New era in Guyana/Venezuela ties
Guest Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
February 25, 2004
IT MAY be ironical, but as Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are embroiled in a tense maritime delimitation dispute, a new era in productive relations is set to bloom between Guyana and Venezuela, which have a border row that dates back to the 19th century.
The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, set the mood for the flowering of this new relationship when he paid a one-day State visit to Guyana last Thursday.
In rejecting the award of an international tribunal in 1899 that had ruled the existing boundaries between the two South American countries to be a "full, perfect and final settlement," successive - civilian and military - regimes in Caracas have kept alive claims to some two thirds of Guyana's 83,000 square mile territory.
This claim covers the rich mineral and forest regions of the sprawling Essequibo, the largest of Guyana's three counties, and for years has been frustrating Guyana's efforts, under different governments in Georgetown, from pursuing exploration for oil and other major economic development projects.
Now President Chavez, confronting challenging political problems at home but still the popular leader, from all credible reports, turned up in Guyana last week with the message of "a love process", and talking passionately of burying the past and forging "a new era" in Venezuelan-Guyanese relations.
"The Essequibo issue" (read 'border dispute'), he pledged, even before entering into a historic joint communiqué with his Guyanese counterpart, President Bharrat Jagdeo, "will be removed from the framework of the social, political and economic relations between our two countries, and we will tackle each issue from a different perspective based on mutual respect..."
He was later reported in the public sector-owned 'Chronicle' that "taking into account the history of the relations between Guyana and Venezuela, this is certainly a watershed...You have to think of what happened before my visit, and what is going to happen after..."
So he left on a high note of optimism for the new relationship that parties in and out of government and the private sector hope will soon translate into practical results as both countries continue to rely on the United Nations Good Offices process to help resolve the protracted territorial dispute.
Among immediate benefits to Guyana resulting from Pres. Chavez's visit is debt forgiveness by Venezuela of some US$12 million and an adjustment in the 'Caracas Energy Cooperation Accord' to facilitate Guyana with oil imports on concessionary terms.
The Guyanese Foreign Minister, Rudy Insanally, in speaking of the warmth of friendship that was evident for President Chavez's visit and its "evident success", made clear that the government made no commitments that would in any way affect Guyana's continuing control of Essequibo.
Significantly, he also noted that Guyana was already on record as having registered its concerns with the United Nations Secretary General, as well as Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, over the 1990 maritime delimitation treaty between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela - an issue of current controversy between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.