Please permit me to commend our President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali for his exemplary leadership in respect of the border controversy between Guyana and neighbouring Venezuela. Having observed the sequence of events, together with strong support from our allies over the past week in terms of the Government’s plan of action; President Ali has assured the country that his government is planning for all possible eventualities following the December 3, 2023, referendum in Venezuela. As such, one can safely deduce that the population feels a greater sense of confidence and security; particularly those persons residing in communities that are closer to the border.
It is unfortunate, however, that despite the efforts by the President to unify Guyana, there are still a few political elements determined to undermine the national “apolitical” approach towards confronting this existential threat to our territorial sovereignty and integrity. In this regard, it was observed again, that specifically the leadership of the Alliance for Change (AFC) political party continues to spread propaganda targeting the Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo in relation to the” claim” that it was him who made the proposal to consider conceding part of the maritime area to Venezuela. Although the documented evidence vindicated the Vice President wherein it was recently surfaced in the public domain that such a proposal was put forward under the PNC Government in the pre-1992 era.
The AFC leadership claimed that there is no such documented evidence. Contrary to this, the documents are now in the public domain whereby anyone can independently confirm the facts. To this end, the evidence can be confirmed from examining pages 87-88 of the “Memorandum of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on the Application filed before the International Court of Justice by the Cooperative Republic of Guyana on March 29th, 2018”, in respect of the process of Good Offices (1989-2014) where it stated that:
“The facilitators (Emilio Figueredo for Venezuela and Barton Scotland for Guyana), held four meetings (New York 13th August 1990; New York, 29th October 1990; London, 26th January 1991; New York, 5th April 1991) at which the personal representative of the Secretary-General, Alister McIntyre, was present as a “friendly witness”, foreseeing that “as the talks progress [ed], he may assume a more active role, helping to dispel doubts about the aspirations and purposes of the Parties “.
The report goes onto to state that… “According to the report presented to the Venezuelan Government by Emilio Figueredo, at the first meeting (August 13th, 1990) Venezuela pointed out the convenience of breaking the problem down into three large areas:
- A coastal area that involves territorial cessions to be defined in favor of Venezuela, above all to achieve a greater Atlantic projection;
- A central area or zone of the Mazaruni, linked to energy cooperation, and with possible territorial implications; and,
- An area considering an ecological reserve solution (which could be binational) could be visualized”.
“The Guyanese facilitator found this approach to areas interesting, and it was possible to complement it with cooperation formulas. It was agreed to maintain informal and low-profile status, without public statements…the Guyanese facilitator underlined the difficulties, including constitutional ones, of any territorial arrangement, indicating that he was aware that the greatest contribution Guyana could make to overcome the dispute was in the maritime area. He agreed on a corridor towards the Atlantic, possibly accompanied by a small stretch of coastline. There was a strong resistance, therefore, to solutions that significantly modify the land map and to share control of natural resources”.
Editor, with the foregoing revelation of evidence cited from the authoritative source, one can understand the ignorance displayed by some sections of the political spectrum, up until now of the proposals thereto by the PNC Government, with the view of amicably settling the border controversy. But now that all of the documented evidences are within the public domain proving otherwise, I would like to urge the leadership of the AFC and others, to desist from the politicization and propagandization of this matter. Any other form of behavior is tantamount to political immaturity, unpatriotism, and worse, undermining the national unified position of solidarity that we all ought to resolutely demonstrate.
Yours respectfully,
Joel Bhagwandin