The Government of Guyana yesterday hailed the Geneva Agreement on the border controversy with Venezuela, whose 50th anniversary is being celebrated today, as part of the founding instruments of this country’s freedom.
In a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government said it was not a coincidence that the 50th anniversary of the Agreement is occurring in the same year of Guyana’s 50th independence anniversary as the Geneva meeting represented the last failed effort by Venezuela to prevent this country’s independence.
Concluded between Britain and Venezuela, Guyana only became a full party to the Agreement on attaining Independence.
“That is what the Agreement was all about – Guyana’s Independence. Until then, Venezuela had indulged in an argument with Britain to maintain the state of colonialism in British Guiana until the boundary with Venezuela was changed. The Geneva Agreement ended that un-Bolivarian argument. Guyana would be free with its borders intact. That is why the Geneva Agreement is worth commemorating. It is part of the founding instruments of Guyana’s freedom”, the statement said.
As part of the future, the statement said the Agreement specifically limited the nature of any ongoing discussion:
First – the only discussion thereafter under the Geneva Agreement would be about Venezuela’s contention that the 1899 Arbitral Award under the Treaty of Washington “was null and void”.
Second – that the forum for discussion would be a four-year Mixed Commission between Guyana and Venezuela and if that failed to find agreement, such other machinery as the Parties agreed upon; and
Thirdly, failing such agreement, Venezuela’s contention about the nullity of the 1899 Award, would be settled by a means chosen by the United Nations Secretary General from processes contained in Article 33 of the UN Charter, ending with judicial settlement.
The statement said that this is where the process is now.
“The Secretary General is seized of the matter. He is aware of Guyana’s position and has put forward proposals to both parties in the context of his powers under the Geneva Agreement. Guyana is cooperating fully with the Secretary General in the context outlined. What the Geneva Agreement offers Venezuela is the opportunity to establish that the 117 year old Award – accepted, demarcated and respected by Venezuela for over 60 years is a nullity.
“Not surprisingly, Venezuela has not been able to do so over the first 50 years of the Geneva Agreement’s life. What they are doing now is to try to change the Geneva Agreement itself. But that is not possible. The Geneva Agreement remains what it always was, the means to bring closure to Venezuela’s baseless contentions”, the statement added.
Tensions rose last year between Guyana and Venezuela after Caracas issued a maritime decree claiming almost all of this country’s Atlantic waters. The decree came following the discovery by ExxonMobil of a large oil deposit offshore Guyana. Georgetown has since mounted an intense international campaign against the renewed and extended Venezuelan claim. Guyana has called for a juridical settlement of the controversy. This matter is now with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
