President
David Granger addressing Parliament yesterday.
Guyana’s plan
to deal with the Venezuela issue in the short term is to have all threats
withdrawn and afterwards seek a permanent juridical solution under
international law.
Addressing
Parliament for the second time within recent weeks, President David Granger,
yesterday also urged the support of the National Assembly as Guyana defend its
right to exist, its right to development, its sovereignty and territorial
integrity.
His calls
would be without the Opposition, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, which
only announced its Members of Parliament on Wednesday. It is unclear when that
party, which lost on May 11th after 23 years in power, would be taking up their
Parliamentary seats.
Granger’s
address to Parliament also comes in wake of recent attempts by neighbouring
Venezuela to claim over 150,000 km² of Guyana’s land-space and a significant
part of the Atlantic Ocean. The country’s navy had started patrolling in
Guyana’s waters.
Earlier this
week too, the Venezuelan leader addressed his National Assembly calling for
unity.
“Guyana will
continue to pursue a wide range of diplomatic options as its first line of
defence. Guyana remains resolute in defending itself against all forms of
aggression. We remain wedded to the ideal of peace. We have never, as an
independent state, provoked or used aggression against any other nation. We
have never used our political clout to veto development projects in another
country,” Granger stated.
The Head of
State made it clear that Guyana never discouraged investors willing to invest
in another country.
“We have
never stymied development of another nation state. We do not expect, nor will
we condone, any country attempting to do the same to us.”
Insisting
that Guyana wants Caribbean to be a zone of peace, Granger found it
preposterous that this country could be aggressive to Venezuela as was claimed
earlier this week by President Nicolas Maduro.
BIGGER
VENEZUELA
“Guyana has
no interest or intention to be aggressive towards Venezuela, a country of
912,050 km2, more than four times the size of Guyana; a country with a
population of more than forty times that of Guyana; a country with armed forces
— the National Bolivarian Armed Forces — FANB – with more than twenty times as
many members as Guyana’s Defence Force. How can Guyana launch an aggression
against Venezuela?”
Granger was
firm that the Government of Guyana now expects the Government of Venezuela to
observe, fully, “the 1897 Treaty, the 1899 Arbitral Award, the 1905 demarcation
of the boundary between Guyana and Venezuela pursuant to the Arbitral Award,
the 1966 Agreement and other formally ratified documents between the two
states.”
Guyana’s
relations with Venezuela have been relatively calm in recent years with
significant trade in rice and oil. However, that may all end now as Venezuela,
in light of the tensions, has signaled its intentions to end the rice deal this
year.
This was
after CARICOM called on Venezuela to withdraw a decree issued by Maduro on May
26, which unilaterally gave that country’s gunships rights in waters that
belonged to Guyana, including a section in which oil was recently found by
US-owned, ExxonMobil.
A number of
states including the US, Barbados and Trinidad, have come out in support of
Guyana against the claims.
The United
Nations has committed to send a team to Guyana to assess the situation.
The
President, whose entry into office has been marred by a crime wave, explained
that he decided to address the assembly on the decrees which gave Venezuela
rights to patrol in Guyana waters.
Granger
yesterday listed this week’s recall of Venezuela’s ambassador and threats to
review diplomatic relations.
Recent
unofficial maps of Guyana made in Venezuela would show a large part of the
maritime zone sited off the Demerara coast in which the US firm ExxonMobil
discovered oil earlier in 2015, as belonging to that country.
FISHBONE IN
THROAT
“The decree
is like a fishbone in our throats. It violates the word and spirit of the 1966
Geneva Agreement that forbids the claiming of new territory while the Agreement
remained in force.”
He said that
it is established that the Venezuelan government, had no right, either under
the Geneva Agreement or in international law, to oppose exploratory activities
by ExxonMobil and its subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production (Guyana)
Limited in the ‘Stabroek Block.’
“The action
taken by the Venezuelan Foreign Minister in February to write to the country
manager of Esso Exploration and Production (Guyana) Limited and to object to
the dispatch of a rig to proceed with the exploration for petroleum in
accordance with the concession granted by the Government of Guyana, therefore,
constituted an unnecessary and unlawful interference in Guyana’s sovereign
jurisdiction.”
Granger noted
Guyana’s sustained efforts to alert the international community of the adverse
effects and to seek the repudiation of the Venezuelan unilateral and illegal
delineation of maritime territory, not only in relation to the territory of
Guyana, but other states in this hemisphere, have come to fruition.
“Guyana has
never used aggression against any State. Guyana has always embraced the
principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes. But in as much as we are a
peace-loving nation, we will not allow our territorial integrity to be
threatened or violated. We consider Decree 1.787 as constituting an act of
aggression against Guyana.”
He also
referred to the 2013 expulsion of an unarmed, seismic survey vessel from
Guyana’s exclusive economic zone by a Venezuelan naval corvette, which
represents a dangerous and egregious exhibition of gunboat diplomacy.
He noted that
Venezuela has relentlessly claimed the entire Essequibo region of Guyana for
over 50 years.
“It still
insists on referring to the Essequibo in its publications and charts as the
zona en reclamación. It still attempts to appropriate the waters off the
Essequibo coast in defiance of international law. It still continues its policy
of economic blockade of the Essequibo as it has always done.”
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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