The main interlocutor at Argyle, Prime Minister of St Vincent Ralph Gonsalves, found himself in an embarrassing situation last week when an image of him standing behind a papier mâché map showing Essequibo as part of Venezuela appeared on social media. Explaining the incident he said the photograph was taken during a commemoration ceremony for the liberator Simón Bolívar at the residence of the Venezuelan Chargé d’Affaires in St Vincent.
He went on to say that photos were being taken in front of the flags of St Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela, together with a bust of Bolívar, and he was later advised that while this was taking place “someone attached to the Venezuelan Embassy placed the ‘papier-mâché’ depiction of the said map in front of us.” He did not look at it, he said, and just assumed it was related to Simón Bolívar.
Mr Gonsalves described it as unfortunate that what had been “innocent inadvertence on my part” had been used by some people to foment antipathy of one kind or another. While he understood “all the emotions attendant on this controversial issue,” there would be flare-ups from time to time and as such, leaders needed to be patient and calm. Adding that he had spoken to “his friends”, President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, he expressed the hope that the matter had been laid to rest, “where it ought properly to reside among the assorted ghosts from the past, which ought never to rule us from the grave.”
The Prime Minister then moved to the topic of the Argyle Declaration which he urged should be built on since it set out a pathway to de-escalate tensions. This point was stated in his letter of 4th January to Presidents Ali and Maduro. It is by no means clear how the Declaration could be built on, more especially since Provision 4 simply notes the disaccord between Venezuela and Guyana over the role of the ICJ in the controversy, a critical issue in terms of the tension between the two states. The best that can be hoped for is that Venezuela adheres to Provision 1, and refrains from using force against this country in pursuit of its spurious land claim, although as has been previously noted, in order to secure this commitment Guyana, which has threatened no one, is included in the formulation.
Mr Gonsalves’s faux pas was committed in December 2022, long before the question of Argyle ever arose; however, he can still be accused of being unduly incautious if not naïve given that Venezuela for years has been using all kinds of occasions to distribute its bogus maps, and has been inflicting them regularly on international organisations in addition to individual states. That strategy has been pursued with considerably more vigour in recent times.
Venezuelan representatives probably felt quite safe with Mr Gonsalves, not just because earlier in the year Caracas had written off his nation’s PetroCaribe debts among other benefits, but also because he is a member of ALBA, the socialist organisation founded by Hugo Chávez and Cuba in 2004. Their vision was to achieve regional economic integration involving social welfare, the bartering of commodities and mutual economic aid. Given the warmth of relations between the two countries and their shared socialist goals, the Prime Minister was probably quite relaxed and unduly unconcerned about whether Venezuela was engaging in its customary wily tactics to compromise the unwary, in this case a member of Caricom committed to recognising the territorial integrity of Guyana.
In this country in his Caricom role in 2020, Mr Gonsalves earned appreciation for his efforts on behalf of Guyanese democracy, but as a member of ALBA he has found himself in the contrary position. In 2017, to give one example, the foreign ministers of the organisation condemned the “pro-imperialist” interference of the OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, who had convened a special session which declared Venezuela in violation of democratic norms, and requested the freeing of political prisoners, among other things. They went on to denounce his attempts to “impede the sovereign exercise of the Venezuelan Republic to practice democracy, as defended by its Constitution …” The last election in that country was widely seen as fraudulent, and demonstrations there were suppressed.
So where exactly do Mr Gonsalves’s sympathies lie? The real question which arises is whether he is truly impartial given his ALBA commitments. Following on from that it could be hypothesised that the socialist view of the world he shared with Mr Chávez gives him the possible perspective that while 1899 should not be overturned (which if he does would bring him into line with Caricom), imperialist Britain really did visit an injustice on Venezuela. Perhaps he does not believe that, and then again, maybe his private views are even more radical in relation to the Award than those of the Caribbean Community, but whatever they are he has not done anything in recent times to suggest he has any grasp of Guyana’s case. Thus while the ‘ghost’ of his ‘inadvertence’ might have been laid to rest, unease about his larger role still lingers.
Just for the record, the Britain of the imperial era has a tremendous amount to answer for, including in this region, but it would be a mistake to think that absolutely everything it did was wrong, and where the Venezuela-Guyana boundary was concerned it was certainly in the right. It can only be re-emphasised again that this country needs to get its historical case out there; not just what has happened since 1899, but our claims which go back to the seventeenth century.
Whenever the Venezuelans, and President Maduro in particular, keep repeating that Essequibo was shown as a part of Venezuela on maps in 1777 when the Captaincy General was created, President Ali and members of his government should be in a position to answer them; they should not allowed to get away with nonsense unchallenged. Our senior members of government, particularly those in the presidential office, Takuba Lodge and legal affairs should get a grasp of the whole history of the issue, not just the last one hundred years. And that history should be available to the Latin states, particularly Brazil, and, it might be added, to interlocutors such as Prime Minister Gonsalves.
