By Neville J. Bissember
First the naysayers descended on him, admonishing President Ali not to attend the meeting with President Maduro, clearly without the faintest acknowledgement that while this had the potential to be a “roll up your sleeves” encounter, it was to take place in a multilateral setting, where – unlike in a bilateral forum – the sheer political and diplomatic weight of so many other interested parties in the room would curtail one-upmanship and arm-twisting towards a “win-win” outcome. Others castigated the Head of State for not consulting the people, in particular the Leader of the Opposition, to which His Excellency deftly responded by reaching out to Mr. Norton and bringing him into the loop, thereby taking the wind out of that particular negative sail. As an aside I take this opportunity to point out to Mr. Norton and his supporters that if the circumstances are propitious, it detracts nothing to shake the hands of an aggressor (much less an “oppressor”) for the greater good of the nation. Lesson learnt for navigating out of our protracted political quagmire.
Next, the naysayers began to place guard rails on the discussions, instructing what should and should not be discussed – this in circumstances where an agenda had not been made public. Others sought to predict doom in the outcome of the meeting, oblivious amidst the paucity of background information, that 96 hours in a pre-negotiation phase could be either an eternity or expedient, as other interests, considerations and political posturing took place – the latter not unusually like horses prancing and pacing impatiently for the gates to fly.
And fly the gates did two Thursdays ago in Argyle, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and guess what, War is Over (I prefer the Celine Dion Version), the rhetoric out of Caracas has been toned down, serious public commitments have been made before the glare of the international community and media, and oh yes, the naysayers have been proven wrong. Some would even have had the outcome depend on such churlish issues as who arrived first, who should have kept who waiting, or who should have taken their seat last at the table. In hindsight I wonder what all that sanctimony and “peacocking” would have amounted to, as the Presidents not only met, but exchanged pleasantries, shook hands and both came away with good news for their respective domestic constituents. That looks like a win-win from where I sit.
But even now, after the fact, the naysayers persist – indeed before the ink was dry on “The Joint Declaration of Argyle for Dialogue and Peace between Guyana and Venezuela”, there was a resumption of fire and brimstone raining down on President Ali (some offerings might even have been in draft before the meeting rose late on Thursday, in anticipation of failure). That President Ali had been “played” by the bus driver turned President of our undemocratic neighbour to the West, was essentially the refrain of the detractors: I ask, did these people prefer for armed intervention to have occurred in our peace-loving nation-state, rather than have the Caribbean remain as a Zone of Peace!? Should the immediate outcome of a walking back of the aggression emanating from Miraflores not amount to a satisfactory outcome for all patriotic Guyanese? Geez!
In deference and in addition to the excellent analysis by my senior colleague Dr. Bertie Ramcharan (SN of 16 December), permit me to make my two-cents contribution, as follows:
Flowing from the title (declaration for “Dialogue for Peace”), the background and circumstances that formed the framework and context for what was discussed and agreed upon in Argyle by the parties is pellucidly clear. Reading the document as a whole, as indeed it should be, it is not without significance that the last preambular paragraph records on behalf of “All parties…their commitment to Latin America and the Caribbean remaining a Zone of Peace”; the operative word here is “remaining”. There is also a similar commitment in operative paragraph three by Guyana and Venezuela ‘to the pursuance of good neighbourliness [and] peaceful coexistence’: cross border skirmishes and incursions do not feature within such pacific principles.
Some have castigated Guyana for being hoodwinked and outfoxed by Venezuela, because it is said the word “controversy” should have appeared throughout the text, instead of “dispute”. An unnecessary and unhelpful comparison has been made between the nearly sixty-year old 1966 Geneva Agreement and the 2023 Argyle Declaration, expressing a plea for symmetry between the contents of the two documents, because neither the words “border” nor “dispute” appear in the former (however the word “frontier” is in the Geneva Agreement). But this is to disregard the real time political and legal considerations which attend the two documents: unlike with the former, the matter had been referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2018 which, in its contentious jurisdiction, only treats with “disputes” between parties. The opprobrium is all the more alarming as some lettered and doctored “experts” seem to have read the Argyle Declaration while either harbouring a preconceived position, or otherwise they simply read it too fast, thereby inserting their own words and interpretation into the outcome document!
A careful, textual analysis of the Argyle Declaration reveals that nowhere does the phrase “territorial dispute” appear. The word “dispute”, whose mention has alarmed so many, appears all of only two times, in the first preambular paragraph and operative paragraph nine. But it seems to have been lost on the naysayers and critics of President Ali that the word “dispute” is not used in isolation, but is instead accompanied by the preceding words “territory in”, and not “territorial”. Thus the reference in paragraph nine of the Argyle Declaration is not to a “dispute” per se, or to a “border dispute”, or to a “territorial dispute”, but rather to “the territory in dispute”. The word “border” in the Declaration is always linked to the preferred term of “controversy” in the important paragraph 4, which should please the critics, as this is the paragraph which states the respective positions of the parties vis-à-vis the role of the ICJ.
It should be understood that the contentious jurisdiction of the Court, under which the matter was referred to it, only treats with disputes between states. The substantive portion of the 2020 judgment of the ICJ on the question of its jurisdiction in this matter begins with the words “The present case concerns a dispute between Guyana and Venezuela…”. Moreover, in the five claims presented to the Court by Guyana, neither the words “controversy” nor “dispute” appear; nor do either of the words appear in what Guyana asked the Court to rule on.
The naysayers who opine that a colossal blunder has been committed by including the word “dispute” in the Argyle Declaration, notwithstanding the accompanying preceding words “the territory in”, need to familiarize themselves with the 2020 judgment of the Court, wherein, inter alia, the Court examined the use of the term “controversy” and said: ‘The Court observes that the Geneva Agreement uses the term “controversy” as a synonym for the “dispute”…It follows, in the view of the Court, that the object of the Geneva Agreement was to seek a solution to the frontier dispute between the parties that originated from their opposing views as to the validity of the 1899 Award’.
Indeed over the years it has correctly suited Guyana to discuss the matter of Venezuela’s designs on the Essequibo as a “controversy”. For our part, we have no “dispute” with anybody as to where the border is located, as we have always maintained that that was settled and agreed to in 1899, and crystallised in the 1905 Agreement demarcating the findings of the Award. However, as pointed out by Dr. Ramcharan, ‘the Court took jurisdiction [in the matter] in relation to two issues: “the validity of the 1899 Award and the related question of the definitive settlement of the land boundary dispute between Guyana and Venezuela”.
It is respectfully submitted that so long as the Court is deliberating on ‘the validity of the 1899 Award’ and is proceeding to settle ‘the land boundary dispute between Guyana and Venezuela’, then the terminology in the Argyle Declaration is accurate in its reference to ‘the territory in dispute’. This represents the factual situation ever since the Court became properly seized of the matter in 2020. While Guyana does not have a dispute with Venezuela, the Court has to regard the substance of the matter before it as a dispute, so that as it says, it can be faithful to the mandate the UN Secretary General received in the Geneva Agreement ‘to ensure a definitive resolution of the controversy’.
Of fundamental importance is the fact that the reference in the Argyle Declaration to “the territory in dispute” does not affect the prevailing status quo that “Essequibo belongs to Guyana”. It is for this reason that the Court in handing down its provisional measures on the eve of the misguided referendum, stated that ‘Guyana administers and exercises control over the area [the Essequibo]’. Noteworthy also is the separate (not dissenting) opinion of Mr. Justice Robinson that the Court should have gone further and referred to Guyana’s sovereignty over the Essequibo.
Neither did the Court ask Guyana to vacate the Essequibo region pending the determination of the matter. So, what is it then that Guyana gave up, lost or conceded in Saint Vincent? How was President Ali “played” by President Maduro, if what is recorded in paragraph nine of the Argyle Declaration accurately reflects the prevailing situation, in so far as the matter currently before the Court concerns “territory in dispute”?
Professor Stephen Vasciannie, writing in the Jamaica Observer of 24 December, stated that ‘it must be acknowledged that the Argyle initiative provides no long-term solution to the territorial dispute over Essequibo [sic.] region’. Well of course it didn’t, because that was not the intention, as that solution would be provided in the fullness of time by the ICJ. If some had set their sights on, or had harboured different or more lofty outcomes for Argyle than the immediate objective of dialing back the aggressive stance of Caracas, toning down the noises emanating from Miraflores and calming the anxieties of our residents on the Western border, well they would be critical of the outcome document. But hearing about the number of staff parties in Georgetown that were initially cancelled – some UG students apparently feared the Campus would somehow be a target for Venezuelan aggression, timed to coincide with their exams! – and later observing after December 14, the Christmas shopping and the rum-drinking in Georgetown these past few days, it is clear to me that the Argyle outcome document, naysayers apart, is cause for celebration and relief. After all, the immediate outcome of the Meeting was not to settle the controversy, but to avoid an escalation (or degeneration, depending on one’s point of view) into a conflict.
The first preambular paragraph of the Argyle Declaration refers to the holding of ‘discussions on matters consequential to the territory in dispute’. Logic alone would tell us that a thing cannot be consequential to itself, ergo a discussion on “the territory in dispute” was clearly off the table. Operative paragraph one refers to ‘any existing controversies’ while operative paragraph two refers to ‘any controversies’; this would include, for example, President Maduro’s ridiculous appointment of a Governor for the Guayana Essequiba; moves to begin issuing ID cards and put a plan in place to take care of residents of the Essequibo, in circumstances where he has been unable to adequately take care of Venezuelans resident within that country’s international borders and who have been fleeing from the country for years; moves to issue mineral exploration permits in the Essequibo and issuing cease and desist directives to companies already operating in the Essequibo with Georgetown’s approval. Indeed there are plenty of other controversies to discuss, besides the one cited in the Geneva Agreement which currently is properly before the ICJ.
Far from being a document which lends itself to starry-eyed full acceptance, the Argyle Declaration fell short of my expectations in some respects. For one, it is truly amazing that the realisation that it was the combined political and diplomatic interests of all the other regional and international parties which caused the meeting to materialize in the first place, did not carry over into the establishment of the follow-up mechanism – the joint commission – as it only includes the main protagonists. Because that forum is intended to address ‘matters as mutually agreed’, it could be stillborn as, absent the agreement of both parties, nothing would be discussed. This is precisely the type of eventuality that could benefit from a widening of the circle of wagons, to increase the participants in the Dialogue referred to in the title of the Declaration, thereby making it more meaningful and productive.
There is also a lacuna in the follow-up mechanism, in so far as a monitoring function is not included. Without the facility of independent periodic review of the situation in the two countries, be it as regards the situation on the border, in the respective Parliaments, or as regards government pronouncements, and again given that the mandate of the joint commission is limited to ‘matters as mutually agreed’, it is to be hoped that the legacy of Argyle would survive the immediate post-referendum noises, into more structured and far-reaching discussions on matters of interest to not only the two countries, but the Hemisphere as a whole.
Already the imminent arrival of a British vessel in Guyana to conduct exercises, while on a routine visit to the Caribbean, is being categorized completely out of context by Venezuela. In contrast, Guyana has not since December 14 called for the withdrawal of the foreign advisers allegedly on the ground in Venezuela. More, would that country now put in abeyance any mutual defence or cooperation agreements it has with third states, in light of the Argyle Declaration?
Finally, it amazes me that with all the fire and brimstone raining down post-Argyle, how it is that no-one has lampooned the fact that the Declaration is set out on plain paper, with neither the letter head of the host country nor CELAC or CARICOM evident. What therefore is the glue that will cause the commitments referred to in the final preambular paragraph (‘All parties attending’), or Operative paragraph 3 (Guyana and Venezuela) to hold, in the absence of any of the parties affixing their signature thereto?
