PRESIDENT David Granger told CARICOM leaders that the threat to Guyana’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and economic development is as grave now as it ever was and called on the 15-member bloc to stand with Georgetown in the face of renewed threats by Venezuela.The President made the comments during a presentation at the just concluded 27th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Belize. Mr. Granger reminded CARICOM leaders that he had the honour to address the Thirty-sixth Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community in Barbados in July 2015 and much has happened since then. At that time, CARICOM was astonished at the outrageous Decree – No. 1787 – that had been issued by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela extending its maritime zone into the maritime space of many CARICOM states. So grotesque was the Decree that it was soon after rescinded. It was replaced by another decree – No. 1859 – equally objectionable to Guyana.

Granger said the CARICOM Summit was followed, not long afterwards, by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. “I had the opportunity there to present Venezuela’s aggression against Guyana and to call on UN Secretary-General to exercise his powers to bring this Venezuelan aggression towards Guyana to an end by process of law. He is empowered to do this by the Geneva Agreement of 1966-the Agreement among British Guiana, Britain and Venezuela which allowed Independence to go forward – Independence which Venezuela had tried to block.”

President Granger said the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Agreement was observed on 17th February 2016. The Agreement was aimed at bringing Venezuela’s territorial claims to an end. “Venezuela’s contention, as you know, is that the international Arbitral Award of 1899 that fixed Guyana’s boundaries with Venezuela is a ‘nullity’.” President Granger said throughout the past 50 years, Venezuela made no effort to prove its contention. “It chose, instead, a strategy of harassment; it chose a course of obstruction of Guyana’s economic development; it chose a diplomatic posture of preventing Guyana from membership of the Organisation of American States for 25 years. It attempted subversion of our indigenous people. It resorted to a strategy of naked naval threat by sending a corvette into our Exclusive Economic Zone in 2013.”

President Granger said 50 years of “this constant threat to our sovereignty and territorial integrity are too long for any state to sustain. It occupied our entire existence as an independent State. Guyana seeks an end to living under constant threat. We seek to allow the rule of international law to prevail. Venezuela, however, reasserted its claim to more than half of Guyana by asserting–as its Foreign Minister did last week – that by the Geneva Agreement, Venezuela’s claim of nullity of the Arbitral Award had been acknowledged, if not accepted.”

Mr Granger said Venezuela might have surmised that, what remained was for its so-called “historical controversy’ to be resolved by diplomacy. “Guyana is convinced that, based on its experience over the past 50 years, this would mean only another 50 years of harassment. Venezuela seems prepared to pursue a programme of aggression under the cloak of peace to avoid a judicial settlement and submission to international law,” President Granger said.

Additionally, Granger told CARICOM leaders that the UN Secretary General, in the wake of all that happened last year, has formulated Proposals for The Way Forward under the Geneva Agreement, ending, if necessary, in the International Court of Justice.
He said Guyana has been cooperating with him, but Venezuela is not. “It is, instead, using its monthly Presidency of the Security Council to portray itself as an advocate of peace and respect for the Charter. Venezuela has issued, through its Foreign Ministry, two weeks ago, a document referred to as Ratification of Venezuelan rights over the Essequibo.” President Granger said Guyana has taken note of these warnings and Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge made a statement in the National Assembly on 12th February 2016 repudiating these assertions.