MAIN Opposition party, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has thrown its support behind the Government as it dismissed the decree by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on a new claim to Guyana’s territory as spurious.The main Opposition party, in a statement, said when in Government, it resolutely defended Guyana’s territorial integrity, and in Opposition, the fervour has not waned.
“The PPP maintains its rejection of the Venezuelan spurious claim and condemns, in the strongest possible terms the May 27, 2015 decree of the Venezuela Government,” the party in a terse statement declared.
President Maduro on May 27, issued a decree creating the “Atlantic coast of Venezuela”, which now includes sovereignty over Guyana’s territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean off the Essequibo Region.
It covers the area where US oil company, ExxonMobil, recently announced it has made a significant oil discovery.

A map, issued to coincide with the decree, indicates that Venezuela is now claiming all the territorial waters within the 200 miles range and blocking Guyana’s access to its resources in this area of the Atlantic Ocean.

The new extension of Venezuela’s claim to Guyanese territorial waters was made official in the Presidential decree, No. 1787, and published in the Ordinary Official Gazette No. 40,669, dated May 27, 2015.

Former Guyana Ambassador to Guyana to Venezuela, Dr. Odeen Ishmael, writing in online news outfit, Caribbean News Now, explained that the decree is the second from the neighbouring country asserting a claim to Guyana’s territorial waters.
The first, he noted, was issued by President Raul Leoni in July 1968, some 47 years ago, which purportedly claimed sovereignty over a 12-mile strip of Guyana’s continental shelf along the Essequibo coast.

The Maduro decree is set amid Venezuela’s objection over oil exploration and concessions granted by Guyana to ExxonMobil, to explore 23,000 square kilometers of the Stabroek Block located within the area, and a recent announcement by that company that it has made a significant oil discovery in that area.
The neighbouring country had earlier this year objected to ExxonMobil drilling in Stabroek Block, claiming that it is part of Venezuelan territory.
Last month, ExxonMobil announced a significant oil discovery on the Stabroek Block, located approximately 120 miles offshore Guyana.
“By this decree, the Venezuela Government has also created the so-called ‘Areas of Integral Defence of Marine Zones and Islands,’ thus ratifying its maritime sovereignty over the waters of the parts of the Caribbean and off the coast of Guyana. In doing so, it now claims sovereignty over the continental shelf and a projection of the Atlantic Ocean off the Essequibo Region of Guyana, and even stretching into part of Suriname’s maritime space,” Dr. Ishmael pointed out.

Flagrant violation
The Government of Guyana said Decree No. 1.787 is a flagrant violation of International Law and is inconsistent with the principle that all states should respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states, large and small.
“The Cooperative Republic of Guyana rejects this illegality which seeks to undermine our efforts at development through the exploitation of our natural resources off-shore.
The Government noted that the land boundary between Guyana and Venezuela which was defined by the Arbitral Award of 1899 is recognised by all states.
It was also pointed out that Venezuela had recognised its border with Guyana as settled for over 60 years, having also participated in the demarcation of this established boundary which was completed in 1905.

The genesis
The unjustified claim by Venezuela to Guyana’s territory can be traced to rivalry among European nations during the period of the 16th and 19th Centuries, as noted in the booklet “Never This Land” by Allan A Fenty, published in 1982.
Spain, Holland, Britain, France and Portugal, all fought against each other for the right to establish and own colonies in North, Central and South America, many of which later fought and gained independence.
In South America, in some cases, boundaries and borders were not properly defined and had to be done after the nations had gain independence.
Great Britain, by 1814, had won the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice from the Dutch, but during the 19th Century, both Venezuela and Britain claimed each other’s territory.
At that time, there was no properly-defined border and Venezuela claimed nearly all of what was the original Dutch colony of Essequibo, while Britain claimed much of what is now the eastern and northern regions of Venezuela.
As stated in the Fenty booklet, and widely reported, both Venezuela and Britain agreed to settle the matter by international arbitration, and on February 1897, both parties signed the Treaty of Washington, agreeing that the tribunal would define the boundary between then British Guiana and Venezuela and the results and findings of that body would be accepted as “A full, perfect and final settlement of all the questions referred to the arbitrators”.
In October 1899, the tribunal made its decision known, and though it very much agreed with Britain’s case, the borders of then British Guiana were defined in such a manner that Venezuela gained some 5000 square miles of land, an award it hailed as a victory. The tribunal also gave Venezuela control over the mouth of the Orinoco River, which it always wanted.

Recant
In 1941, Venezuela through her Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that the territorial matter was “judged and finished”; but in 1962, when British Guiana was in the final stages of her struggle for independence, Venezuela notified the United Nations that she no longer accepts the finding of the tribunal, claiming to have found evidence of a deal between Russia and Britain.
Declaring the tribunal award null and void, Venezuela notified the UN of re-opening her claim to the Essequibo. As British Guiana was proceeding to Independence in May 1966, Venezuela intensified her claim to Essequibo, and against this backdrop, the United Kingdom and British Guiana signed an agreement with Venezuela, called the Geneva Agreement.
The agreement signed in 1966 set up a Guyana-Venezuela Mixed Commission to find “satisfactory solutions for the practical settlement of the controversy”.
It was given four years to complete it work, but during these meetings, Venezuela did not even try to prove her contention that the 1899 Arbitral Award was null and void, but instead, wanted to find out how much land Guyana would give to her and talked about “joint development”.
Guyana, as noted in booklet “Never This Land”, refused to consider these approaches when it realised that Venezuela was just planning strategies to control the territory of Essequibo.
The action by Venezuela comes at a time when Guyana has elected a new Government, and the announcement by ExxonMobil of a significant oil discovery in Guyana’s waters. The Maduro Government has been plagued by a host of problems, including rising inflation, shortage of basic food items and a spate of protests.
Making it clear, the Government of Guyana yesterday declared that Decree No. 1.787 cannot be applicable to any part of Guyana’s territory, and any attempt by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to apply that instrument in an extra-territorial manner will be vigorously resisted.

By Tajeram Mohabir