Last week Venezuela dominated the headlines once again. On Monday that country submitted its counter-memorial to the ICJ in relation to the case filed by Guyana six years ago seeking the Court’s decision on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award. Venezuela has consistently rejected the jurisdiction of the ICJ in this matter and there was no certainty, therefore, that it would submit a counter-memorial at all. As it was Caracas did so on the very last day permissible under the Court’s strict timeline and Guyana was quick to welcome Venezuela’s participation in the proceedings.
There is, however, a possible caveat, since according to President Nicolás Maduro, Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez and an official statement from the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Venezuela’s filing of “the document” does not imply consent or recognition of the jurisdiction of the Court in the “dispute” over Essequibo, nor of the decision it might make in the matter. It could only be wondered, therefore, what the dozens of Venezuelan boxes unloaded from a van outside the World Court building on April 8th were all in aid of. However, Venezuelan authorities on international affairs to whom Tal Cual spoke expressed the view that with the presentation before the Court Venezuela had implicitly recognised its authority, and so the assumption had to be that the delivery of documents indeed constituted submission of a counter-memorial.
The same authorities adverted to the fact that the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry had not provided details of what had been submitted, so that this would only be known when the ICJ published them on its website. Following this, it was said, the judges would go on to study the documents. Prof Lauren Caballero was quoted as saying: “There are about 65 or 70 volumes [which Vice-President Rodríguez took to The Hague], so it is not known how long it will take to publish them, and I am very concerned that this is a measure to flood the ICJ with documents to torpedo and delay the process.” Conversely, he recognised there may be a possibility that the government had met “with serious people, who have lately kept a very low profile on the subject, who have prestige from the point of view of the law.”
Whatever the case where that is concerned, when in The Hague Vice-President Rodríguez behaved less like a lawyer (which she is by training) and more like an actor in a farce. There she was photographed entering the Court building ostentatiously clutching a copy of Raphael Trotman’s From Destiny to Prosperity, which she said revealed how Guyana intended to commit a “new crime 125 years later” to dispossess Venezuela of territory that historically belonged to it. In concert with her government’s official statement, she alleged that Guyana, the United States and ExxonMobil had taken the case to the ICJ in violation of the Geneva Agreement, and that the oil company had sponsored and financed Guyana’s unilateral action.
There was also a denunciation of the “lobbying” done in the UN on the matter by Guyana, which had been helped by the “imperial diplomacy of the US.”
And in case any Guyanese is curious as to where in Mr Trotman’s quite slender work this seedy story can be found, the answer is that it can’t. The government in Caracas in hallucinatory fashion has seized on an appendix where the author defends against critics who said that an US$18 million signing bonus received from ExxonMobil for a new agreement should have gone into the Consolidated Fund instead of an account in the Bank of Guyana. This was done, said Mr Trotman, in order that US$15 million of this sum could be earmarked to pay lawyers should the UN Secretary General refer the controversy to the ICJ.
All that can be said is that if this is indicative of the quality of the Venezuelan case, then it will not be taken very seriously in The Hague. But of course this inanity is not for legal purposes; it is just one element in a noisy and insistent political campaign directed at the outside world to try and ensure that the warped Venezuelan view drowns out the truth.
If the excitement was centred on the Netherlands on Monday, the following day it had shifted to New York, where the UN Security Council met in closed session. This meeting took place at the request of President Irfaan Ali who had asked it to address the matter of the promulgation of a law in Venezuela seeking to annexe Guyana’s Essequibo region. This law not only threatens this country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, thereby violating international law, but also breaches the provisional orders issued by the ICJ on December 1st last year prohibiting Venezuela from acting to interfere with Guyana’s control of the region pending its final ruling on the controversy.
We reported sources as saying that this country received unanimous support from the Security Council, one of whom told Stabroek News that the members “reaffirmed respect for the fundamental principles of international law including peaceful resolution of disputes. They also applauded and encouraged ongoing regional efforts. The majority of members referred to and commended the Argyle agreement. The majority of members also referred to the matter being considered in the ICJ and called for the parties to abide with the provisional measures ordered by the Court.”
Another unnamed official was quoted as saying, “There was no dissent in support for Guyana by both P5 [five permanent members with veto powers] and E10 members [non-permanent members]…” of the UN Security Council, and all members were said to have expressed concern about the escalating tensions between Venezuela and Guyana “and called for the matter to be resolved through peaceful means.”
Venezuela was invited to attend, and her UN representative, Mr Samuel Moncada, gave the Venezuelan press an account of proceedings completely at variance with what the Guyanese press had been told by officials here. He was quoted as saying, “The Security Council realized that Guyana’s position is not very well founded,” and that the delegation “prevented Guyana from imposing its false version of the Essequibo …” He went on to say dramatically, “imagine if we hadn’t been there,” because otherwise Guyana “would have tried to convince the Security Council that the entire territory of the Essequibo is theirs and that we want to take away two-thirds of it.”
If Venezuela’s intentions were not so genuinely avaricious that comment would raise a laugh on this side of the Cuyuni. However, nothing daunted, Mr Moncada continued in like vein: “[T]hey accuse us of wanting to invade” because “we have nothing else to do,” he was quoted as saying, going on to remark that this “false matrix” was supported by some members. Why he thought that any sane person would believe that anyone who passed a law to annexe someone else’s territory did not have it in mind to occupy it at some point is difficult to comprehend.
It is clearly the case, Mr Moncada notwithstanding, that the Security Council was probably unanimously in favour of the peaceful resolution of disputes and respect for international law. After all, even Russia, while it has annexed portions of Ukraine, did so following its occupation of those areas, not before. That said, one wonders if the Guyanese public has been given a complete account about what happened in the Security Council. It is notable, for example, that no official statement has been issued, suggesting, perhaps, that there was not complete unanimity in all the capitals about every issue which was raised, the general one apart.
As mentioned above one of our sources, for example, alluded to the “majority of members” (not all) referring to the matter being considered by the ICJ and calling for the parties to abide by the provisional measures ordered by the Court. The jurisdiction of the ICJ in the matter was surely something which Mr Moncada would have got his teeth into, so was it possible that some members hewed nearer to a Venezuelan line in this matter? After all, Russia and Venezuela are very close, and even China, while it has oil investments here, is nevertheless Venezuela’s largest creditor by far. The other three permanent members would have supported Guyana’s position unequivocally. Perhaps Takuba Lodge, if only unofficially, could provide a more detailed account of what happened; after all where an issue like this is concerned and Guyana has right on its side, the government should trust its citizens, so they have an
understanding of how different countries are responding.
What can be depended on is that in the two to four years it might take for the ICJ to come to a decision, and given the instability of Venezuela’s internal political situation, all kinds of things might happen for which this country would need to be prepared. At a minimum last Tuesday was probably not the last time we might have to have recourse to the Security Council.
