THERE APPEARS to be a yawning gap between rhetorical assurances and negative actions that continue to haunt the need for good relations between border neighbours Guyana and Venezuela, both members of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS).
The latest development in this undesirable scenario came earlier this month when a Venezuelan naval ship forcefully ejected an oil-exploring vessel from what Guyana regards as part of its sovereign territory.
According to Venezuelan naval authorities, they felt compelled to detain the seismic ship RV Teknik Perdana – flying a Panamanian flag – because it was involved in what Caracas treats as an extension of its economic zone.
The ship’s captain was subsequently charged and the Teknik Perdana and crew released amid intensive diplomatic engagements between the governments in Caracas and Georgetown that extended to an emergency meeting at the foreign ministers’ level in Port of Spain.
Seizure of the Texas-based ship was the latest manifestation of an old 19th century border dispute which Guyana inherited on independence in May 1966, and rooted in Venezuela’s claim to two-thirds of Guyana’s 83 000 square miles of territory.
Following Independence, both border neighbours agreed to resolve the lingering territorial dispute through the United Nations secretary general’s Good Officer process. The current UN representative is Dr Norman Girvan, the former Jamaican-born secretary general of the ACS. His predecessor was the late distinguished Barbadian diplomat and jurist Oliver Jackman.
A most pertinent factor often referenced by historians and jurists is that a government in Caracas is on record as having accepted the decision of an “1897 Treaty of Washington” to be a “full, perfect and final settlement”.
Nevertheless, various administrations in Caracas have often resorted to Venezuela’s claim, at times aggravated by actions of its military and naval personnel. During his period as president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez was noted for de-emphasizing the territorial dispute in preference for broadening bilateral trade and diplomatic relations with Guyana.
Now, however, the territorial dispute has once again flared up over the arrest of the Teknik Perdana, resulting in the UN Secretary General’s Good Officer Dr Girva asking the foreign ministers of Venezuela and Guyana to come forward with new initiatives to help resolve the age-old territorial dispute.
