IN the National Assembly yesterday, Governance Minister Raphael Trotman told the National Assembly that Guyana will continue to guard its resources jealously against the “rapacious advancement of our neighbours to [the] west.”Trotman, who was tasked with responsibility for the country’s natural resources, addressed the assembly on the recent oil find by United States oil giant, Exxon Mobil. “It is no secret, Mr. Speaker, that oil has been discovered and in fact, it is no secret that the discovery is not an insignificant amount.
“It is believed,” he continued, “that being in the basin known as the Guiana Basin, and given what corresponds off the coast of West Africa, where at one time the two continents were aligned or joined to each other, that the patterns in West Africa were mirrored in the Guiana Basin.”
The minister’s comments came as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was slated to address the National Assembly of Venezuela yesterday on the Guyana/Venezuela border controversy.Telesur, a news agency out of Venezuela, reported that Maduro will instead address Venezuela’s Assembly today, Friday, June 26, 2015.
Meanwhile, Venezuela has continued to lash out at Exxon Mobil and Guyana for allowing the US transnational corporation to operate in Guyana’s waters. In his address to Guyana’s National Assembly, Trotman asserted: “Venezuela knows what is has to do, and that is to behave itself.”
Trotman,who also served as Speaker of the National Assembly in the 10th Parliament, bemoaned Venezuela’s attempts to stymie Guyana’s economic development over the years in the Essequibo region, and now Guyana’s economic development in the Stabroek Bloc of Guyana’s maritime boundaries.
The Governance Minister went on to endorse the statements of both the Governments of Suriname and Colombia in defence of Guyana’s territorial integrity. “Just as they have been entitled to develop what is theirs without interference… so too we [will] enjoy and will guard jealously, the right to do the same to our resources without interference,” Trotman added.
“And whilst, Mr. Speaker, we might not number in the millions, rest assured the desire to defend and to enjoy what is ours is not to be underestimated,” he charged.
Venezuela’s challenge comes in the face of its repudiation of the 1899 Arbitral award, which demarcated the boundary between Guyana, then British Guiana, and Venezuela.
While Guyana has exhausted every avenue to bring the issue to a close, Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge has made it clear that Guyana will be appealing to Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations to act as a third party.
The UN Secretary-General is slated to attend the CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in Barbados in early July. Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge will accompany President David Granger to that meeting.