PRESIDENT David Granger has urged the United Nations to curb Venezuela’s “expansionist ambitions,” saying its claim on Guyana’s territory and its use of armed force threaten the peace of the Caribbean region.
“Venezuela’s expansionist ambitions cannot be allowed to unsettle the principle of inviolability of borders, undermine the tenets of international law and unravel borders which have been undisturbed for decades,” President Granger said yesterday, addressing the United Nations General Assembly for the first time since his election in May.
“Guyana does not wish that this obnoxious territorial claim should obscure the prospects of peace and obstruct the possibility of growth for the next fifty years,” he declared.
President Granger said Guyana needs a permanent solution in order to avoid the fate of “perpetual peril and penury.” And he has urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to use his office to send Venezuela’s case for a final, legal settlement at the International Court of Justice. Venezuela has claimed that the 1899 arbitral award which defined the two countries’ borders is null and void. The claim was raised 50 years ago on the eve of Guyana’s independence from Great Britain. An agreement signed in Geneva in 1966 provides for the Secretary-General to take action to bring a resolution to the contention by Venezuela.
“Guyana has the fullest confidence in the judgment and capacity of the United Nations, through the Office of the Secretary-General, to identify solutions that will validate the ‘just, perfect and final’ nature of the award,” Granger stated.
“Guyana seeks nothing more than the solidarity of this international community, the assurance of the Charter and the safety of international law,” Granger stressed. He thanked the United Nations and the Secretary-General for appointing various Good Officers to help to resolve this controversy, but the President reiterated that this process has now been exhausted.
“Guyana reposes its faith and places its fate in the international system of peace that was promised by the Charter of the United Nations seventy years ago. We want to bring an end to Venezuelan aggression. We want to develop our country, all of our country, in accordance with international law,” President Granger stated.
He called on the United Nations to give real meaning to a May 1994 agreement by establishing a collective security system not merely to ‘‘monitor” but more so “maintain” the security of small states.
“The United Nations remains our best hope. The United Nations is our best prospect of peace. The United Nations is our best assurance of security for a small state. The United Nations is our strength, support and succour in our time of danger,” the President stated.
Protection from foreign aggression
He said Guyana and other small states ask of the United Nations to address the questions of protection from foreign aggression, the safeguard of their territory from invasion, the preservation of peace among nations, and the continued independence of the small states. He said that the charter of the United Nations enjoins the organisation with the responsibility “to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes.”

He said this responsibility is essential to the existence and survival of small states that are threatened by powerful states. “Small states risk being subjugated unless the international community can demonstrate the capability and commitment to provide an effective deterrent against domination by larger, stronger states,” Granger stated. He pointed out that the United Nations General Assembly, on May 9th 1994, approved a resolution which recognises that small states may be particularly vulnerable to external threats and acts of interference in their internal affairs.
Further, the said resolution stressed the vital importance for all states of the unconditional respect by all states of all the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, including the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and the peaceful settlement of disputes and their consistent application.
In defiance of international law
Granger further quoted the resolution as calling for the UN Security Council and other relevant organs of the United Nations to pay special attention to the protection and security of small states. As a result, he said Guyana rejects the threats and claims by Venezuela which are in defiance of international law. “Guyana resists Venezuela’s acts of aggression in defiance of the Charter of the United Nations which prescribes the peaceful settlement of disputes and proscribes the use of armed force,” Granger asserted.
Guyana’s border with Venezuela was settled 116 years ago. “The whole world, except the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, accepts our borders. The tribunal issued its award on the 3rd of October, 1899, giving Venezuela 13,000 square kilometers of our territory, an area bigger than Jamaica or Lebanon,” the President said, “and Venezuela was bound under international law to respect that award, which it did for the subsequent six decades. Venezuela, however, at the onset of Guyana’s independence resorted to various stratagems to deprive Guyana of its territory.”
Path of intimidation, aggression
Granger noted that there has been a series of acts of aggression by Presidents of Venezuela against Guyana, starting with a Presidential decree of June 1968 to the time of President Nicolás Maduro Moro’s decree of May 26th 2015, which sought to extend Venezuela’s land claim to also annex the country’s maritime space.
Two years ago the Venezuelans sent a naval ship into Guyanese waters and seized a U.S.-chartered oil survey ship and escorted it to Margarita Island. This month, Guyanese authorities also said the Venezuela army was up the Cuyuni River. “Venezuela — more than four times the size of Guyana with armed forces that are more than forty times the size of Guyana’s Defence Force — mindful of its superior wealth and military strength, and unmindful of its obligation as a member state of the United Nations, of the Union of South American Nations and of the Organization of American States, has pursued a path of intimidation and aggression.

“Venezuela is unsettling a settled border. It is destabilising a stable region of the globe by the use of armed force against a peaceful, small state.”
Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has committed himself to restoring normal diplomatic relations with Guyana following a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President Granger Sunday evening.
He said he would immediately send back his Ambassador to Georgetown and accredit Guyana’s Ambassador to Caracas. Maduro recalled Ambassador Reina Margarita Arratia Diaz from Georgetown in July when he wanted American oil firm Exxon Mobil to halt its exploration for oil and leave the area. At the Sunday meeting, Maduro also agreed to accept a UN team to investigate its claim that the 1899 award is null and void.

 “Guyana reposes its faith and places its fate in the international system of peace that was promised by the Charter of the United Nations seventy years ago. We want to bring an end to Venezuelan aggression. We want to develop our country, all of our country, in accordance with international law.” – President Granger

By Neil Marks in New York