The Cari­com fam­i­ly re­mains unit­ed on is­sues re­lat­ed to the Guyana-Venezuela bor­der and T&T’s con­sis­tent po­si­tion calls for full re­spect of Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty and sov­er­eign­ty, says For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne.

Browne made that clear yes­ter­day, af­ter Wednes­day’s move by Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro to sign in­to law the re­sults of Venezuela’s De­cem­ber 3, 2023 ref­er­en­dum lay­ing claim to the Es­se­qui­bo—two-thirds of Guyana.

Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali im­me­di­ate­ly put Venezuela, Cari­com gov­ern­ments and oth­er re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies on no­tice that “Guyana will not coun­te­nance the an­nex­a­tion, seizure or oc­cu­pa­tion of any part of its sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry”.

This coun­try’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs said, “Cari­com speaks with one voice on is­sues re­lat­ed to the Guyana-Venezuela bor­der and our re­gion­al fam­i­ly re­mains unit­ed. T&T’s con­sis­tent po­si­tion calls for full re­spect for the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty and sov­er­eign­ty of the Co-op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic of Guyana and re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law and process in the peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of dis­putes.”

The de­vel­op­ment in Venezuela on Wednes­day arose de­spite the agree­ment Venezuela and Guyana reached in St Vin­cent last De­cem­ber—af­ter Venezuela’s ref­er­en­dum on the Es­se­qui­bo—where both coun­tries agreed to co­op­er­ate to avoid in­ci­dents con­ducive to ten­sion.

Wednes­day’s ac­tion was the lat­est in the bor­der dis­pute be­tween the two ter­ri­to­ries, which has been sim­mer­ing for years with the most re­cent flare-up last year. The De­cem­ber ref­er­en­dum had called for Venezue­lans’ views on claim­ing sov­er­eign­ty over the oil and min­er­al-rich part of Guyana. Venezuela claimed it was “stolen” when the bor­der was drawn over 100 years ago.

On Wednes­day, Maduro, at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, de­scribed the ref­er­en­dum as a “stel­lar and his­toric mo­ment”.

He post­ed, “The de­ci­sion of De­cem­ber 3, has now be­come the Law of the Re­pub­lic, to form part of the le­gal struc­ture of the in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal and in­sti­tu­tion­al move­ment of our coun­try. The de­ci­sion made by the Venezue­lans in the con­sul­ta­tive ref­er­en­dum will be ful­filled in all its parts, and with this law, we will con­tin­ue the de­fence of Venezuela on in­ter­na­tion­al stages.”

But Venezuela’s move was fierce­ly con­demned by Guyana’s gov­ern­ment. The state­ment on Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali’s Face­book page said Venezuela’s at­tempt to an­nexe more than two-thirds of Guyana’s sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry and make it part of Venezuela is “an egre­gious vi­o­la­tion of the most fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law en­shrined in the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter, the Char­ter of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Amer­i­can States and cus­tom­ary in­ter­na­tion­al law”.

‘Ar­gyle’ agree­ment ques­tioned

The state­ment said Venezuela’s ac­tion con­tra­dicts the let­ter and spir­it of the joint “De­c­la­ra­tion of Ar­gyle for Di­a­logue and Peace” agreed to on the is­sue in St Vin­cent last De­cem­ber. This was at a meet­ing St Vin­cent Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves and then-Cari­com chair­man Roo­sevelt Sker­rit held with Maduro and Ali. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er Cari­com lead­ers al­so at­tend­ed.

The par­ties agreed to keep the Caribbean a zone of peace. There was agree­ment that Guyana and Venezuela, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, will not threat­en/use force against one an­oth­er in any cir­cum­stances and both will be com­mit­ted to the “pur­suance of good neigh­bourli­ness, peace­ful co­ex­is­tence, and the uni­ty of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean”.

Guyana’s state­ment on Wednes­day not­ed that Venezuela’s un­law­ful act calls in­to ques­tion the coun­try’s oblig­a­tion to abide by the de­c­la­ra­tion.

Guyana put Venezuela and gov­ern­ments of the Caribbean and the Latin Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty, as well as the Unit­ed Na­tions and Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States sec­re­tary gen­er­als on no­tice that “it will not coun­te­nance the an­nex­a­tion, seizure or oc­cu­pa­tion of any part of its sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry”.

Guyana in­di­cat­ed that Maduro’s “of­fen­sive and undig­ni­fied” state­ments about the Guyana Pres­i­dent “have not gone un­no­ticed... it is un­for­tu­nate that the com­mit­ment made at Ar­gyle to the ‘pur­suance of good neigh­bourli­ness, peace­ful co­ex­is­tence and the uni­ty of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean’ is now se­ri­ous­ly threat­ened by Pres­i­dent Maduro’s words and ac­tions”.