PRESIDENT Maduro of Venezuela at the end of the first week of January 2021 issued a decree claiming the continental shelf and the seas adjacent to and west of the Essequibo River.  Such a claim has been going on since Guyana was granted its independence.  Since then, the scenario had changed and the 1899 Arbitral Award which had settled the boundaries between the two states is now being brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), so that the court could adjudicate on the validity of the award.   Venezuela, however, seems to wish to continue the controversy and to institutionalise it and is issuing threats to Guyana to force it to conform to its demands.

The President of Guyana, Dr Irfaan Ali, had promptly rejected the Venezuelan threats and claim, pointing out that it was contrary to International Law on two bases.  The first was that no state could unilaterally arrogate unto itself the authority of unilaterally fixing its boundaries with another state and to attempt to do so would be illogical and is null and void.
The second basis is that the seas adjacent to the Essequibo Coast are part of Guyana’s sovereign territory as per the 1899 award, which is yet to be adjudicated on by the ICJ.  Venezuela’s claim on this part of Guyana’s territory is, therefore, a nullity and infringes international law.  Venezuela has so far declared that it would not be participating in the hearing at the ICJ, though that would not prevent the court from adjudicating in the matter.  It is hoped, however,  that Venezuela would participate.

When the arbitral award was made, Venezuela celebrated it as a victory and there were joyous celebrations in Caracas and postage stamps were even issued to mark the event.  Then the boundary was demarcated by a joint team of Venezuelan and British surveyors in 1905 and was universally and internationally recognised.

Then just as Guyana was about to be granted its independence, in 1962, Venezuela claimed that the arbitral award was unfair and a nullity and that Essequibo and about two-thirds of Guyana’s territory belonged to them.  Such a claim is as outlandish as if the Russians who had sold Alaska or the French who had sold Louisiana to the United States were to claim that these sales were invalid, because there was some alleged impropriety in the sale arrangements!

At the time of the Venezuelan claim the Cold War was raging and opinion in Georgetown was that this claim was based on very flimsy grounds of a very junior lawyer in the Arbitration accusing his senior colleagues who were regarded as the best lawyers in the world at that time of impropriety.  That junior lawyer, Mallet-Prevost, was alleged to have left his accusations in a posthumous letter.  It was believed that Cold War interest felt that the Venezuelan claim would delay the granting of Independence to Guyana and so thwart the Marxist Cheddi Jagan from becoming Prime Minister and creating another Cuba.

Britain, however, was determined to withdraw from Guyana and in 1966 was able to strike an agreement – The Geneva Agreement- with Venezuela, whereby a Mixed Commission was established to resolve the controversy.  Britain then gracefully granted independence to Guyana.  The Mixed Commission expired in 1970 without coming to any agreement and it was succeeded by the  12-year Protocol of  Port-of -Spain, which Venezuela ended in 1982.  In 1990 the parties sought the good offices of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

In 2016 the Secretary-General indicated that since progress was absent towards a solution, he would transfer the matter to the ICJ as he was permitted to do by the agreement.  He would only refrain from so doing if the parties jointly requested him.  On January 3, 2018, he transferred the issue to the ICJ and in March Guyana filed its application to the ICJ concerning the controversy.  Venezuela claimed that the court had no jurisdiction but in December 2020 the Court, by an overwhelming majority affirmed that it had.

Unfortunately for Venezuela and Guyana, the 1962 flimsy claim based on Mallet-Prevost’s posthumous letter, took on a life of its own and it was promoted by some politicians among the populace who began to be convinced of its veracity.  A Frankenstein’s monster had been created and the controversy is now a bane on Venezuelan political life.

The ICJ, however it decides, would free Venezuelan political life of that bane and prevent it from falling into gaucheries.  Guyana and Venezuela would then enter an era of close fraternal and productive cooperation, resulting in the cultural and economic enrichment of both countries.