Commonwealth group pledges to counter Venezuela's scare tactics
THE five-member Commonwealth Ministerial Group on Guyana has pledged to help this country not only source much-needed foreign investment but to also counter Venezuela's scare tactics, Foreign Minister Mr Clement Rohee reported yesterday. The grouping, established last year in Durban, South Africa at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit, initially to monitor developments in the Guyana/Venezuela border controversy, has also charged each country's High Commissioner to London to take necessary follow-up action. The decision was taken a week ago at the grouping's inaugural meeting in New York, Rohee said. Also at the meeting were new Commonwealth Secretary-General, Mr Don McKinnon, and other officials of the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat. The grouping, which has now taken on board the Guyana/Suriname border dispute as well, comprises Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Canada, Jamaica and South Africa. Asked to expand on what strategies the grouping planned to deploy in relation to Venezuela's scare tactics, Rohee, whose participation in the inaugural meet was part of his 10-day itinerary abroad, said it was difficult to say at this juncture since all they have agreed on to date was a broad agenda. "I can't say that right now; we just decided on that broad policy framework", he told a news conference at the Foreign Ministry yesterday. "What is left to happen now is for the High Commissioners who belong to the member states of the London-based group to flesh out this global approach pursuant to what was decided in New York and to make certain recommendations on how to go about doing those things," he said. Noting, however, that there was no mistaking that the grouping was clearly not pleased at what it has heard being said about the Beal spaceport project, Rohee said: "Everybody feels that investment is very competitive and hard to come by and if Guyana has succeeded in having this spaceport project there, which is something good for Guyana, then it must be safeguarded at all costs". Guyana and the Beal Aerospace firm of Texas in May signed an agreement for the American company to set up a spaceport in the northwest border region with Venezuela. Venezuela has objected to the project. Rohee said the Commonwealth grouping was also in favour of the proposed Chinese forest investment project in the Essequibo region, and that "in order to offset any future attempts by whoever to prevent investors from coming in, they are committed to pitch in to see what they can do". Pressed into saying just what sort of solidarity Guyana expected from the Commonwealh, Rohee said: "We're looking for some kind of activism on the part of these countries to use whatever diplomatic outreach they have to explain to the world that Guyana is one of the poorer countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and that it is desperately in need of investment". Meanwhile, a proposed meeting between Rohee and his Venezuelan counterpart, Mr Jose Vicente Rangel, which should have come off at the just-concluded United Nations General Assembly in New York but had been postponed because of other pressing matters, has now been set for sometime next month. According to Rohee, a date that is suitable to all the parties involved in the meeting, is yet to be agreed on. United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Anan, the UN-appointee in the `Good Officer' process, Mr Oliver Jackman, and the two facilitators, are also to be present at that meet. (LINDA RUTHERFORD)  Follow the goings-on in Guyana
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