The dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro last week suffered a setback in a historic dispute in which Venezuela claims sovereignty over about 70% of the territory of neighboring Guyana.
Last Thursday (6), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), based in The Hague, Netherlands, declared that it has jurisdiction to decide on the dispute between the two countries regarding more than 160 thousand square kilometers of territory to be west of the Essequibo River, which runs through the territory of Guyana.
The ICJ rejected, by 14 votes to one, the arguments of Venezuela, which had given several reasons in writing and orally for asking the court to declare Guyana’s claims “inadmissible”, while the latter had asked the court to “reject the objections Preliminaries” of Caracas and proceed to the merits of the case.
With last week’s decision, the court will now proceed with hearings on the merits of the dispute, which was welcomed by Georgetown.
“Guyana is confident that the court will confirm its former international border with Venezuela,” Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said in a statement. “Guyana has always been fully committed to the peaceful resolution of the dispute with its neighboring and sister republic in accordance with international law.”
The discussion about sovereignty over the region began in the 19th century. Caracas argues that the area is part of its territory because, during the colonial period, it was part of the captaincy general of Venezuela.
After Spanish rule, the region was administered by the Dutch from 1648 (well before, therefore, Venezuela declared independence from Spain, which occurred in 1811) and by the United Kingdom from 1814.
In 1899, an arbitration award in a Paris court conferred sovereignty over the region to the British Empire.
In 1962, Venezuela filed a lawsuit at the United Nations to contest the 1899 decision. In 1966, the year in which Guyana gained its independence from the United Kingdom, the Geneva Agreement was signed, which determined control of the area by the Guyanese, but admitted Venezuela’s challenge. The dispute was supposed to be resolved within four years, but it did not.
Negotiations did not advance in the following decades and the dispute was shelved during the government of Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), but Venezuela returned to present the demand after the American company ExxonMobil discovered large oil reserves in the Guyanese territorial sea, in 2015.
In an interview with the BBC in 2017, then Guyanese Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge said that Venezuela’s claim on the Essequibo region “is absurd”.
“No one who speaks Spanish has ever exercised sovereignty over this territory. By the way, in Guyana, you can even find places with names in French, the result of the incursions of French pirates, but there are no places with names in Spanish, neither on the coast of Guyana or in Essequibo”, he said.
Last year, Greenidge, who acts as Guyana’s agent on the issue, lamented the “long dispute”.
“It has cast a long and looming shadow over Guyana’s security and development throughout its existence as a sovereign state, a shadow rooted in Venezuela’s efforts to erase the long land border between our countries and claim nearly three-quarters of the country’s land territory. Guyana”, criticized Greenidge.
chavista version
Last week, Nicolás Maduro stated that Venezuela will continue to claim sovereignty over the region.
“Venezuelan men and women will continue the tireless and firm struggle to defend respect for the historic Geneva Agreement and the territoriality of our worthy nation. The truth accompanies us,” wrote the Venezuelan dictator on Twitter. “Essequibo is Venezuela!” he added.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino also spoke on the matter and claimed that the Armed Forces reaffirm their “commitment to guaranteeing the territorial integrity” of the country – which would include Guayana Esequiba, as Caracas calls the disputed territory.
“We have historical, legal reasons and all the will of the Venezuelan State to continue defending our legitimate claim on Guayana Esequiba,” said the minister, also on Twitter.
On Monday (10), the number 2 of the Chavista dictatorship, Diosdado Cabello, announced that a “public consultation” is being prepared for Venezuelans to decide “what the country’s position should be” on the dispute with Guyana.
In addition, the Ministry of Education has started an “educational campaign” on the Essequibo region, which includes distributing 130,000 maps in schools where the area is listed as Venezuelan territory. (With EFE Agency)
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