy. That, for Caracas, is a worst case scenario, because it does not expect to win there.
Venezuela is therefore applying pressure all around: first on Guyana, against whom absurd allegations are being made Alice-in-Wonderland style, and whose territory might possibly appear on our neighbour’s digital maps and official atlas (given Caracas’s record, denials are not evidence in and of themselves that no overflights have taken place); second on the international community, suggesting that Guyana is not adhering to the Geneva Agreement and is behaving in a bellicose fashion; and third, on the Secretary General, so he understands the strength of feeling in Venezuela and that it will not be relinquishing the claim. In addition, of course, it wants him to see our nation as ‘irrational’ – a word it has used in its communications – hostile and confrontational.
One cannot imagine that SG Ban Ki-moon is so naïve as to waste any thought on the likelihood that Guyana could be an aggressor, given the relative sizes and military capacities of the two sides. He will understand very well that Georgetown wants a resolution, and Caracas doesn’t. The issue for him possibly is whether, considering the severe economic and political crisis that Venezuela is undergoing, it would be judicious at this point to send the matter to the ICJ. As has been reported earlier, he has announced he will give his assessment in early November; it should be noted that his term ends in December.
What this means from Guyana’s point of view is that we are in one of those phases where we can expect more consistent provocation, harassment and intimidation from our western neighbour. Even if Mr Ban Ki-moon passes the controversy on to his successor to deal with, the situation will not change for us in the interim. Apart from anything else the Venezuelan government is in such a critical situation one can never tell when or how the border controversy will be used to distract its population.
It is incumbent on us, therefore, to counter the Venezuelan propaganda onslaught which will affect the perceptions of other countries, although admittedly this has begun to some extent with President David Granger’s appearances at the UN and such like. However, one cannot help but feel that there needs to be a comprehensive plan for approaching this issue, since the world is changing fast. Even on this continent, Takuba Lodge might find that it can cultivate sympathetic ears which were plugged closed only a few years ago.
Above all else, of course, we need to educate our own population. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it has been announced, published a booklet called The New Conquistadors… to coincide with the anniversary of October 3. This is all very admirable, but has anyone outside the ministry seen it? Is it in the hands of the media, or the various ministries, or regional officials, or senior members of companies or heads of secondary schools? What is the point of booklets which no one can access to read? That said, any programme for educating the population – including the media – must encompass all forms of communication, such as social media, since this is not the literate society it once was. In short, some imagination needs to be applied to the matter so as many people as possible are reached.
And then there is the education system: why is a child-friendly version of the controversy not included in the Social Studies syllabus for the Grade Six Assessment? That particular paper is replete with all kinds of nonsense, so this would be a welcome insertion. In addition, we need to argue our case at an academic level in journals and the like; persuading the intellectuals outside our borders of the justice of our case, will have a strong, albeit indirect impact. Venezuela’s projections of its own aggressive stances onto this country would then soon strike an informed observer.
Finally, the opposition must be brought on board, representing nearly half of Guyana’s population as they do.
