JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, March 3, 2025

Browne: T&T calling for respect of Guyana’s sovereignty

by

Gail Alexander
332 days ago
20240405

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”.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored