Keep UN involved in the Guyana/Venezuela in border issue at all cost – Opposition Leader

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo

Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo has called on President David Granger to urgently establish the Border Committee he proposed when the two met over a month ago.

Granger on Thursday updated the National Assembly on the Guyana/Venezuela border controversy, as well as a recent statement by Surinamese President Desi Bouterse regarding the New River Triangle.

But Jagdeo told a news conference on Friday at the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Robb Street, Georgetown Headquarters that he was hoping the President would have established the committee sometime back so that issues relating to Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity could be discussed in a structured manner.

“I thought we would move forward in a structured way. I have made it quite clear in the first meeting (between Jagdeo and President Granger), we would be a participant, an active participant of the border committee. We would like that committee to be put in place so that a lot of these issues can be ventilated in those circles or in the committee itself. So I want to urge the President to put the border committee in place, to operationalise it,” Jagdeo said.

He said that while his Party supports the Government fully on the border controversy, there is need for clarity on whether or not choosing the juridical route can jeopardise the United Nation’s (UN) involvement in the process.

 “We have declared that we want a juridical settlement. Is that part of the menu available to the Secretary General under the [United Nations] Charter? Will the UN be prepared to recommend that to Venezuela as part of the settlement? If it is not part of the menu available to the Secretary General under the Charter, does this means we will have to go it alone and lose UN’s involvement in the process? So these are some issues that we could have raised privately, but as I said before,   we have not been able to do so in the absence of the border committee],” Jagdeo noted.

Imperialist imposition

The Opposition Leader said that while President Granger’s mention of then Venezuelan President, the late Hugo ChÁvez’s visit to Guyana and his statement on the continuation of discussions on the border issue through the bilateral commission, he stopped short of mentioning ChÁvez’s position that the border issue is an imperialist imposition on Guyana and Venezuela.

“If the sitting President of Venezuela at that time viewed the border issue as an imperialist imposition on these two countries, then that must mean something, it must mean that the claims themselves had to be spurious,” he contended.

Jagdeo indicated that Granger’s statement that Venezuela’s actions affecting Guyana’s economy or stymie the country’s development in the last 25 years, is not accurate, since issues were around way before the PPP took office in 1992.

“I wish to point out to the President that Venezuela’s attempts to affect our economy or to object to projects in the Essequibo, which stymied our economy, predated us assuming office. We would recall the Upper Mazaruni Development Project that was a victim of two things, bad planning and Venezuela’s objection. That was a huge hydro-power project that saw the spending of some $300 million dollars and then leaving the steel to rot in the jungle,” he reminded.

Meanwhile, Jagdeo said that PPP/C while in office, had internally explored as one of five options; the possibility of giving Venezuela an access to the Atlantic Ocean offshore Guyana, without giving up any of the land territory or compromising the 1899 Tribunal Ward, as part of deal to settle the long-running border controversy.  However, these were never presented to the Venezuelans.

“There were other options that involved a negotiated settlement which did not see any land concession, that the 1899 Award would remain intact, that there was one view that you could probably on the maritime area give Venezuela a channel out to sea so you make a slight concession on the maritime area but make sure that you do not concede any territory that is land-based because the maritime boundaries still are yet to be determined,” he said.

New River Triangle

Turning his attention to Suriname, Jagdeo expressed surprise that Granger responded in such a detailed way to a broad statement by the President of Suriname about the New River Triangle to suggest that it is back on the agenda.

He said that he concurred with Granger that the dispute with Suriname was settled since 1936 and there was an agreement on the settlement and was therefore surprise at the President’s challenge to Suriname to initiate an adjudicatory process to deal with the New River Triangle issue, if they are confident about their case.

“In the years I have been President, I always argued that the matter is settled and this is sovereign Guyanese territory and there is absolutely no need for any process to deal with this matter again,” he stressed.