By Odeen
Ishmael
Venezuela’s
decree of May 26, 2015, projects yet another extension of that country’s claim
to Guyana’s territory. Previously, the Spanish-speaking republic had generally
restricted its spurious territorial assertion to the actual land area—except in
the declaration of a previous decree in 1968—but now that is extended into
Guyana’s maritime waters as far as the 200-mile limit in a north-easterly
direction to abut the maritime Guyana-Suriname boundary. This enlargement of
the Venezuelan claim is obviously a blatant contravention of international law
and will not be condoned in any way by the international community.
Nineteenth
century claims
In the course
of history, Venezuela has presented varying declarations of rights to Guyanese
territory. As far back as 1840, Venezuela made its first claim to all territory
west of the Essequibo River, thus asserting “ownership” of a sizeable chunk of
the then colony of British Guiana. This contention was naturally rebuffed by
the British government, but it led to a steady interchange of diplomatic
correspondence between Caracas and London in which claims and counter-claims
were expressed.
Eventually,
on February 21, 1881, in a note to the British Foreign Minister Lord Grenville,
the Venezuelan government proposed a frontier line starting from a point one
mile to the north of the Moruka River and drawn from there westward to the 60th
meridian and then running south along that meridian. This would have granted
the Barima district and an extensive part of the upper Cuyuni basin to
Venezuela; as a result, the proposal was quickly rejected by the British
government.
As diplomatic
actions continued, Venezuela contended during the early 1890s that the British
Guiana-Venezuela boundary must be drawn along the west bank of the mouth of the
Essequibo River to the junction of the Cuyuni with the Mazaruni, then along the
east bank of the Essequibo to its confluence with the Rupununi; and then
following the watershed between the Essequibo and the Berbice and Corentyne
Rivers to the frontier of Brazil.
This position
was adjusted in 1898 when Venezuela, in its case presented to the arbitral
tribunal, made modifications regarding the district immediately west of the
Essequibo River; it posited that the boundary should run from the mouth of the
Moruka River southwards to the Cuyuni, near its junction with Mazaruni, and
then along the east bank of the Essequibo to the Brazilian frontier. In other
words, Venezuela was no longer claiming a strip of land in Essequibo east of a
line stretching from the mouth of the Moruka River to the Mazaruni-Cuyuni
junction, as well as an area east of the Essequibo-Rupununi junction stretching
to the south along the watershed between the Essequibo and the Berbice and
Corentyne Rivers.
Of course,
the arbitration tribunal in 1899 rejected most of what Venezuela demanded.
However, it did grant to Venezuela part of the Barima district on the right
bank of the Orinoco River and about 5,000 square miles of territory in the
upper Cuyuni—areas the British government insisted were parts of British
Guiana.
Renewed
claims post-1962
When in 1962,
Venezuela unilaterally rejected the arbitral award of 1899, it again
resuscitated its assertion to the territory it had demanded before the
arbitration tribunal—i.e., all lands west of the Essequibo River with the
exception of the strip east of a line stretching from the mouth of the Moruka
River to the Mazaruni-Cuyuni junction.
However, by
1966, this claim was further extended to include the previously unwanted strip
and the islands in the northern part of the Essequibo River. In its note of
recognition of the independence of Guyana on May 26, 1966, Venezuela stated
that it recognized as territory of Guyana “the one which is located on the east
of the right bank of the Essequibo River, and . . . expressly reserves its
rights of territorial sovereignty over all the zone located on the west bank of
the above-mentioned river. Therefore, the Guyana-Essequibo territory over which
Venezuela expressly reserves its sovereign rights, limits on the east by the
new state of Guyana, through the middle line of the Essequibo River, beginning
from its source and on to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean.” By this note,
Venezuela was no longer insisting that its “boundary” ran along the east bank
of the middle and upper parts of the Essequibo.
It was around
this same period Venezuela occupied the Guyana half of the six-square-miles
Ankoko Island on the border Wenamu River.
Two years
later, on July 10, 1968, the escalation continued when President Raul Leoni
issued a decree which purported to extend Venezuelan sovereignty over a
twelve-mile strip of Guyana’s maritime space on the continental shelf adjacent
to the Essequibo Coast.
Venezuelan
maps, produced from 1970, began to show yet another adjustment by including the
entire area from the eastern bank of the Essequibo, including the islands in
the river, as Venezuelan territory. The “middle line” of the Essequibo, as
stated in 1966, no longer mattered. On these maps, the western Essequibo region
is labelled the “Zone in Reclamation.”
Venezuela’s
idea for “practical solution”
Despite all
these claims to Guyana’s territory, it became apparent that the Venezuelan
government knew that it had no solid grounds to stand on. This was exemplified
for the first time of June 23, 1982, when Dr. Sadio Garavini, the Venezuelan
Ambassador to Guyana, stated at a press conference at his embassy that the only
solution to the issue would involve ceding of some land by Guyana. He insisted
that his government no longer intended to demand all the land it was originally
claiming. This idea of not pursuing the territorial demand to its entirety,
thus, added a new dimension to the situation.
Actually, a
similar Venezuelan view was expressed eighteen years later. On August 7, 2000,
Oliver Jackman, the UN Secretary General’s personal representative, at a
meeting with Guyana’s foreign minister in Georgetown, stated that during a
visit to Caracas a few days before he asked President Chavez what Venezuela
meant by a “practical settlement of the controversy”—whether Guyana would have
to cede territory to Venezuela. According to Jackman, the Venezuelan president
said that Guyana did not have to cede “the whole thing” and that a solution of
the contention would involve Guyana’s cession of “part of the Essequibo
region.”
Significantly,
from 2004 until his death in March 2013, President Chavez studiously downplayed
the border issue and emphasized economic and political cooperation activities
with Guyana.
Initially,
President Nicolas Maduro continued Chavez’s policy on the controversy but this
began to change by mid-2014 as his popularity plummeted as a result of the
serious economic downturn in the country. As his political fortunes began to
totter precariously, he apparently became influenced by politically strong
sections of the military whose philosophy embraces Venezuelan expansionism.
This influence, no doubt, may be responsible for his current action on the
territorial issue with Guyana.
Violation of
the Geneva Agreement
Maduro’s
recent decree of May 2015 is thus another Venezuela’s pretense of purported
“sovereignty” over Guyana’s territory. In this instance, the smell of oil under
Guyana’s continental shelf may have caused Venezuela to breach the principle
expressed in the tenth Mosaic commandment, but in terms of international law it
is an outright violation of the Article V(2) of the tri-partite 1966 Geneva
Agreement which states explicitly: “No new claim, or enlargement of an existing
claim, to territorial sovereignty . . . shall be asserted while this Agreement
is in force, nor shall any claim whatsoever be asserted otherwise than in the
Mixed Commission.”
The Geneva
Agreement remains in force, but the Mixed Commission, established by the same
treaty, expired in 1970. But as has been seen in various occasions since 1966,
the Venezuelan authorities have demonstrated no qualms in defying the Agreement
and may continue with more violations as new situations arise in the future.
June 12, 2015
[Dr. Odeen
Ishmael, served as Guyana’s ambassador to the USA, Venezuela and Kuwait. He is
the author of The Trail of Diplomacy – the Guyana-Venezuela Border Issue (in
three volumes.)]
2005 La
Guayana Esequiba – Zona en Reclamación. Instituto Geográfico Simón Bolívar Primera Edición
Nota del
editor del blog:
Al referenciarse a la República Cooperativa de
Guyana se deben de tener en cuenta los 159.500Km2, de territorios ubicados al
oeste del río Esequibo conocidos con el nombre de Guayana Esequiba o Zona en
Reclamación sujetos al Acuerdo de Ginebra del 17 de febrero de 1966.
Territorios estos sobre los cuales el Gobierno
Venezolano en representación de la Nación venezolana se reservo sus derechos
sobre los territorios de la Guayana Esequiba en su nota del 26 de mayo de 1966
al reconocerse al nuevo Estado de Guyana:
“...por lo tanto, Venezuela reconoce como
territorio del nuevo Estado, el que se sitúa al este de la margen derecha del
río Esequibo y reitera ante la comunidad internacional, que se reserva
expresamente sus derechos de soberanía territorial sobre la zona que se
encuentra en la margen izquierda del precitado río; en consecuencia, el
territorio de la Guayana Esequiba sobre el cual Venezuela se reserva
expresamente sus derechos soberanos, limita al Este con el nuevo Estado de
Guyana, a través de la línea del río Esequibo, tomando éste desde su nacimiento
hasta su desembocadura en el Océano Atlántico...”
LA GUAYANA ESEQUIBA
http://laguayanaesequiba.blogspot.com/2008/01/la-guayana-esequiba.html
Terminología sobre cómo referenciar la
Zona en Reclamación-Guayana Esequiba.
Mapa que señala el
Espacio de Soberanía Marítima Venezolana que se reserva, como Mar Territorial mediante el Decreto Presidencial No 1152 del 09
de Julio de 1968
Entradas
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