Venezuela’s Claim: Political, Not Legal

Even though Mallet-Prevost’s posthumous allegation, released in 1949, that the 1899 Arbitral Award on the Venezuelan Border was marred by collusion between the British and Russian arbitrators, Venezuela only created the present border controversy on August 18, 1962, by claiming before the UN General Assembly that the Award was “null and void”. The timing of their claim reveals that their motive was political opportunism rather than legal bona fides.
Venezuela also had a border dispute with its eastern neighbour Colombia that had been submitted to Spain for settlement in 1891. The results of that arbitration award in 1898 were mostly in Colombia’s favour, and Venezuela claimed the Colombians had unduly influenced the Spanish Queen, asserting they had evidence of collusion. A demarcation was conducted in 1907, but disputes led to the Swiss being called in to mediate a border agreement by 1922, which was demarcated in 1932. Another dispute necessitated further negotiations in 1941, resulting in another demarcation, which Venezuela again protested as a “sell-out” to Colombia. But Venezuela never raised this dispute at the UN as it did with the controversy it manufactured over our Essequibo border. Why? The latter was a low-hanging political, not legal, fruit.
What were the political factors motivating Venezuela? Firstly, after decades of dictatorships, democratic governance was introduced in 1958 with the election of Romulo Betancourt, leading to great expectations of improvement in living conditions. When these failed to materialise, armed leftist insurrections inspired by Castro’s exploits in Cuba were launched by several groups, such as the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), based near the Guyanese border. Betancourt’s energies began to be increasingly consumed trying to contain the “communist terrorist threat”. Similar movements were also launched in several other Latin American countries, and the US, under JFK, launched USAID and the Alliance for Progress to counter “the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere”.
In Guyana, Jagan’s PPP won the August 1961 General Elections and expected they would lead Guyana to independence from the British. When the US expressed concerns about Cheddi Jagan and his “communist” inclinations after JFK’s meeting with the latter on October 25, 1961, these would have matched Betancourt’s fears of an independent Guyana providing a sanctuary to Venezuelan leftist “terrorists”. President Kennedy visited Venezuela and met Betancourt on December 16-17, 1961, to promote his anti-communist Alliance for Progress. The very next day, on December 18, Jagan addressed the 4th Committee of the United Nations, calling for the British Government to decide on a date for independence. By that time, the US, via JFK, had convinced the British, via PM Macmillan, to hold off granting independence to British Guiana, which had been promised by 1962. On February 19, 1962, there were CIA-AFL/CIO-inspired “Black Friday” riots in Georgetown. MIR was banned by the Venezuelan Government in May 1962.
It was against this background that Venezuela raised its border controversy at the UNGA in August 1962 as a political strategy to kill two birds with one stone: rally Venezuelans on a nationalistic line against “perfidious Albion” for elections due in 1963 and pre-empt a “communist threat” on its eastern border. They would have calculated that the Americans would not oppose them because of their common concern. They were also holding a seat on the UN Security Council during 1962 and may have felt they were in a stronger position to raise their border controversy then. They would have also calculated that to maintain their credentials in the Non-Aligned Movement, it was better to tweak the British Lion’s tail than to be seen bullying a small, newly independent Guyana.
While the US-UK combine eventually prevailed in installing the PNC into office in December 1964, before independence was eventually conferred on May 26, 1966, they went along with Venezuela’s request for a re-examination of the historical documents and outlining a procedure for dealing with the controversy Venezuela had created over the finality of the 1899 Arbitral Award. The Geneva Agreement, as it was dubbed, was reached in February 1966, three months before independence.
Five months later, Venezuela invaded and occupied our half of Ankoko Island as an intimidatory measure, but Guyana correctly refused to enter into any subsequent negotiations with Venezuela – either directly or through arbitrators, as Colombia did. After a long and tortuous process dictated by the Geneva Agreement over the status of the Arbitral Award, the controversy was turned over to the ICJ in 2018 by the UN Secretary-General. And judgement for us is nigh!!