BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) - The triumph of diplomacy in a new row over a controversial map, points to renewed efforts by Guyana and Venezuela to keep the lid on hostile acts as they seek a resolution to their age-old territorial dispute that dates back to the 19th century.

The latest incident of what Guyana regarded as "a provocative act" occurred at last week's Third Summit of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) on Margarita Island where Venezuela hosted the December 10-11 event for Heads of State and Government of the Greater Caribbean.

The Guyana Foreign Ministry was alerted, through diplomatic channels that Venezuelan officials had arranged for the display of a map depicting some two thirds of Guyana's 83,000 square miles in the sprawling mineral rich area of the Essequibo region as part of Venezuela's territory.

The Secretaries General of both the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the wider 25-member ACS were contacted on the issue in addition to a protest to the Venezuela Foreign Ministry, making clear that display of such a map at the opening of the ACS would be viewed as an unnecessarily hostile act.

As explained by Guyana, it was anxious to avoid the repetition of the offensive development at the South American Summit in Brasilia last year when Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez addressed a media conference against the backdrop of a well-placed map of his country showing the disputed Essequibo region as Venezuelan territory.

Behind-the-scenes diplomatic footwork at the levels of the ACS and CARICOM Secretariats and a hurried briefing by Guyana of CARICOM leaders meeting in The Bahamas for a Caribbean Tourism Summit ahead of the opening of the ACS Summit on Margarita Island, produced swift and positive result.

Venezuela withdrew the map from the summit venue and expressed its regret to Guyana over what was deemed an unfortunate 'bureaucratic blunder' in arrangements made for the two-day event.

This development, hailed by Guyana's Foreign Minister, Rudy Insanally, as "indicative of our new approaches to promote better understanding and strengthen cooperation", was in contrast to the tension that developed at the Brasilia Summit when Guyana was caught by surprise at the unfurling of Venezuela's map for President Chavez's meeting with the media.

Last month Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Luis Alfonso Davila, travelled to Georgetown for a two-day official visit and told the media before returning home what an "extraordinary personal and professional experience" it was.

His meetings with Insanally had resulted in agreement to establish a "hotline" for regular direct contacts between Caracas and Georgetown to avoid misunderstandings and unfriendly acts as both countries continue to pursue a mutually satisfactory resolution to the border dispute.

The territorial controversy has resulted from Venezuela's rejection, prior to Guyana's Independence in 1966, of the 1899 International Arbitral Award that recognised the existing demarcated boundaries between the two neighbouring states on South America.

The Tribunal had determined that the award constituted a "full, perfect and final settlement of all the questions referred to the arbitrators".

At their meeting last month, both Davila and Insanally laid emphasis on the role being played by a High Level Bilateral Commission (HLBC) established as the Good Officer process of the United Nations Secretary General to pursue an amicable resolution to the territorial dispute.

Davila spoke with enthusiasm of his visit to Guyana resulting in the opening of a "Demerara Window" of opportunity to promote goodwill between the two neighbours and signalled Guyana's likely access to his country's new "Caracas Energy Accord" under which states of the Caribbean region obtain oil on concessionary terms.

Guyana was among some eight countries that actually signed the Accord during a bilateral meeting at the ACS Summit between the Guyanese President, Bharrat Jagdeo, and his Venezuelan counterpart, Chavez.

Both the public sector-owned 'Sunday Chronicle' and the privately-owned 'Stabroek News' of Guyana carried editorials critical of Venezuela's move to again have on display at a hemispheric conference its controversial map.

The 'Sunday Chronicle' of December 16, commended the progress achieved at the ACS Summit. But on the specific issue of the map controversy said:

"If Venezuelan strategists on the border dispute had hoped to score a propaganda point in having such a map on display, then they had seriously miscalculated in revealing surprising diplomatic insensitivity for such an occasion".

The 'Stabroek News' was even more hard-hitting in its editorial titled "Unneighbourly" contending that: "What made Caracas' unneighbourly map even more distasteful was that Guyana was preparing to sign the Caracas Energy Accord on the same Margarita Island upon the conclusion of the two-day ACS meeting".

The paper argued that Venezuela could not be "oblivious to the acute concerns that Guyana would have had over a stunt like the one it pulled with the map..."

For Guyana's Foreign Minister, however, anxious to downplay controversies, "we are pleased with the end result of the incident and are looking forward to joint efforts to strengthen cooperation".

Insanally said the third meeting of the High-level Bilateral Commission of the UN Good Officer process should take place in February 2002 in Georgetown and that both sides were working towards "advancing the agenda".