Last week everyone’s attention was riveted on the consequences of the no-confidence vote and the scheduling of Parliament at a time when the government was expected to have resigned. As a result, an important statement in response to Venezuela’s latest display of effrontery, given as it was at a sitting which should not have been held at all, produced a more muted response from the pundits than otherwise might have been expected.
On Thursday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge informed Parliament that not only is Venezuela claiming maritime space belonging to this country to which she has absolutely no entitlement, but that she has also ventured into the realm of cartographic readjustment. Guyanese, therefore, will be astonished to learn that contrary to what they have always been taught in their Geography and Social Studies classes in school, the Orinoco Delta has now elongated itself to stretch down the whole coast of Guyana.
Well, as the Foreign Minister pointed out, the 1899 Award – the full, perfect and final settlement of the boundary – gave the Orinoco Delta to Venezuela. That said, he went on to tell Parliament that “Guyana has no interest in the Orinoco River, and would have never imagined that the Orinoco Delta could naturally project across the entire coastal front of Guyana.” Anyone with even a smidgeon of geographical knowledge would not have imagined so either, but then fantasy is a realm of mental activity in which the Venezuelans excel – or at least, their governments do.
As the nation is well aware, on December 22 Esso Exploration and Production (ExxonMobil) informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that vessels engaged in exploratory seismic work which were under contract to the company and its partners were intercepted by the Venezuelan navy. In a dangerous manoeuvre, the Venezuelans even tried to land a helicopter on the deck of one of them, the Ramform Tethys. This all took place, related the Minister, 250 kilometres from Punta Playa, the westernmost point of Guyana’s boundary, and “at an approximate distance of 140 kilometres from the nearest point to the provisional equidistant line with Venezuela”. The point is, it was unquestionably in an area within this country’s maritime space.
It should be iterated that this location is offshore Essequibo, which ExxonMobil’s first well was not, although it too was encompassed within the Stabroek Block, where the company’s concession is situated and the larger portion of which does indeed lie off the Essequibo coast. However, Liza-1 and the early wells were technically located offshore Demerara, which allowed no latitude for the Venezuelan navy, since the limit of our western neighbour’s preposterous claim has always been the Essequibo River. This did not mean that the incumbent of Miraflores was not apoplectic about the news of Liza-1, it is just that it limited his ambit of action, and reduced him to responding with some delusional decrees.
It appears that the Venezuelans had two weeks’ notice of the latest exploratory work, but their Note Verbale in response was not constructed until December 20 (at least that was the date on it). Even then, said Mr Greenidge, this note took two days to crawl its way from Miraflores to Guyana’s Embassy in Caracas, arriving the same day the Venezuelan Navy swooped on the boats. It gives a new meaning to snail mail.
Well the Venezuelans have done this before, so presumably they thought they had to cast around for a new excuse, and as said above, what they hit on was to renovate the map of a portion of South America. According to Minister Greenidge, Venezuela “is seeking to confuse the public and gain sympathy for an outrageous case.” And not just the Venezuelan public, but the public in the larger hemispheric region too. He told Parliament that “in order to capture public sympathy in Latin America in particular, Venezuela has misleadingly recast the issue as involving Guyana-inspired ExxonMobil intrusion into the Orinoco Delta.”
Unfortunately, this is just the latest variation on an old theme. For decades Venezuela has been trumpeting the claim that she was despoiled of territory, and has flooded every international agency and global meeting with her distorted maps, showing Essequibo as part of Venezuela. Those images went on to her stamps and children’s exercise books, among other things, as a consequence of which generations in the nation to the west of us have grown up believing that territory which was rightfully theirs was illegally taken from them. Venezuelan governments have churned out written material arguing their ‘case’ over the years, and used every opportunity to apprise their Hispanic-speaking counterparts of their country’s position.
In addition, the maritime expression of Venezuela’s illegal claim is nothing new; as long ago as 1968 President Raúl Leoni issued a decree claiming a nine-mile wide stretch of Guyana’s territorial sea along the Essequibo coast. That brought him no advantage, not least because the US let it be known to Caracas that it was contrary to international law and Washington would not recognise the decree.
As referred to briefly above, President Nicolás Maduro also has a taste for maritime decrees. Minister Greenidge adverted to Decree 1787, which imperiously laid claim to some of the maritime areas of no less than 14 Caribbean states. When objections were raised, and Caricom Heads called on Venezuela to withdraw it, Decree 1789 was enacted, which was, it must be said, not vastly different.
To cite an example of aggression very similar to the ExxonMobil interception, there was the case of the Teknik Perdana, which was arrested by the Venezuelan navy in Guyana waters in 2013 when exploring the seabed for US petroleum company Anadarko.
No nation can claim a territorial sea or extended EEZ which does not have the coastline behind it. And it is no news to any Guyanese that the land in this case, i.e. Essequibo, belongs to this country. Venezuela, however, in addition to rejecting the 1899 Award as null and void, appears to want to disengage maritime issues from territorial ones. As a consequence, Caracas prefers bilateral pacts with individual territories, such as the 1990 treaty with Trinidad, which is said to trespass on a portion of our maritime area, than to becoming a signatory to international agreements.
It is for this reason that no Venezuelan president has ever acceded to signing the International Convention on the Law of the Sea. It seems, however, that this does not help Caracas much. Mr Greenidge explained to the House that that fact notwithstanding, the Convention “reflects principles of general international law which are binding on all states, including Venezuela.”
We have been through half a century of Venezuela seeking every possible means to create impediments to Guyana’s development, with the aim of forcing successive governments in Georgetown to cede a piece of territory, including, it seems, maritime space as well. Some presidents in Miraflores did it with a gloved hand, others used the iron fist; all of them regarded the oil weapon as their ultimate deterrent. With the Venezuelan economy in chaos, and ExxonMobil and its partners having found oil in such dramatic quantities off Guyana’s coast, Venezuela sees its stranglehold on this country first of all loosening, and then being lost entirely. All Miraflores has left to assert its illegitimate claim over our maritime space is its navy, and there is a limit to how that can be used if Caracas does not want to attract more international attention than it has thus far, or worse, be perceived in the international arena as an active belligerent and in undeniable contravention of the Geneva Agreement.
The political situation in which Venezuela now operates on the continent is also dramatically different from what it was not so long ago. There are right-wing governments in Colombia and Brazil, and the current White House has made its position clear in relation to the interception of the vessels contracted out to ExxonMobil. There would be unpalatable consequences which would have to be carefully weighed, therefore, before that country could go overboard. In short, Caracas is not in as easy a position as it was earlier to exert heavy-handed leverage on Georgetown.
On December 24, Reuters reported that Minister Greenidge was in discussion with ExxonMobil on when operations might resume. The entire Guyanese nation hopes that they will. This is our opportunity for independence from Venezuelan economic strangulation.
