Essequibo investment to get Commonwealth push
By Patrick Denny
The Commonwealth Ministerial Group is to draw up a plan to help Guyana promote investment in the Essequibo to counter the scare tactics being employed by Venezuela. This is one of the decisions the group took at its inaugural meeting earlier this month in New York, according to Foreign Minister, Clement Rohee. Venezuela has strongly attacked the Beal satellite launch deal and has vowed to stop it. Caracas has also interfered with oil concessions granted by Guyana in the area offshore the Essequibo. The Commonwealth Ministerial Group was set up following a decision of the Heads at their recent summit in South Africa to monitor developments in Guyana's border dispute with Suriname and in the controversy arising from Venezuela's rejection of the 1899 Arbitral Award. On June 3, Surinamese gunboats evicted the CGX oil rig from a site within Guyana's waters and this sparked an unresolved crisis in relations between Georgetown and Paramaribo. Speaking with reporters yesterday about the meetings he had during his ten-day trip to New York, Rohee also said that he had picked up as "a general position" the condemnation of Suriname for its resort to force to settle its border dispute with Guyana. Apart from the ministerial group, Rohee had meetings with the foreign ministers of Belize, Cuba, Ireland, Norway, Mexico and South Africa as well as his other CARICOM and South American colleagues. He also met the UN's Legal Counsel and took the opportunity to begin preparing himself for some of the upcoming negotiations in which Guyana would be involved. Among the issues explored with the UN official were maritime boundaries, delimitation of these boundaries, continental shelves and extended continental shelves, negotiating processes and the role of the International Tribunal in Hamburg in settling maritime border disputes. Rohee and his colleague from Venezuela, Jose Vicente Rangel did not meet. Instead, their annual meeting with the UN Secretary General, Rohee said, will take place next month on a mutually convenient date. About the details of the plan by the Commonwealth Ministerial Group to help promote investment in Guyana, Rohee said that the details were to be fleshed out by their High Commissioners in London. The members of the group, which is chaired by South Africa, are the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Antigua, Bangladesh, and Guyana. Rohee said that his ministerial colleagues in the Group "weren't satisfied with what they heard about the (Beal) spaceport project. "Everybody feels that investment is very competitive and hard to come by and if Guyana has succeeded in having the spaceport project here, which is something good for Guyana, then it must be safeguarded at all cost." This sentiment was also extended to the Jialin forestry investment by investors from the People's Republic of China, which the group believes, should also proceed. Rohee said, "in order to offset any future attempts by whomever to prevent investors from coming in they are prepared to pitch in." He said that while the details of the decision were still to be worked out, Guyana was looking for some sort of activism on the part of these countries to use whatever diplomatic outreach they have to explain Guyana's desperate need for investment. Also, he said, it was looking for the group members to encourage potential investors from their countries to proceed with their plans and not pay attention to Venezuela's claim, because it has not been substantiated nor proven legally. He said, too, that in looking at the reports of the visit by Britain's Baroness Patricia Scotland earlier this month, he did see some diplomatic language which if looked at very carefully could give the impression that the British Government believed that Guyana had every right to invite investment in the Essequibo. Rohee was out of the country when Baroness Scotland visited Guyana. About the attitude to Suriname's actions, Rohee said that there was an emerging position in the international community "in support of the non-use of force and against economic aggression whether it is in the context of the Beal Aerospace project or in the context of CGX." This, he said, was coming "from a global mood that exists where people are no longer prepared to entertain such action to resolve disputes." Asked if the negotiations with Suriname were likely to be resumed next week when the sides attended the CARICOM/Canada Summit in Jamaica, Rohee said he could not say if the talks would be resumed at the level of the presidents. However, he did say that both he and his Surinamese counterpart, Marie Levens, would be in Jamaica. Rohee and Levens met in New York last week and he said that he had raised the issues of the arrest of Guyanese fishermen and the seizure of their boats. He said that Levens had expressed concern about the incidents as they did not reflect the spirit of the understanding arrived at during a meeting earlier in the month between Presidents Bharrat Jagdeo and Ronald Venetiaan in Brazil. He said that Levens had assured him that the incidents would be investigated and that she would ensure that a sense of normalcy prevails. Also, he said that he had reminded her of the Memorandum of Understanding on the legal trade on the Corentyne River. The MOU he said called for the two countries to enter into some form of cooperation on the question of hot pursuit in relation to illicit activities whether it has to do with drug smuggling or illegal trade. This MOU had been sent to the Surinamese authorities. Several weeks ago, Surinamese soldiers landed on Guyana's soil in pursuit of the crew of a boat which had crossed the Corentyne River. Shots were fired by the Surinamese in their aggressive bid to apprehend the Guyanese crew on the Scotsburg, Corentyne beach. The soldiers later retreated to their dinghy after villagers gathered. Guyana has protested to Suriname over this incident.
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