Dear Editor,
Confusion reigns! Or at least, so it would seem to me to be the case. Whether it is a bout of pre-election jitters, having signed an internationally-supervised accord with the political opposition, or euphoria over the clutch of economic sanctions lifted by the US – the same country whose military it accuses of heading an attack from Guyana against it – the steady stream of communication on the territorial controversy emanating from Venezuela is likely to leave the reasonable man or woman in a state of bewilderment.
I have formed this opinion after perusing the document issued by the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, and which was welcomed by none other than H.E. President Nicolas Maduro, which lists the five questions that it is intended will be used to plumb the Venezuelan vox populi through the medium of a referendum planned for 3 December. The question which apparently is causing the most hand-wringing in various quarters is number five, when in fact for me, it is the one that Guyana might perhaps find most welcome.
After a careful review of the questions in both the English and Spanish languages, for the avoidance of doubt, question five asks: ‘Do you agree with the creation of the Guayana Esequiba state and the development of an accelerated plan for the comprehensive care of the…population of that territory.., consequently incorporating said state on the map of Venezuelan territory?’
To make sure that nothing has been lost in translation, the reference to the ‘creation of the Guyana Esequiba state…’ is faithful to the use of the phrase ‘la creation del estado Guayana Esequiba…’ in the Spanish original version. The English language definition of the word “creation” is “the action or process of bringing something into existence”.
You can only bring something into existence which is not yet in existence; therefore, by its own admission, it is submitted that question five amounts to Venezuela now being on record as acknowledging that Essequibo legally constitutes part of the state of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. This has been the case as depicted on internationally recognized maps since 1905, to which Venezuela had agreed, and certainly since May 1966. In this perspective, question five continues about ‘…consequently incorporating said state on the map of Venezuelan territory’, clearly confirming that up until now, it does not form part of the land territory of our neighbour to the West. Venezuela must thereby be seeking to establish a new principle of international law: annexation by referendum!
The confusion across the border is also manifested by the reference in question five to ‘the development of an accelerated plan for the comprehensive care of the current and future population of that territory….’ Somebody should remind our friends across our Western border that the reason why more than 20000 Venezuelan nationals fled to Guyana as economic migrants – many of them located in the Essequibo – is because of
their government’s inability in the first place to comprehensively care for them and their families. As life in Venezuela had become for the majority a daily struggle for basic food items, toiletries, medicine, decent work, why would they now voluntarily want that same “caring” administration to again take comprehensive charge of their welfare!?
As a general observation it should be noted that nothing that is proposed in question five is ‘in accordance with the Geneva Agreement and international law’. A propos the other questions, they include equally intriguing and/or absurd aspects which only serve to kerfuffle the uninitiated reader.
Armed with this public relations coup about Venezuela’s position as it relates to the Essequibo, Guyana should now hasten with all convenient speed to use this to its advantage, to show all who are interested the real reason why third-party adjudication before an internationally recognized forum such as the ICJ amounts to a nightmare scenario for Caracas. In this connection, it is commendable that here, the bipartisan Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations is about to embark on an ‘aggressive public relations campaign with opposition and government being involved’. This ‘strong PR campaign’ will target ‘the wider society… throughout the country’. It is to be expected that such a campaign would employ all available technology and communication tools and platforms.
However, I respectfully submit that this campaign should be simultaneously and strategically mounted offshore with important stakeholders with whom solidarity and support for Guyana’s unequivocal position need to be reinforced. This would include the Caribbean and Latin America, which had previously declared the region a Zone of Peace, and indeed the wider international community, both bilaterally in capitals where Guyana fortuitously still has resident Ambassadors, as well as the membership of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions in which we are members. In this regard, the provisions of Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter on the Pacific Settlement of Disputes should inform this campaign going forward.
Your faithfully,
Neville J. Bissember
