Chavez presses Venezuela case in Brasilia
By William Walker in Brasilia
The border controversy with Venezuela got international exposure yesterday with Caracas strongman, President Hugo Chavez pressing his case in front of the foreign media who are in Brasilia for the summit today of South American Presidents. Chavez pushed his country's claim on the eve of what he described to a packed press conference as "a very, very important meeting" at 3 pm today with President Bharrat Jagdeo. Chavez is attending the South American Heads of State Summit scheduled to start at 6 pm today and Jagdeo is expected here this morning. But the largely ceremonial summit will form the backdrop to bilateral talks between the heads which will include the meeting between Guyana and Venezuela and possibly one between Guyana and Suriname over the CGX oil rig and the border dispute, although newly installed Suriname President Ronald Venetiaan has yet to arrive. Yesterday Chavez devoted a large chunk of his press conference, held at the El Nacional Hotel, explaining to a curious international press with the aid of maps, the history of the border issue according to Venezuela. As soon as the energetic Chavez swept into the conference room, he went straight to a map on the wall and studied it closely to see whether Essequibo had been demarcated to Guyana or Venezuela. He only gave a shrug of his shoulders. Chavez restated that the planned Beal satellite launch facility in the Waini River region of the Essequibo was a concern to Venezuela. Guyana, he said, had sold a large portion of land (25,010 acres) to a foreign corporation which he claimed would not only be launching satellites but also rockets from a base much like a fort which even Guyanese citizens would be forbidden to visit. Guyana has dismissed Chavez's concerns that the Beal site could be used for purposes other than satellite launching. Chavez added that "the ambitious project" was a source for environmental concerns. He also claimed through a translator - the Venezuelan Ambassador to Brazil, Dr Milos Alcaly - that oil concessions granted by Guyana in the offshore area were "precisely where we have an exit to the Atlantic Ocean." Guyana considers this area as part of its recognised maritime zone and has granted several oil exploration licences off the Essequibo - as it has done in the past. Venezuela has interfered by trying to warn off the explorers. At least one of the explorers, Century Oil is said to have reversed plans to sink a well because of the Venezuelan warnings. Chavez described the history of the border controversy as "a clear-cut case of an inheritance of our colonial past" and he grounded Venezuela's claims to the region up to the banks of the Essequibo River on the many signed documents pertaining to Gran Colombia; a position to which Venezuela has always held, he declared, as he swept across the shoulder of the map of South America with a long rod. Guyana holds to the position that the 1899 arbitral award was a full and final settlement of the boundary between the two countries. Chavez said any permanent agreement must be projected from and related to the 1966 Geneva agreement. He lamented that 35 years later there was still no agreement but expressed confidence that "with faith and hope we would find a peaceful way to a permanent solution". Chavez said the basis of the 1966 agreement was precisely what his government would like to discuss in the meeting today with Jagdeo. But he would not be drawn on the particulars of the bilateral talks saying it would be imprudent at this point. Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel told reporters that discussions would embrace "heaven and earth" meaning everything. But he added that the bilateral commission which looks to strengthen cultural and trade links between the two countries would also be on the agenda
 Follow the goings-on in Guyana
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