There seems to be no end to the Cuyuni River saga. “They have no accountability or anything here,” one resident of the area told this newspaper last week. He was referring to the alleged harassment and robbery of Guyanese miners, shopkeepers and residents of the Upper Cuyuni by the notorious Sindicatos gang and the Venezuelan National Guard, seemingly without the Guyanese authorities intervening. At one stretch the Cuyuni River as far as the mid-point of the Wenamu River separates Guyana from Venezuela, and since Guyana’s independence Caracas has put pressure on this portion of the frontier seeing it as a weak point in this country’s perimeter. When a boundary is formed by a river it is often the case that the division between the states on either side will be a median line down the waterway, or if not, a thalweg, that is to say the main navigable channel or sometimes the deepest one. The Cuyuni, however, is relatively unusual in that the whole river belongs to Guyana, so that whenever a Venezuelan steps into a boat to sail on it, he is already in our territory. The Wenamu River, for example, which also separates Guyana from Venezuela and is a tributary of the Cuyuni, does have a median line boundary.
Under international convention it is customary to allow ordinary citizens from Venezuela to go about their everyday business without hindrance on a river like the Cuyuni, and Guyana has always been accommodating in this regard. However, members of a military entity such as the Venezuelan National Guard are supposed to seek permission from the Guyana authorities before embarking on the river. No Guyanese citizen will be surprised to learn that they have never done so. On the contrary, at some periods they have been particularly blatant about asserting their control of it, treating it as their country’s private waterway. In 2015, to cite one instance, they used military boats to move troops between the township of San Martín and the Venezuelan-occupied segment of the island of Ankoko.
And where Ankoko itself is concerned, under the terms of the 1899 Award, that was divided between Venezuela and Guyana, but following independence here it was seized by the neighbouring state and militarised; it has never been returned. In 1970, on the eve of the declaration of Republic here Venezuelan soldiers without provocation opened fire on the Guyanese bank, targeting military, police and civilian structures indiscriminately. The firing continued off and on into the early morning of February 23rd before coming to a halt. The instructions to the Guyanese were not to return fire, although they were ordered to defend against any intrusions onto Guyanese soil. Exactly what the Venezuelans had in mind as an end game was not clear; perhaps they were thrown by the fact that our military did not return fire but just waited for them to cross the river and land before reacting.
Five years later a platoon of Venezuelan soldiers appeared in the Paruima area, which is miles inside Guyana territory. They later claimed it was in response to rumours that the Guyanese military and police were holding two missing Venezuelan soldiers. And there were other intrusions into our land space in later years, including the shooting to death of a Guyanese citizen by the Venezuelan military on Eteringbang landing in 2006. The following year there was the destruction of Guyanese dredges in the Cuyuni River, again by Venezuelan soldiers, which Caracas defended by saying it was in their territory.
There have also been a number of overflights by military jets in the Cuyuni area, one of them at the instigation of the late president, Hugo Chávez, but the most recent occurred only two years ago. On that occasion two Soviet-made Sukhoi SU 30 fighter jets circled over Eteringbang at what was described as a “threatening 1,500-foot altitude” in yet another infringement of Guyana’s sovereignty.
The catalogue of incidents of one kind or another is far too long to be recited here, but the very small sample given above supplies a general historical background to what is happening now. What Stabroek News has been told is that for the past six years or so the situation had been such that some people had been forced to relocate from the area, while those who remained had to fend for themselves, despite the presence of the GDF and police at Eteringbang. We were informed that there were four checkpoints sited on the Venezuelan bank between Akarabisi and Eteringbang, and at every one Guyanese boats would have to stop and allow the National Guard or the Sindicatos to examine their vessels. They would then have to pay them off, depending on what they were transporting, for example, $2,000 for a drum of fuel and food or other supplies.
It first has to be said that paying bribes to the National Guard, at least, has been fairly standard practice in the past. Guyanese would buy cheap Venezuelan fuel in place like San Martín and would pay off the sellers and the National Guard to be allowed to take it to their mining operations. The National Guard on the Colombia border in particular, acquired such a reputation for corruption that Hugo Chávez removed them from all frontier areas and replaced them with the regular military. For a variety of reasons they are now back, along with the armed thugs, the Sindicatos. President Maduro is allowing them to operate in the mining regions in Venezuela, and in the case of the Guyana frontier it suits his purposes to have them there. Their criminality and depredations in our mining sector allows for a blurring of the frontier.
One person related to us how he narrowly escaped serious injury after the Sindicatos opened fire on a boat he was in, presumably because it did not stop at their checkpoint. There was a member of the GDF in the vessel at the time, and he returned fire. We were told that GDF ranks were shot at the following day, and that they returned fire. The same resident quoted above told this newspaper, “They don’t have anybody at all who looks after this area, who checks about things that happening in this area. Apparently, they give up on this area or something. I don’t really understand what’s going on.” He went on to say that there was need for serious intervention, because the situation had been like this for years, and it was only getting worse.
Region Seven Commander Dion Moore was not in accord with this version of events. In March this year when similar complaints had been put to him he had responded that the security issue remained under control, although one resident to whom Stabroek News had spoken vehemently disagreed. This time he once again maintained that the situation remained under control and that the police and GDF had joint patrols. He admitted there had been two incidents, but that no others had been reported. “We could also speak on what we have as a fact, but based upon when we patrol and what we recognize there has not been any other incident other than what is reported and what we know about,” he was quoted as saying. As for the Sindicatos, he said that to his knowledge they did not come across and terrorize Guyanese, neither did they do so on the water.
Clearly there is a major difference of opinion here, and that difference relates to the facts of the situation. Given the history of the area, the criminal attributes of the Sindicatos, and the fact that the Guyana authorities have traditionally shied away from confronting Venezuelan intimidation of their citizens, it would be very surprising if the account from the residents did not correspond to the truth. One wonders when the last time was that Commander Moore got out of his office chair and took himself to Eteringbang to talk to residents and shopkeepers there as well as to the miners in the Cuyuni and Wenamu to get first-hand accounts of what is going on. Periodic joint patrols are no guarantee of safety for the Guyanese who live there.
Of course his problem would be that he cannot fly in at the moment, because the airstrip at Eteringbang which has been under reconstruction for what must seem like an eternity to residents, still has not been completed. That puts them under greater stress, because it forces them to use the river far more than they would normally be inclined to do in order to bring in supplies. Earlier this year Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill had given the assurance that the work would be finished by July. Well July has come and gone. The GDF was asked to undertake the work, so is it that they have been incompetent, or has there been some hold-up involving the private suppliers of materials? It is about time the public was told. A badly executed contract is no more acceptable in the interior than it is on the coast.
The authorities need to investigate what is going on with some urgency. They cannot sit back just because the validity of the 1899 Award is with the ICJ. Whatever the outcome, Caracas will want to obfuscate clear lines of division, and the easiest place for them to do that is the Cuyuni frontier. This time, Guyana cannot claim it does not have the resources to reinforce sovereignty over its own territory, and protect the citizens who live within its boundaries.