Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge announced yesterday that he would be complaining to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council about a speech by his Venezuelan counterpart at the UN Headquarters in which she sought to claim her country’s ownership of Essequibo.
Charging that the statement by Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez on February 4, 2016, contained several “falsehoods and innuendoes,” Greenidge rubbished her contention. “The Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana repudiates in its entirety the statement issued by the Venezuelan Foreign Minister,” he told the National Assembly yesterday.
Greenidge said Guyana was deeply offended by Rodriguez’s statement, titled “Venezuela ratifies its rights over the Esse-quibo.” “That statement is yet another example of Venezuela’s time-worn belief that falsehoods repeated often enough may eventually lose their basic falsity. They do not. Venezuela has no rights over the Essequibo,” he stated.
The Foreign Affairs Minister said the UN Secretary General has responded to Guyana’s desire to have the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, give a legal opinion on this country’s long-held position that the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award is the full, final and perfect settlement of the border between the two countries.
Greenidge assured that Guyana has been cooperating with the UN Chief in direct contradiction to Venezuela’s antics. “Guyana has been cooperating with him and will continue to do so. Venezuela, however, seems prepared to derail the process,” he added.
Guyana has been lobbying for a juridical settlement to an ongoing border controversy with Venezuela. Venezuela, on the other hand, wants to continue with the UN Good Offices process, which has yielded no meaningful result thus far.
The border controversy escalated in May last year when Venezuela issued a maritime decree claiming most of Guyana’s Atlantic waters. Since then, Guyana has mounted an intense international campaign to rebuff Venezuela’s claims and to articulate the position that a juridical settlement was now necessary.
In September, Caracas had its gun boats traversing Guyana’s waters for what it then called routine military operations.
