After a full day of meetings that ended just before 9 pm yesterday, the Guyana-Venezuela meeting brokered by Caricom-Celac and Brazil resulted in a nine-point plan —the Joint Declaration of Argyle for Dialogue and Peace between Guyana and Venezuela.
This despite Guyana President Dr Irfaan Ali holding firm to his stance that his country’s ownership of the Essequibo was unequivocal.
After marathon sessions with Caricom, then Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, Ali’s stance before the meeting hosted by St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves remained the same.
Speaking to the media after his first meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart in the VIP room at Argyle Airport, Ali was defiant.
Pointing to a leather wristband embossed with a map of his country, he said, “I don’t have to think what this means. We know what this means. This is Guyana. All of it belongs to all of Guyana.”
For Ali, the situation was clear.
He said he told his Caricom colleagues earlier, before their encounter with Maduro, that the Essequibo matter could only be resolved by the ruling of the International Court of Justice.
Dr Ali said, “The process leading up to the ICJ is part of the Geneva Agreement and that Geneva Agreement provides for a UN Secretary-General to determine where the controversy must be finally determined. And it is a UN SG, acting within the confines of the Geneva Agreement, who determined that that place is the ICJ.”
Despite this stance, Ali is also determined that there should be a de-escalation of the dispute, telling the media “the priority is peace”. That, he said, was in keeping with Caricom’s statement following the virtual meeting of Heads of Government on August 8.
“I made it very clear that within the sovereign space of Guyana, we will continue to do everything that promotes the development, the advancement of our people, and all of the partnerships necessary to ensure the defence and protection of what is ours,” he said.
Ali then left the media conference to wrap up his second and final meeting with Maduro, which resulted in the Argyle declaration.
He was also clear he did not want to prejudice the meeting with Maduro by sharing too much of what he thought would happen before they had a chance to actually talk.
“We are moving to the next phase, and I am not going to delve into that phase,” he said.
The meeting ended after 7 pm with a handshake between Ali and Maduro.
During a media briefing at 8.40 last night, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Gonsalves read the agreement, which revealed not much had changed, since item four of the document noted that, “Guyana’s assertion that it is committed to the process and procedures of the International Court of Justice for the resolution of the border controversy. Noted Venezuela’s assertion of its lack of consent and lack of recognition of the International Court of Justice and its jurisdiction in the border controversy.”
However, Gonsalves said the parties had agreed to meet in Brazil in three months, unless otherwise decided, “to consider any matter with implications for the territory in dispute.”
Guyana and Venezuela have also agreed to immediately establish “a joint commission of the Foreign Ministers and technical persons from the two states to address matters as mutually agreed.”
A report from this joint commission will be submitted to Presidents Ali (Guyana) and Maduro (Venezuela) within three months.
The group agreed that PM Gonsalves, in his capacity as pro-tempore president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, the Caricom chairman, and Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will remain as interlocutors, to facilitate dialogue between the two countries. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will remain as an observer to the dialogue.
In the closing press conference, PM Gonsalves apologised for the lengthy process, and announced that while the declaration would be read in full, they would not take any questions.
The day started with the arrivals of the many diplomats for the meeting. There were seven Caricom leaders, including T&T Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, two observers from the UN Secretary-General’s office, representatives from the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Honduras, in addition to the teams from Guyana and Venezuela.
Once the Caribbean team assembled in Argyle, they met with Dr Ali. It was following that meeting that Ali would first set eyes on President Maduro. There was applause when the two shook hands, before settling into their positions across each other at the meeting table.
When he spoke to the media following that initial meeting, Dr Ali seemed to reveal that nothing groundbreaking had come out of it.
However, T&T Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Dr Amery Browne, who was also at the meeting, was more optimistic, telling Guardian Media in a telephone conversation that, “some progress has been made”.
Browne added that “Prime Minister Rowley and his Caricom colleagues have been fully involved in working to ensure the best possible outcome in the circumstances”.
While the outcome statement was still being finalised, St Vincent’s Ambassador to Cuba, Ellsworth John, told the country’s Agency of Public Information, “I think it went well. We have a declaration that both sides have agreed to. It was subject to extensive negotiations, of course, but I think we have a document that speaks to the desire of both parties to continue the dialogue and also to maintaining the Caribbean and Latin America as a zone of peace.”