Venezuelan assembly votes against Guyana treaty
VENEZUELA'S Constitutional Assembly, moving a step closer to renouncing a 100-year-old border pact with neighbouring Guyana, approved on Wednesday an article recognising only those territorial treaties and rulings "not considered null." The Reuters news agency reported that members of the 131-member assembly, which is drafting a new constitution and is packed with supporters of President Hugo Chavez, said the article was a direct reference to the 1899 treaty signed with Britain, then colonial power of British Guiana. Under that pact, Venezuela ceded the mineral-rich Essequibo to then British Guiana. Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel told reporters that Venezuela had long considered the 1899 decision by an international Tribunal of Arbitration null and void. But he denied again recent Guyanese accusations of a Venezuelan military build-up along the frontier, stressing that he favoured a "political solution" to the dispute. "Venezuela does not need to threaten anybody. We don't need to use force," Rangel said. Venezuela recently revived its claims to the sparsely populated Essequibo. Some Caracas-based diplomats have said the Essequibo issue was bound to resurface after Chavez, a former army officer and outspoken nationalist, took office eight months ago. Venezuela formally stated its belief that the 1899 accord was invalid at the United Nations in 1962, four years before British Guiana won independence from Britain. Speaking in Malaysia Wednesday during an Asian tour, Chavez expressed confidence that the assembly would approve the text of the new constitution in time for a referendum before the end of the year. Knowledgeable sources here yesterday said the Venezuela assembly was moving to insert in the new constitution the contention that the 1899 award was null and void. What would be crucial, they pointed out, was whether the wording can also be applied to the Geneva Agreement which Foreign Minister, Mr. Clement Rohee last week noted "sought to provide an atmosphere for rational discussion by prohibiting any claims and counter-claims to territory to be made during the existence of the agreement". The sources said both countries are "locked into" Article 42 of the 1965 Geneva Agreement by which a means of resolving the border controversy has to be arrived at by the United Nations Secretary General. "If the article in the constitution can be applied to the Geneva Agreement, that could lead to unpredictable consequences and if Venezuela were to unilaterally abrogate the Geneva Agreement, it would be a breach of the agreement", a source told the Chronicle. Venezuela's Ambassador here, Mr. Hector Azocar, said the assembly has not completed its work and the reference to treaties "is not a definite position." "They (the assembly) are still working and that has to be considered", he told the Chronicle yesterday. He said the Venezuelan government maintains that the 1899 award was "null and void" and the reference to the border repeats what was in the country's 1961 Constitution.
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