…but blasts Greenidge, Granger
Venezuela, while not denying that it is making illegal flights over Guyana, has reacted angrily to the statements made recently by Guyana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge and has even accused President David Granger of peddling lies at the level of the United Nations.
The Foreign Ministry of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has since expressed “our deepest concern because of the reiterated slandering, foolish behaviour of the Guyanese Government, to support the false and anti-historical thesis of presenting Venezuela as an aggressor.”
That country’s Government was at the time making reference to its territorial claims in Guyana which was settled in an 1899 International Tribunal.
According to reports emanating from that country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, “the Venezuelan Government noticed that this type of accusation does not represent a new and beneficial behaviour in the current Guyanese Government, which authorities have recognised not to have the necessary technical gear to detect overflights in Essequibo.”
Minister Greenidge on Wednesday last told media operatives that the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) has been alerted to reports of illegal over flights being conducted by Venezuela over the Essequibo with a view to creating
a map for that county which includes two thirds of Guyana.
Greenidge at the time had also conceded that the GDF did not have the capacity to efficiently undertake the exercise of substantiating the claims and as such had solicited international help.
The Venezuelan Government, through its Foreign Affairs Ministry, in taking a swipe at President Granger, said he lied to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when denouncing that a Venezuelan patrol (PC-23 Yecuana) entered Guyana’s territory.
“The supposed evidence is today the cover of its book Caribbean Geopolitics, underlines the document, also published in the account in the social network TWITTER of the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Delcy Rodríguez,” according to a report carried by the Latin American News Agency.
Venezuela has since rejected the Guyanese Government’s “recurrent attempts to generate a climate of tension among the two nations.”
These actions, the official communication said, are in consonance with the intention of impeding the reactivation of the Good Officer according to the Agreement of Geneva (1966), valid for the friendly, practical and satisfactory resolution for both parts of the territorial controversy for Essequibo.
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela demands Guyana to adjust its behaviour according to the respect to international public rights, under the principle of the diplomacy of peace and of good vicinity, and it makes a call to build cooperation relationships, solidarity and friendship in benefit of our towns, it concludes.”
Greenidge told journalists on Wednesday last during an impromptu interaction that the actions on the part of the Venezuelans “irresponsible and dangerous” if substantiated.
According to Greenidge, there are currently unconfirmed reports emanating from our western neighbour that that country has been conducting flights over Guyana’s Essequibo “with a view to completing an atlas of Venezuela which will include two thirds of Guyana”.
Greenidge told the local media that the information has since been passed on to the GDF with a view to investigate and substantiate whether the claims are in fact true.
He reminded too that the Guyana Government a week ago, as recent as last week, left with the Secretary General a document which “sets out our concerns about the escalating behaviour of Venezuela and the consequences of some of the steps taken”.
According to Vice President Greenidge, the entire affair is “something we view with the greatest concern”.
He told media operatives that Venezuela was reportedly also doing digital mapping of Guyana’s sovereign territory with the aim of getting details for its maps, “but the over flights themselves are illegal in international law”, should the report of them prove true.
The news of the illegal flyover came on the heels of a condemnatory statement issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Guyana lambasting an earlier pronouncement by the Venezuelan Government on the 117th anniversary of the 1899 Arbitral Award handed down in Paris regarding the border controversy between Guyana and that country.
The missive from the Guyana Foreign Affairs Ministry said Venezuela marked the occasion with an insulting statement unworthy of a law-abiding member of the international community.
“Its statement is a reaffirmation of Venezuela’s disrespect for the rule of law among nations. It is a frenzied display of ill temper from forces with whom history has caught up, revealing the tangled web of falsehoods on which their specious claims to Guyana’s Essequibo were built,” the Ministry’s statement said.
“The Venezuelan statement of October 4, 2016 perpetuates the falsities that have marked its predatory campaign and have continued in relation to Guyana’s maritime space. Its greed for territory has added a new dimension of Guyana’s maritime resources,” it said.
According to the Ministry, “Guyana continues to uphold and respect the Arbitral Award of 1899. It will defend its validity in the world’s highest courts and expose Venezuela’s sordid efforts to besmirch Guyana’s development agenda.” Outgoing United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has pledged to assess the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela in November.
