IN today’s column I would focus on two issues that pertain to Guyana’s territorial sovereignty as well as justice with democratic governance.

First, media reports of a week ago, that disclosed an astonishing plan by Venezuela to issue identification cards (IDs) to Guyanese citizens living in the Essequibo Region — an estimated 200,000 Guyanese, and equivalent to a quarter of the national population.

As reported by the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), the man heading Venezuela’s Office for the ‘Rescue of the Essequibo’, Pompey Torrealba Rivero, is a retired army colonel. Therefore, he could only be engaged in this dangerous kind of politics – incomprehensible interference in Guyana’s sovereignty– with the knowledge of the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro.

What is so bizarre about this development, is that it has followed the tense political/diplomatic initiatives within the CARICOM and wider Latin America bloc of nations as a consequence of President Maduro’s presidential decree annexing Guyana’s territorial waters in the Atlantic ocean demarcated as within our economic zone.

The retired army colonel could not, on his own, be engaged in such a highly provocative illegal act as registering Guyanese nationals in the Essequibo as Venezuelan citizens. Therefore, more than a public rebuke from the Guyana Ministry of Foreign Affairs seems urgently necessary.

Consistent with earlier statements by both President David Granger and Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge to involve the cooperation of wider hemispheric organisations, apart from CARICOM, in arresting Venezuela’s territorial aggression, such initiatives should now aggressively be pursued as urgent national priorities with specific information being shared with regional and the wider international community.

It is most shocking, indecent and illegal for a section of President Maduro’s Administration to be involved in conducting any kind of ID programme to register Guyanese nationals, by birth, and living in the Essequibo, as “citizens of Venezuela, consistent with a spurious 19th century colonial claim to some two thirds of Guyana’s 83,000 square miles of territory.
Preservation of the territorial integrity and political sovereignty should be seriously treated as a national priority requiring bi-partisan approaches between the coalition Government of President Granger and the People’s Progressive Party with former President Bharrat Jagdeo as Opposition Leader.
Without engaging in unnecessary “war” talk, a special bi-partisan committee of knowledgeable Guyanese should perhaps be established to monitor developments with a view to promoting structured dialogue with Venezuela designed to widen cooperation while peacefully working to avoid revival in the 21st century, a colonial territorial claim to Guyana’s long settled and outlined in the so-called 1897 Treaty of Washington as a “full, perfect and final settlement”.
THE ‘RODNEY INQUIRY’
This brings me to the other issue of concern alluded to at the start of today’s column – “justice and democratic governance” — and it is directly related to the Government’s surprising decision to go ahead with its earlier pronouncement to bring an end to the independent Commission of Inquiry into the circumstances of death of Dr Walter Rodney.
The internationally famous historian and a founder-leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) was assassinated on the night of June 13, 1980 with the explosion of a bomb concealed in a ‘walkie-talkie’ that was delivered by a former electronics expert of the Guyana Defence Force by name of Gregory Smith.
Recurring demands, nationally, regionally and internationally for an independent probe into the circumstances of Rodney’s bomb explosion death was firmly ignored by successive PNC-led Administrations and only became a reality under a PPP/Civic-led Government which was established in February last year by then President Donald Ramotar and comprised some of the best known legal luminaries of the Caribbean.

Ironically, while the WPA, which had earlier become a coalition ally of the PNC-dominated APNU (A Partnership for National Unity) opted to give evidence before the COI, the PNC at first declined then later engaged in ad hoc responses via current Attorney General, Basil Williams.
Then, with a change in Government, based on last May’s general elections, won with a single-seat majority by the APNU/AFC coalition, came an official announcement that due to lack of required funding, the Government would have to terminate the proceedings of the COI after a final one-week sitting.
Funding may indeed have been a problem, but the sudden end of the inquiry was more like an official decree and among those who felt necessary to go public with their disappointment and plea for continuation was the slain historian’s widow, Dr Patricia Rodney.

If, indeed, there is no more in the mortar than the proverbial pestle, in the dramatic dissolution of the independent inquiry into the killing of Dr Rodney, then the powers that be should appreciate that when its closure comes to an end this week, there would be many questions and claims about why it had to be so!
Critical issues of national security and democratic governance remain unanswered. But long live the valiant spirit of a most heroic, brilliant son of Guyana, an untiring fighter for freedom and national unity.

(Rickey Singh is a noted Guyana-born Caribbean journalist, based in Barbados)
**PULL QUOTE:
It is most shocking, indecent and illegal for a section of President Maduro’s administration to be involved in conducting any kind of ID programme to register Guyanese nationals, by birth, and living in the Essequibo, as “citizens of Venezuela, consistent with a spurious 19th century colonial claim to some two thirds of Guyana’s 83,000 square miles of territory.

Analysis by Rickey Singh