What President Granger recently referred to as the “extraordinary and abnormal” presence of Venezuelan troops on Guyana’s border and the Venezuelan government’s flagrant incursions into Guyana’s territory with maritime presence in the Cuyuni river, when added to Venezuela’s decades’ long harassment, which has stymied Guyana and particularly the Essequibo region’s development, are clear indicators of the level of intimidation our larger neighbour is prepared to reach in pursuit of its spurious territorial claim.
The current events also suggest that until this controversy is ended, Guyana needs to be on constant lookout for options to contain Venezuela, and in the present world and regional geopolitical context, it appears to me that membership of Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Pact) needs to be considered.
Established in 1947, the Rio Pact then comprised all the countries of the Americas with the exception ofCanada and the colonies of the British and other colonial empires. Of the ex- British colonies, Trinidad & Tobago joined upon independence in 1967 and the Bahamas joined in 1982.
According to its founding treaty, ‘The High Contracting Parties agree that an armed attack by any State against an American State shall be considered as an attack against all the American States and, consequently, each one of the said Contracting Parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack in the exercise of the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense recognised by Article 51 of the
