At a Press Association dinner last Saturday Foreign Secretary Carl Greenidge expressed his concern about the fact that the narrative of the controversy pertaining to Guyana’s border with Venezuela was being relayed to the world in a way which was “distorted and untrue.” He went on to explain that, “Venezuela or its agents have been placing pieces in our press. Such material has, for example, been inserted by a mouthpiece of Venezuelan imperialists, ostensibly an NGO called MAPA, ‘Our Sun Rises in the Essequibo’, proclaiming its right to an area of land the Government of Venezuela never governed and on which Simon Bolivar neither ever set eyes nor liberated.”
It might be noted that variations on the slogan ‘The sun rises in Essequibo’ is used by various organisations in the neighbouring state, but more particularly by the Venezuelan military as one of their daily greetings to the President, to which he replies, “In the Essequibo.” It is intended, it has been reported, to encourage the defence of ‘sovereignty.’
Well, not the sovereignty of Essequibo, as all Guyanese should know. But from the remarks of the Foreign Secretary it might appear that even sections of the press are not as au fait with the issue as they should be. It is for this reason that Mr Greenidge exhorted Guyanese reporters to take on more specialised reporting in this age of misinformation and false news.
In this regard he adverted to an image provided by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on the occasion of the 53rd anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Agreement on February 17 this year. Mr Maduro said it purported to show the agreement being signed in 1966, when in fact the photograph dated back to a meeting between the British and Venezuelans in 1949.
The Foreign Secretary did say that he had offered to brief key media personnel on the controversy, although this offer seems to have been rebuffed, and less than accurate content was being reported locally.
While this is particularly unfortunate, there is a case to be made for claiming that the government has not expended enough money or effort in informing the local population on the niceties of the matter. There are, it is true, press releases, press conferences and press statements, but in this new media world that is not enough to educate a population − as opposed to the press − about an issue which is fundamental to their existence. If significant sectors of the public were more knowledgeable on the subject, then they could challenge major inaccuracies in the media in the letter columns of newspapers.
In the days of Forbes Burnham, there was some endeavour to expose as many key personnel as possible to information concerning the border controversy, and Guyana’s moral, legal and historical right to the land space within her current frontiers. As was to be expected, there were certainly lectures for the army officer corps, but sectors like the management staff of corporations, for instance, were also addressed, while historical maps indicating Guyana’s right to her territory were produced for selected distribution by the Ministry of Information.
Everyone knew the story of the Venezuelan occupation of our half of the island of Ankoko in 1966, for example, and the attack on Eteringbang by the Venezuelans in 1970. Then there was the Protocol of Port of Spain that year, and the subsequent refusal to renew it after twelve years by President Herrera Campins, etc. One wonders how many members of the public even know where Ankoko is nowadays, let alone what its significance is. Mr Greenidge’s immediate difficulty with the media relates to the reporting in connection with the referral of the controversy to the International Court of Justice, but making available more general background to the citizenry will give a context for what they might otherwise see as fairly technical issues.
The problem is that for two decades and longer ordinary Guyanese have had no education on the subject of our western border because initially the PPP/C government regarded it as a Cold War question which would evaporate once Dr Cheddi Jagan finally came to power. It didn’t do so because the matter had taken on a life of its own in the intervening years. Subsequently, of course, the late President Hugo Chávez, under the influence of Fidel Castro, accepted that the controversy was a problem derived from the Cold War, and appeared to mellow in his responses to the matter. And now that we are back to the status quo ante where the attitude of Caracas is concerned, a lacuna exists in terms of the groundwork necessary to educate the inhabitants of this land.
In fairness to the present government, it has to be said that Burnham had it easy. While it is by no means to his credit, with the exception of the Catholic Standard and the Mirror, his government controlled the media and could therefore determine what emerged into the public arena. In addition, and most important, there was no social media with its ‘fake news’ for him to contend with.
The problem of getting our message out not just locally, but to the world at large, needs to be tackled at different levels. For many years the Venezuelans have monopolised the conversation with Latin governments, if not Spain, and have also had their scholars submit articles on the subject of our border to academic journals. In more recent times the number of these has increased, not so much one suspects, because of any special effort on the Venezuelans’ part, but because of the drive to ‘publish or perish’ and the need to cast around for subjects which might appear to the writer to be esoteric at some level, even although in this case the controversy is anything but. However, for a PhD graduate in Eastern Europe, for example, who has written on the matter, and has had a piece based largely on Venezuelan sources published in an English language journal, the story of our border has appeal.
The problem is this: if a certain view comes to predominate in the academic conversation, then it will influence governments as well as foreign media, who will turn to so-called ‘experts’ for advice, a frame of reference or an interview when the need arises. Surely Guyana, with so many scholars of standing in the Western world, could appeal to a few of them to produce articles for reputable journals on one or another aspect of the controversy so our voice is heard. It might be noted that even at the most basic level the number of news agencies and sites which refer to a ‘dispute’ over the border which stretches back to the 19th century is legion.
Within the country, of course, there are all the standard methods, with a blitz on the radio and TV, and even the distribution of pamphlets. At a higher level there is The New Conquistadors
by Shridath Rampahl, which should be distributed in schools and libraries, etc. The subject of the background to the border controversy should be on the school syllabus at some level – possibly Social Studies Grade Six Assessment – although whether it is or not is not altogether clear at present.
However, it has to be admitted that this is no longer the reading society it once was. Above all else, therefore, one would hope the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would approach identified people to go on to social media, set up websites, etc, and drown out Venezuelan misinformation and plain mischief with a regular airing of the Guyana position, and our responses to the nonsense from Caracas. If “distorted and untrue” information is being sourced from the internet by sections of the local press to be reproduced here, then it can be countered on the internet. Social media platforms especially might seem to hold a definite attraction.
