The United States has again assured President Irfaan Ali that it will continue to support this country’s territorial integrity and that it holds firm to the 1899 Arbitral Award, making clear that it will not tolerate any actions taken by Venezuela not in keeping with a competent authority such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“What I wanted to assure him of, is that that we support his territorial integrity, we are not taking any actions that would compromise that,” United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said of her meeting with Presi-dent Ali, which was held during her visit here for the 46th CARICOM Heads of Government Conference.
On Monday, Thomas-Greenfield told reporters during a press conference that the US has reiterated its stance in support of this country.
The US has been calling on Venezuela to support the current territorial sovereignty of Guyana, as that country has agreed under the 1899 arbitral award, that the area in question belongs to this country and it has remained consistent that it supports Guyana.
Asked if she believed that there is a current deficiency in defence to deal with Venezuela, the US Ambassador said that Guyana’s neighbour to the west has not acted, as far as Washington was aware, on any threats and she did not want to venture into the realm of the hypothetical.
“The issue of whether there is a deficiency in defence, I think, is really hypothetical. As far as we have all seen, there has been no actions taken on the military since by Venezuela. They made threats but we have not seen any actions on their part,” she said.
“We have been clear in our support for Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as was laid out in the (arbitral award) of 1899, and that no changes in that agreement can be made without it being done by a competent entity such as the International Court of Justice and the ICJ has taken up the case,” she added.
During the meeting with Ali, the US Ambassador to the UN said that the Presi-dent “did not raise any other issues of other tangible support that might be required.”
Tensions between Guyana and Venezuela reached a boiling point last year after a Venezuelan referendum was held on December 3rd seeking the annexation of Guyana’s Essequibo. The ensuing friction led to the convening of the high-level Argyle meeting on Decem-ber 14 in St Vincent and the Grenadines, where both President Ali and President Nicolas Maduro were present and which yielded a declaration in which both countries eschewed the use of force or threat of the use of force in resolving issues between them.
Notwithstanding the Argyle Declaration, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published satellite images generated by Maxar Technologies showing reinforcements as recent as last month on Ankoko Island in the Cuyuni River. Half of Ankoko belonged to this country but was seized by Venezuela in 1966 just after Guyana gained independence.
Recent satellite imagery shows the boats arrived sometime between January 18 and 22 at Venezuela’s main Atlantic coast guard station in Guiria, which faces Trinidad and Tobago, just days ahead of the Joint Commission meeting in Brazil which had been mandated by the Argyle Declaration. It is possible, the analysis said, the intent is to further redeploy the missile boats to the small coast guard station at Punta Barima, located only 43 miles from Essequibo.
Citing the Venezuelan military buildup along several parts of the frontier with this country, US think tank, CSIS, has posited that Caracas is engaged in a carrot and stick strategy to extract concessions from Guyana even though Georgetown is adamantly pursuing a resolution of the longstanding border controversy before the World Court.
