Rangel to approach Rohee on Beal deal at OAS meeting
Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jose Vicente Rangel expects to discuss Caracas's displeasure at the concession granted to Beal Aerospace Technologies to set up a rocket launching site in the Essequibo region. Rangel's intention was reported in the Venezuelan daily, El Nacional. The agreement reached with Beal provides for the Texas-based company to purchase some 25,000 acres of land in the Waini for its core operations at US$3 an acre and to lease a further 75,000 acres at US$1 an acre a year. Following the signing of the agreement on May 19, the Venezuelan government protested the granting of the concession to the US company and deemed it "an unfriendly act," which will hamper "reaching a peaceful and satisfactory solution to the territorial controversy." But the Guyana government rejected this contention in a statement on May 29, in which it described the Venezuelan position as obstructionist. It said that locally generated initiatives to encourage foreign direct investments to facilitate national development in the Essequibo should not in any way jeopardise the search for a solution to the controversy under the aegis of the UN Good Officer process. A subsequent report in El Nacional which appeared on May 31, said that Rangel would take the opportunity of this weekend's meeting in Canada of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of the American States to raise the issue with Foreign Minister, Clement Rohee. It said too that Rangel would also raise with Rohee Guyana's move to have a Commonwealth Ministerial Group appointed to monitor developments in the territorial controversy.
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