Supporters of the Government and many national and regional commentators have been saluting the summit meeting between President Irfaan Ali and President Nicolás Maduro, and the outcome document, the Joint Declaration of Argyle, as a resounding success for President Ali and diplomacy. Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran, a former Facilitator of talks between Guyana and Venezuela under the UN Secretary General’s Good Offices process, in a fit of unexpected exuberance, even hailed the Argyle Declaration as “a great victory for the people of Guyana”. There are doubts about such a declaration.
This is not a political statement, as some on both sides of the argument have been seeking to score political points at the expense of the other side. This is about the overriding concern for Guyana’s national interests, her sovereignty and territorial integrity above all else, in the face of her greatest existential threat.
Let it be remembered that Guyana never escalated the border controversy into a war of words with the potential to become a real war; that Guyana was never the aggressor; that Guyana never threatened her neighbour with invasion or annexation; and that Guyana never unilaterally adopted extraterritorial measures affecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Venezuela.
Yet, we had the unedifying spectacle of some Caricom leaders falling over themselves to placate Mr Maduro, going so far as to include Guyana in their calls to “keep the temperatures down”. Perhaps this was a misguided attempt at balanced diplomacy, but it did Guyana no favours and was particularly galling coming from Guyana’s supposedly closest allies. Their total lack of rectitude in calling out Mr Maduro for his hostility and illegitimate actions towards Guyana was disingenuous at best and downright duplicitous at worst. Guyana-born, Trinidad-based columnist Orin Gordon, a former BBC reporter, called Caricom’s stance “a study in spinelessness”.
Instead of a closing of ranks around their sister Caricom state in defence of her sovereignty and territorial integrity, these leaders gave credence to Mr Maduro’s outrageous claims and actions, by promoting and facilitating the farce in St Vincent. They even equated his December 3 referendum aimed at annexing Essequibo with Guyana’s wholly legitimate and peaceful approach to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), while allowing him to depict himself as a champion of the concept of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.
In spite of President Ali’s strong statements before the meeting that discussion of the border controversy was off the table, the pre-summit statements by the chief facilitator of the dialogue, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, signalled that the meeting would focus on “matters consequential to the border controversy”.
Worse, Mr Maduro made it clear in a letter dated December 11 accepting Mr Gonsalves’ invitation to the meeting that he was going to St Vincent “in order to directly address the territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana.” That he arrived at Argyle Airport in a military plane bearing the new Venezuelan map showing our Essequibo region as an integral part of Venezuela and the slogan “El Esequibo es nuestro” (“Essequibo is ours”) was a clear indication of his lack of diplomacy and lack of respect for his Guyanese counterpart and should not have left anyone in doubt as to his intentions.
It does not appear that Mr Maduro made any attempt to walk back any of his statements or actions regarding the incorporation of Essequibo into Venezuela. On the contrary, since the meeting, he has double downed on his rhetoric about Essequibo being part of Venezuela and has been crowing about “victory in St Vincent”. He has even taken umbrage at a statement of support for Guyana by Canada and the firm expression of support made by the visiting British Foreign Office Minister David Rutley, saying that the two countries should stay out of the Essequibo issue. That attitude however did not prevent him from seeking Vladimir Putin’s support for settling the “dispute” through political and diplomatic means.
As the editorials of December 11 and December 17 remind, Stabroek News was first uncomfortable with the idea of President Ali attending the meeting in St Vincent and then less than enthusiastic about the outcome.
Yes, there has been a commitment to peace by both sides but at what cost to Guyana?
It appears that we have now been drawn into a process of bilateral talks parallel to the ICJ case which runs counter to Guyana’s strategy to have the controversy settled by judicial means, a strategy we hasten to point out that was initiated by then Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett under President Donald Ramotar. We should be in no doubt that the Venezuelans will use this process to undermine our case before the ICJ and most likely will use it as a further reason for rejecting any eventual ruling of the Court unfavourable to them.
No doubt the author will be accused of being unpatriotic or anti-government in regarding the “victory in St Vincent” as being a colossal blunder by Guyana and a victory only for Venezuela. So let us remind that that ironically is the very accusation hurled by Mr Maduro and his government at members of the Venezuelan opposition who criticize their handling of the ICJ case and the referendum.
