THE Foreign Affairs Ministry in collaboration with the Education Ministry launched two Public Service Announcements in their quest to increase awareness on the Guyana-Venezuela Border Controversy.

The PSAs, in the form of videos provide, in a concise manner, critical information on the history of the Guyana-Venezuela border issue from 1830 to present day.
The launching took place at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the presence of Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge and staff of his ministry. One of the PSAs reminds Guyanese that Guyana is 83,000 square miles of luscious land complemented by many waters.

The country’s boundary with Venezuela was established by international law since 1899.
In maintaining that Guyana’s boundaries are clear and absolute, the two ministries, in the PSA, tell Guyanese that there are four important facts that they should know. “Territorial disputes cannot be separated from international law because the law is the bedrock of all modern nations. As Guyana and Venezuela are both members of the United Nations, all UN members are automatically parties to the rules and regulations of the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the principle judicial organ of the United Nations” the PSA states.

Since the start of the controversy there have been several legally binding agreements. These include: The Treaty of Washington of 1897; the Arbitral Ruling and Award of 1899; the 1905 border demarcation agreement between the United Kingdom and Venezuela and the Geneva Agreement of 1966. “Under the 1966 Geneva Agreement both parties agreed to authorise the Secretary General of the United Nations to choose the means of settlement of the border controversy. Additionally, the Geneva Agreement allowed for Venezuela to prove its contention that the Arbitral Award of 1899 was null and void. To this day Venezuela has never done so. Through the last 52 years, despite several mechanisms including the Good Officers Process under the United Nations Secretary General, there has been no progress for the solution of the controversy,” the PSA explained.

In an effort to bring an end to this age old border controversy, on January 30, 2018 the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in keeping with the 1966 Geneva Agreement, announced that the International Court of Justice would be the next means to be used for the solution of the controversy. On March 29, 2018, the Foreign Affairs Minister filed Guyana’s application with the ICJ.

Minister Greenidge said the compilation and launch of the two PSAs are in keeping with a call by Cabinet for greater awareness among Guyanese on the controversy. He said in underscoring the need to inform the populace, Cabinet urged that focus be placed on certain groups such as the Indigenous Communities. “A good part of the focus has to be on Indigenous Communities. They occupy the spaces close to our border, those are the spaces most perhaps at risk, first at risk,” the Foreign Affairs Minister explained. The Minister also used the opportunity to encourage better reporting on the very sensitive issue. “It is a matter of great regret to see sometimes the level of debate one finds in the papers, the amount of ignorance that is written in the newspaper, and also the tendency in the newspapers to copy things wholesale,” he said. Minister Greenidge in making his case alluded to the recent handling of reports on the recent meeting with the ICJ President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf on the matter. Guyana and Venezuela were both invited to meet the ICJ President earlier this month to fix a schedule for the filing of written pleadings in the border controversy. However Venezuela signaled that it will not participate in the ICJ matter.