Latinnews Archive
Caribbean & Central America - 8 May 1981
Both sides seek allies in the Essequibo dispute
Despite an assertion by Venezuelan foreign minister Jose Alberto Zambrano Velasco that relations with Guyana are 'absolutely normal', all the indications this week were that the two countries' dlspute over the Essequibo (WR-81-17) was taking on an increasingly threatening character. Against a background of intense activity on the diplomatic and propaganda front, both sides indicated that they were paying attention to military preparations.
Venezuelan President Luis Herrera Campins has called a meeting of the security and defence council for 28 May, while in Georgetown last week the Vice-President for planning and finance, Desmond Hoyte, warned that defence expenditure might have to be increased in a coming revision of the budget. Venezuela, whose controversial youth minister, Charles Brewer Carias, last month led a youth brigade to set up a camp in the disputed zone, has now claimed that Guyanese forces opened fire across the border on 7 and 8 April. The Venezuelan ambassador in Georgetown, Sadio Garavini, has been recalled, following rejection of his protest note.
The dispute, in which Venezuela is claiming 130,000 square km of land west of the Essequibo river, nearly twothirds of Guyana's entire territory, broke out early last month after a visit to Caracas by President Forbes Burnham. Mystery still surrounds the failure of Burnham's talks with Herrera, which at the time were described as 'cordial, frank and open'; after his departure, the Venezuelans announced that they would not be renewing the 1970 Port of Spain protocol, which put the dispute on ice until 18 June 1982; they added that they were maintaining their claim, opposing Guyana's Upper Mazaruni hydro-electric scheme (sited in the disputed area) and rejecting Guyana's application for inclusion in the San Jose oil facility.
The Venezuelan claim dates from 1962, after more than 60 years in which the Venezuelans had accepted the 1899 arbitration award of the Essequibo to the then British Guiana. Since 1962, based on a memoir of a lawyer involved in the arbitration, Venezuela has claimed that the award was null and void; it is now backing this up with reference to a papal bull of 1493 affirming Spanish colonial rights.
None of this is going down well in the Caribbean, where fears of 'Venezuelan imperialism' are easily aroused. The staunchly pro-US prime minister of Barbados, Tom Adams, who in other respects is on good terms with Venezuela, last week expressed 'complete and total support' for Guyana's boundaries, adding that there should be 'some scheme of inviolability of borders' in South America, as in Africa. The opposition Working People's Alliance in Guyana made a similar point in a statement rejecting Venezuela's claim but describing the dispute as originating in 'Spanish and British colonisation under monarchies of the old order.'
The WPA, however, went on to castigate Burnham's handling of the issue as a 'diplomatic disaster', adding that his government did not have the 'necessary moral authority' to solve the dispute; it called for a 'legitimate, nationally-supported government' to negotiate with Venezuela. Cheddi Jagan, leader of the People's Progressive Party, said equally bluntly that his party would fight to defend Guyana's frontiers, but would not 'defend this rotten and corrupt government'. An official spokesman described his statement as 'unpatriotic and anti-national'.
The Venezuelan government likewise is being urged by the opposition Accion Democratica to exercise restraint, and both governments are for the moment concentrating on pressing their case internationally. Zambrano is this week in Brazil, in an effort to head off the growing Brazilian-Guyanese friendship (WR-80-49), and Guyana's foreign minister, Rashleigh Jackson, is to visit Colombia, which itself is in dispute with Venezuela over marine boundaries. Venezuela is making a formal protest to the World Bank about the Upper Mazaruni project, but as yet the United States has not commented on the dispute.
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