The stockpiling of arms in Venezuela ought to raise red flags, PNCR Leader Robert Corbin said yesterday, urging the government to state its position.

The party is calling for the Guyana government to declare a policy on the arms build-up, following Venezuela’s recent purchases from both Russia and China. Russia recently said it would loan Venezuela US$1B to buy Russian military hardware. The party is also pushing for the government to put the region on alert, saying Guyana should prepare for defence of its national interest by diplomatic and other means.

Speaking at the party’s weekly press briefing yesterday, Corbin called the build-up a threat. “Guyana’s territorial integrity could be jeopardized,” he said, while recalling that in 1966 the Venezuelan build- up resulted in the Ankoko incursion.

He added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is charged with protecting Guyana’s territorial integrity and he lamented that it has not said anything on the issue.

PNCR MP Mervyn Williams told reporters that while Venezuela’s recent arms purchases have attracted regional and international attention, the government has chosen to remain silent. He said the party saw this as a dangerous and ill-advised policy and urged a defined position on the issue. “The policy of inaction has given rise to an alarming psychological condition of passivity”, Williams said.

Williams added that Venezuelan arguments that the arms are for defensive purposes cannot be taken at face value, particularly since an assessment of the stockpiling showed it to be out of proportion to the needs of the Venezuelan nation.

Moreover, it is also a worrying development, he said, in the context of a known controversy between Venezuela and Guyana and the willingness of Caracas to use force when it considers it in its national interest.

He reminded that in November last year two pontoons were blown up by Venezuelan security forces in the Cuyuni River after invading Guyana’s land and air space for which there has never been any satisfactory explanation.