Dear Editor,

PRESIDENT Ali is scheduled to meet Venezuela’s President, Nicholas Maduro Moros on December 14, 2023, at the request of the Heads of Government of CARICOM and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). This meeting has largely been brokered by the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves with the support of the President of Brazil, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Prime Minister Gonsalves has described the purpose of the meeting to be “appropriate” dialogue between the two Presidents in the interest of maintaining “peaceful coexistence”, respect for international law and the avoidance of the use of threats of force. Gonsalves, of course, is referring to the threat of military invasion of Guyana’s Essequibo region by Venezuela, promoted by the infamous Referendum conducted by Maduro to engender public support for this purpose.

We know from widespread international news reporting, that the Referendum failed to be supported by any substantial number of voters, though, those that did vote gave Maduro what he wanted, a public mandate to invade our country.

In agreeing to meet Maduro, our government set out the framework for such a meeting based on the fact that the CARICOM Heads fully supported a resolution of the border controversy by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as directed by the Secretary General of the United Nations and the fact that the ICJ had directed Venezuela to refrain from acting to undermine the ICJ process. It therefore followed that our government would not enter into any discussion on the border issue while the matter is before the ICJ.

Not surprisingly, Maduro in accepting the letter from Ralph Gonsalves to attend the meeting, has made it clear that he has every intention of rejecting the ICJ ruling on the matter and has every intention of attempting to use the meeting to discuss the border issue directly.

Maduro then indulges in an appalling distortion of the Geneva Agreement claiming, untruthfully, that “Venezuela demonstrated that the award issued in 1899 by the Paris Arbitration Court was null and void” and that a solution to the controversy under the Agreement must “be amicably resolved in a manner that is acceptable to both parties”, while ignoring that such discussions had failed for over 30 years and that the Geneva Agreement provided for the Secretary General of the United Nations to choose another path for the settlement of the controversy if not settled by discussion between the two countries.

Maduro also ignores the fact that the Secretary General, in accord with the Agreement, on January 30, 2018, had advised both Venezuela and Guyana that “having carefully analysed the developments in the good offices process during the course of 2017” and “significant progress not having been made toward arriving at a full agreement for the solution of the controversy” he had “chosen the International Court of Justice as the means now to be used for its solution”. As a consequence, Guyana, on March 29, 2018, filed its application to the Court.

Maduro in his letter to Gonsalves, further deliberately ignores the fact that the ICJ has ruled that it can and will adjudicate the controversy on the merits of Guyana’s case, in spite of Venezuela’s objection, that is the Court’s determination on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award and the related question of the settlement of the land boundary and that the Court’s judgement will be binding on both parties.

Further, completely distorting the facts, writes that “the imposition of the International Court of Justice, as an instance to seek a solution to the territorial controversy, is violative of the principle of mutual consent already agreed upon between the parties, which makes it one of the factors of greatest incidence and threatens deterioration of the situation.”

Not satisfied with advancing this tissue of lies and misrepresentation of the facts to Gonsalves, Maduro introduces the totally extraneous and irrelevant nonsense of what he describes as “the arrogant and illegal attitude of the American transnational oil company Exxon Mobil, which has been the beneficiary of oil concessions in an undelimited maritime area, which flagrantly contravenes International Law.”

Further straying from anything which resembles the truth, but now resorting to sheer fiction, Maduro goes on to tell Gonsalves that he would like the meeting to address “the involvement of the United States Southern Command, which has begun operations in the territory in controversy.”

I am certain that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and his CARICOM CELAC fellow Prime Ministers have every good intention in encouraging this meeting but it is difficult to understand how the President of Guyana, given Maduro’s unimaginable letter, can enter into any kind of constructive discussion with the Venezuelan President and I would expect Prime Minister Gonsalves to be conscious of this difficulty.

It remains now for our President to decide on how best he will deal with this affront from the Venezuelan President.

Yours sincerely,
Kit Nascimento