Venezuela border controversy: Guyana remains on high alert amid Venezuela’s aggression – Pres Ali tells BBC

President Dr Irfaan Ali during an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Radio on Sunday reiterated that while Guyana has intensely focused on diplomacy and the maintenance of peace regarding the border controversy, the country remains on high alert.
He was at the time addressing the referendum imposed by Venezuela to annex Essequibo, which forms 2/3 of Guyana with a population of just over 120,000 people.
The Spanish-speaking nation went ahead with its referendum on Sunday despite calls from several international organisations and more importantly, the ruling of the World Court.

“The rhetoric out of Venezuela and the behaviour and attitude of the President and Vice President necessitates serious concerns, and we cannot be caught wanting. As the President of Guyana, we have to take everything that the President and the military say very seriously, and their rhetoric has not been an encouraging one,” the Guyanese leader asserted.
Further, the President emphasised that Venezuela’s referendum seeks to threaten Guyana’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The Venezuelan Government, in its continued claims to Guyana’s territory, moved forward with its referendum, where it posed questions to the Venezuelan people, seeking approval for several measures to validate its claim.
These actions seek to create conflict, and President Ali noted that the Guyanese Government has urged Venezuela to abide by international law and allow the issue to be settled through legal means.
He assured that the Government will spare no effort to protect Guyana’s territory and its people.
“We have been mobilising around the globe. And I must say that the international community has supported Guyana tremendously, and has issued very strong statements; the Commonwealth, Caricom, the OAS, France, the UK (United Kingdom), Canada, the US Government. So, with our partners, we’re not taking this lightly, whilst, at the same time, we are monitoring the situation,” President Ali affirmed.
Even in light of the ruling issued by the ICJ, the Venezuelan Government, in a statement on Friday, reiterated that it does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICJ to settle the territorial controversy surrounding Guayana Esequiba, especially given the existence of the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
“Nothing in international law allowed the Court to interfere in the internal affairs of Venezuela, nor to attempt to prohibit or modify a sovereign act organised within the framework of its participatory political system, and based on its Constitution,” the Venezuelan Government has declared in its statement.
“Likewise, with this decision, it has been demonstrated that Guyana is not a victim, it has no titles over the disputed territory; it is a de facto occupier, and has repeatedly violated the Geneva Agreement and international legality by unilaterally granting concessions in the land territory and the waters pending to be delimited, as well as facilitating its territory for the military deployment in our Region of the main warlike power on the planet”, that statement added.
“Nothing and no one will prevent the Venezuelan people from expressing themselves freely on December 3 on their own internal and extremely important issue, such as territorial integrity. On December 3, the Venezuelan people will go out to exercise their vote, for the first time in history, to defend their territorial integrity, and will ratify that our rights over Guayana Esequiba are inalienable and unquestionable,” the statement has detailed.

Long-running border
controversy
Venezuela maintains that the border with Guyana, a former colony of The Netherlands and the United Kingdom (UK), was fraudulently imposed by the British. Guyana, on the other hand, maintains that the line was conclusively determined on October 3, 1899 — 124 years ago — by an arbitration panel (Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899).
The Anglo-Venezuelan Arbitral Tribunal met in Paris, France, and on October 3, 1899, gave its “full and final” award defining the border between Venezuela and the then British Guiana. Venezuela accepted the Award and signed on to it. This border was demarcated jointly by Venezuela and the colonial power Britain in 1907.
However, on February 14, 1962, Venezuela informed the Secretary General of the United Nations that it considered there to be a “dispute” between itself and the UK “concerning the demarcation of the frontier between Venezuela and British Guiana”.
The Government of the UK, for its part, asserted on November 13, 1962, that “the western boundary of British Guiana with Venezuela (had been) finally settled by the award which the arbitral tribunal (had) announced on 3 October 1899”, and that it did not “agree that there (could) be any dispute over the question settled by the award”.
After various attempts to resolve the matter had failed, the representatives of the UK, Venezuela, and British Guiana signed the Geneva Agreement on February 17, 1966. Over Venezuela’s signature, the Agreement refers to the “controversy” raised by Venezuela.
On Feb 17, 1966, just before attaining independence, Guyana became a party to the Geneva Agreement. Attempts were made in the ensuing decades to resolve the dispute through different means of settlement outlined in the Geneva Agreement.
Finally, after no agreement had been reached, as per the procedure adumbrated in the Agreement, Guyana, in January 2018, passed the controversy over to the UN Secretary General to choose a dispute mechanism as outlined by Article 33 of the UN Charter. He chose the ICJ as the means to resolve the controversy legally.