Dear Editor,
I refer to your article on page 20 of the Sunday Stabroek Oct 2, 2022 which carried Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ response to Guyana’s President’s statement to the UN General Assembly last week, 30th September 2022. In dealing with these comments, it is necessary to have at the back of one’s mind that Venezuela, makes such comments with an eye or both eyes on the Judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and another on international influential public opinion afforded by the United Nations Forum which has convened the world’s good and the great.
Paragraph 8, of SN article carries the following comment:
“Venezuela is not participating in the process but took part in the case management process.”
This statement is inaccurate and reflects a position overtaken by events months ago. On 8th June 2022 and in several pieces of subsequent correspondence, Venezuelan representatives, including Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Foreign Minister Carlos Faria, signaled to the ICJ, Venezuela’s intention to participate in the Oral Hearings of Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899 (Guyana v. Venezuela), scheduled to commence on 17th November 2022. The representatives, including the Venezuelan Agent, who would be participating on behalf of Venezuela were named in that communication. The same information was conveyed to Guyana via a letter of 6th June 2022 in a Note Verbale dated 27th June 2022. The finalization of procedures and formalities for the Oral Hearings is currently engaging the Registrar of the Court with the assistance of both Venezuela and Guyana through their respective Agents.
By Order of the Court of 8 March 2021, the deadline of 8 March 2022 was fixed for the submission by Guyana of its Memorial in the case and duly complied with. However Venezuela, instead of complying with this Order to submit a Counter-Memorial by 8 March 2023, took a novel approach on 7 June 2022 and filed preliminary objections to the admissibility of the Application before the Court. Per the Rules of the Court, the proceedings on the merits of the case would have to be suspended to afford Guyana the opportunity to make written observations and submissions on Venezuela’s preliminary objections.
Apart from the fact that the commonsense interpretation of the word “preliminary” carries with it connotations of a preparatory or introductory nature, it cannot now be said that “Venezuela is not participating in the process”. Put simply, shouting objections from beyond the boundary is one thing but putting on your gear and taking the field after the first innings is quite another.
I should also add that Venezuela has contended since 1962 that it has information about irregularities concerning the 1899 Award. It failed to share with the Mixed Commission of 1966-1970 and with the UN Secretary General’s Personal Representative during the Enhanced Mediation proceedings (2015-2017). Perhaps they will unearth it for the Judges on this occasion. Venezuela has also contended that the absence of Venezuelans from the panel of five Judges chosen to adjudicate the matter in 1899 rendered the Court’s decision null and void. Venezuela named two Judges to that panel of five and these two, together with the two UK nominees, chose a famous international Jurist, a Russian national, to preside over the proceedings. These procedures were consistent with the 1897 Treaty of Washington, the framework within which the panel was established. Today Venezuela not only routinely attacks that Chairman’s integrity but absolves the President of Venezuela from responsibility for making those choices and seems to be afflicted by amnesia as regards their obligations under the said Treaty. I am not going to pursue either matter much further here because they are subjects for the ICJ Judges. Suffice it for me to observe, however, that today, 120 plus years later, the Venezuelan Government, when offered the opportunity to select a ‘Judge ad hoc’ to sit on the ICJ panel to hear the current case, chose the distinguished jurist and immediate past Registrar of the ICJ, Judge Philippe Couvreur who is a Belgian national. There is no Venezuelan on the panel so Venezuela is entitled to choose a non-Venezuelan, just as they were in similar circumstances in 1899 and on that previous occasion they chose two US Judges. Let us see whether, having for a second time opted for a non-national, the Venezuela government and supporters will again seek to overturn a Court’s decision on the spurious ground that they had no national on the panel when in fact their Presidents took a conscious and deliberate decision to choose non-national/s for reasons which are, in the circumstances, perfectly understandable. Guyana did not object to their choices on either occasion.
Judges chosen by Britain, decided on a Chairman who was a Russian. Venezuela now seeks to absolve the Presidents of Venezuela from responsibility for making those choices.
Additionally, you may wish to note that the agreed framework within which the resolution of this Controversy is to take place is the Geneva Agreement as well as a process agreed by both Presidents of Venezuela and Guyana. I wish to remind readers that President Granger of Guyana and President Maduro of Venezuela agreed to that process first set out in a letter from the SG dated 12th Nov 2015 and strengthened by another of 15th December 2016 by SG Ban Ki-moon. That process, of what was termed ENHANCED OR STRENGTHENED MEDIATION, was overseen by H.E Amb. Nylander of Norway who was appointed in February 2017. The SG’s decision was based on a report by the very Amb. Nylander who helped to mediate the 2016 cessation of hostilities between the Government of Colombia and the FARC Revolutionary Group. The letter from the SG stated that referral of the matter to the Court would not go ahead if Venezuela and Guyana indicated in writing their disagreement with the process. No such written position was received and the SG decided that the matter should go to the ICJ in light of Amb. Nylander’s report. Mr Maduro is therefore quite out of order to suggest that Guyana’s approach to the ICJ is either improper or based on an arbitrary 30 January 2018 decision of H.E António Guterres, Secretary General (SG) of the UN.
On 18th December 2020 an overwhelming majority of the Court’s Judges vindicated the actions of the SG and his predecessor. Both Mr Guterres and his predecessor H.E Mr Ban Ki-moon, participated in, and agreed to, the process and recognized that the last and most recent attempt at resolution and enhanced mediation, left the two states further apart than they were when the mediation exercise started. In other words it failed and there is no basis for the optimism President Maduro claims for further bilateral talks.
There is in fact both danger and misrepresentation if not mischief, in that call to have bilateral negotiations as proposed by Venezuela. We are seeing what emerged from the last such exercise, which followed decades of futile efforts under the auspices of the Good Offices Process guided by several facilitators appointed by various Secretaries General after receiving the no-objection of the two sides. We cannot afford to allow the gap between the positions of our states to grow wider because the current gap already poses a threat to peace in the region.
As for President Maduro’s claim about honouring the commitment to a path of peaceful resolution of this issue in keeping with the Principles set out in Article 2 of the UN Charter, (reflected in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Release of 30th September) please allow me to remind readers that it was Venezuelan warships which seized and incarcerated Guyanese fishermen, including men from Essequibo, for fishing in the mouth of the Barima River, Essequibo on 21st January 2021. It was that very navy and its warships which seized the seismic survey vessel Teknik Perdana and its crew on 10th October 2013 and which attempted to board the ExxonMobil-commissioned vessel, Romford Tethys on 22nd December 2018.
I wish to draw readers’ attention to two further points of inaccuracy carried by the same report.
First, the Venezuelan press release which is the subject of the report at issue states as follows:
“the historical and just position of Venezuela on the territorial controversy…. Disrespected.”
The position of the Venezuelan Government on this matter can certainly be described as historical but whether it is consistent is another matter. It is hard to respect a position which is both inaccurate and conveniently changing like the proverbial goal posts. More importantly, the question of whether it is ‘just’ is a matter for the Court, the ICJ. It would be easier to believe that Venezuela itself regarded the case as just if they were willing to go to the ICJ. Instead, they seem convinced of the need to use their size and influence to secure a bilateral ‘solution.’ If a solution is to be amicable and friendly it would have to be ’just’ in the eyes of all parties and there is no reason to assume, as Venezuela claims, that it cannot emanate from a Court. The Geneva Agreement never required Venezuela alone to deem a solution amicable. The basis for an amicable agreement will not be found as long as Venezuela denies its commitments in relation to the provisions of Article 33 of the UN Charter or of commitments it undertook under the process of Good Offices managed by the UN Secretaries General and latterly their Special representative, Mr Nylander between 2017 and 2018.
Put another way, if Venezuela is of the conviction that their position regarding sovereignty over the Essequibo, and consequently the various Maduro Decrees which purport to unilaterally annex the maritime spaces of several Caribbean nations is ‘just’, then what more appropriate means of establishing this position in the eyes of the international community for all to see, than by subjecting the issue to third party adjudication in The Hague before an esteemed panel of fifteen eminent jurists.
Second, Articles I to VI of the 1966 Geneva Agreement on which Venezuela’s spokesmen and their President pin such blind faith apply only to a Mixed Commission whose life ended in 1970. Article IV(i) is clear in that regard, it states, “If within a period of four years from the date of this Agreement the Mixed Commission should not have arrived at a full agreement for the solution of the controversy, it shall, in its final report, refer to the Government of Guyana and the Government of Venezuela any outstanding questions… Those Governments shall, without delay, choose one of the means of peaceful settlement provided in Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations.” The means so-listed have been tried as far as practicable and acceptable to both members. Guyana cannot be held hostage for a further 50-odd years to a UN Charter, which the Venezuelan Government now finds unacceptable or not sufficiently advantageous to it.
In closing, let me reiterate that the 1966 Agreement signed by Venezuela and Guyana is clear. Our challenge is Venezuela’s unilateral addition from time to time, of new conditions to the Agreement. The Agreement speaks of a controversy, ‘amicably resolved in a manner acceptable to both parties.’ Mr Maduro has added another criterion, the word ‘just.’ While Guyana would have no difficulty with the criterion ‘just’, which is not in the Agreement, it has difficulty with the interchangeable use of just and amicable in these circumstances. The Agreement makes no mention of either Essequibo or of the transfer of territory, which seems to be what Venezuela regards as necessary for an amicable resolution. ‘Just’ is a criterion which Courts, such as the ICJ, address almost by definition. After all in english ‘just’ is synonymous with lawful or legal and fair. For that very reason, Venezuela’s reluctance to go to the Court worries observers. ‘Just’ cannot be an outcome to be defined unilaterally by Venezuela; neither can that be the case with an amicable resolution, as the requirement in the Geneva Agreement is that such a state of affairs be arrived at ‘in a manner acceptable to both parties’.
Yours faithfully,
Carl B. Greenidge
Advisor on Borders and Guyana’s
Agent to the ICJ
(Former Minister of Foreign Affairs)
