How Guyana's national security and territorial integrity were compromised
by Cedric L. Joseph
When Venezuela re-opened the boundary issue with the colony of British Guiana at the United Nations in February 1962, its case relied primarily on Severo Mallet-Prevost's posthumous memorandum alleging that the arbitral award of 1899 was the result of a political 'deal' between Britain and Russia. That allegation about a 'deal' has stimulated a torrent of responses on both sides of the divide. Yet, had an analysis of the diplomatic relations of the European powers at fin de siecle been attempted, it would have demonstrated that, in the existing rivalry for military, naval and imperial supremacy, such a deal between Britain and Russia was highly improbable. Moreover, any probe into Venezuela's ambitions about Guyana would also have revealed that Venezuela never really respected the arbitral award and harboured proprietary claims sourced in its discovery theory. The Mallet-Prevost memorandum, promoted as a cause celebre, in reality, was the ruse which Venezuela artfully deployed to seek to vitiate the award. During the Second World War, after the dramatic collapse of the Low Countries and France to the Nazis by June 1940, and the threat of the invasion of Britain loomed, Latin America became alarmed over the fate of the European colonies in the western hemisphere and the possibility of Nazi occupation of the possessions of the conquered states. The transfer of these possessions was deemed to pose a serious threat to hemispheric security. The United States destroyers for British bases deal would eventually relieve much of this insecurity. At a meeting of foreign ministers hastily convened in July 1940 at Havana, a resolution was adopted reaffirming adherence to the principle of no-transfer of any European possession in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine and the more recent resolution of Panama of October 1939. It was also agreed to establish a provisional administration should any territory be in danger of changing hands. As things went, it was not necessary to invoke this procedure. Territories which were considered to be disputed with a European power were omitted from the provision, thus conceding to the expressed concerns of Argentina over the Falklands, Chile over Antarctica and Guatemala over British Honduras. There was no mention of Venezuela whose interest, at that time, was reflected in its call for plebiscites to determine whether European colonies desired annexation to the 'nearest American republic.' This was understood to refer to the Dutch territories of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire. Venezuela would not have considered, and did not indicate, the existence of a 'dispute' with British Guiana. For, as late as July 1932, pursuant to the arbitral award, the tri-junction point of the boundaries of British Guiana, Brazil and Venezuela at mount Roraima had been agreed. And, as noted in the British Foreign Office, Venezuela had insisted on a literal application of the 1899 award. Related to the security concerns about the European war was the increasing agitation, particularly among left-wing circles in Latin America, for the elimination of the European colonies in the Americas. It is ironic that some three decades later Commonwealth Caribbean leaders would express similar sentiments, in almost identical language, but with a fundamental difference; they would advocate political independence for these territories, rather than their 'incorporation' in one or another state. It was within this ferment that Venezuela's designs about British Guiana were clarified. In January 1941, the first articles appeared in the pro-German journal Heraldo questioning the arbitral award. The British Minister in Caracas, Sir David Gainer, the highest representational diplomatic official at the time, raised the matter with Foreign Minister, Dr Gil Borges, who advised that the Venezuelan government definitely considered the boundary with British Guiana as final, well defined and a chose jugee. Dr Borges added that the writer of the three articles "had obviously never had access to the archives of his Ministry or he would never have written such nonsense." This was a private, semi-official assurance. For, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States, Diogenes Escalante, in a speech before the Pan American Union during the visit of President Isaias Medina in July 1944 for the presentation of the Venezuelan Order of the Liberator to Mallet-Prevost, formulated a claim for the redress and revision of frontier settlement. Escalante stated that in accordance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter, Venezuela should have restored the 'vast Guiana territory' taken by Britain. That was an interpretation of the Atlantic Charter issued by British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and United States President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in August 1941. One of the eight aims of the Charter sought respect for the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and for the sovereign rights and self-government to be restored to those forcibly deprived of them. Escalante was not referring to the arbitral award, but to the act of conquest by Britain. Escalante's speech was reproduced in the annual report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Venezuelan Congress. The President of the Senate endorsed the speech and, appealing to the principles of the Atlantic Charter as 'our gospel', urged a seat for Venezuela at the San Francisco Conference. This adaptation of the Atlantic Charter to eliminate the European possessions took an official turn in Venezuela's response to the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations in Washing-ton DC during August to October 1944. The participants, Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and China, had assumed responsibility for the preparatory work for the San Francisco Conference and the establishment of the United Nations. Chapter XII of the memorandum dealing with the transitional arrangements, sub paragraph 2, states: "No provision of the Charter should preclude action taken or anticipated in relation to enemy states as a result of the present war by the Governments having responsibility for such action." The summary report of the British delegation shows that Venezuela alone commented on the paragraph by observing that nothing was said about the revision of treaties or other conditions which might prove dangerous or unjust. Accordingly, Venezuela recommended an express stipulation over- riding previous allegations which were incompatible with the statute of the new international organisation. The Foreign Office interpreted the passages as "seem[ing] to refer to British Guiana." Shortly after, the British Ambassador in Caracas, Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, reported to Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, that at the San Francisco Conference, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister had stated on 2 May 1945, inter alios, "In the fourth place we are fighting for the establishment of the non-recognition of the annexation of territory without the previous and evident expression of the consent of the interested peoples." In the said report, the Ambassador also referred to a leading article by Romulo Betancourt on "Venezuela and the destiny of the Lesser Antilles" published on 9 May 1945 in El Pais. Betancourt stated that it would be absurd to return Curacao and Aruba to the Netherlands and inconceivable that United States military occupation should become permanent. The Atlantic Charter prescribed self-determination for these islands and Venezuela should make proposals for their 're-incorporation' in Venezuela. Betancourt continued, Guatemala had done likewise for British Honduras which was to that country what Trinidad was to Venezuela, a British possession near the coast which was incorporated in the British Empire in conflict with international justice. Venezuela, in the name of the principles for which the war had been fought, and of the Atlantic Charter, could and should demand an active share in the solution of Aruba, Curacao and "the other colonies near to Venezuelan territory." The ambassador had also observed that the article had so inspired United States Congressman Page of Texas, that he intended to raise in Congress the question of the cession of the European colonies in the Americas to the neighbouring republics. Ambassador Ogilvie- Forbes concluded by advising that Betancourt was a firebrand, rabid nationalist and anti-imperialist, who was expelled from the country in 1936, later pardoned, left the Communist party and helped form Accion Democratica, then in opposition, and was friendly with the British Press Attache. Extending the argument was the article by Jose Miguel Ferrer, Chief of the Press Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had held diplomatic appointments in China and Brazil. In Ultimas Noticias of 30 May 1945, he wrote about the termination of Europe's extra-continental possessions and the assimilation by American nations of these adjacent territories. At this stage the Foreign Office acknowledged that the agitation was growing more serious, had widened to include demands for the cession of Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles to Venezuela and that the views of the Press Officer could scarcely be claimed to be 'irresponsible'. Notwithstanding, it was determined that no official notice be taken of the two articles; copies of which were sent to the Ministry of Information for its programme in Latin America with the hope that it be made clear that British collapse was not imminent and, indirectly, that nothing short of force was likely to wrest any part of the empire. Other statements followed in the same vein. Those by Jose Antonio Marturet, a left wing member of COPEI, the governing party, and by the Venezuelan ambassador to Mexico, Col. Jones Parra, in March 1946 were forceful in calling for the elimination of the European 'bridgehead'. Both the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office admitted unreservedly the agitation and restlessness and, aided by the reports from the diplomatic missions, kept the issue under continuing review debating regularly whatever action could be taken. The officials conceded a difficulty in determining what to do, and sought some refuge in the erroneous conclusion that the expressions came from private and left-wing persons and did not reflect official opinion. Albeit, much assurance was extracted from the Foreign Minister's statement to the British Minister that the boundary was a chose jugee. As the agitation became more intense, the two departments traded ideas about the future of the colonial possessions in America. They considered a federation of the possessions, French-style integration within the metropole, or joint action with France or the Netherlands in defence of their collective possessions. Each aspect was rejected. And it was accepted that there was not much more that could be done but keep a careful watch on the developments. Accordingly, a brief was prepared for the San Francisco meeting in the event of Venezuela reopening the matter. In the end it was agreed to avoid mention of the issue to Venezuela until it was officially introduced and put the onus on Venezuela. By September 1944, there was further anxiety in the Colonial Office that this position of waiting and refusing to issue an official statement would encourage Venezuela to take up the matter officially, sooner or later. And in April 1945, a Foreign Office minute read that, "it was morally certain that the Venezuelan government was seriously considering taking up the question officially at some later date. They had made the first move, anticipating the end of the Empire." This view, however, was countered with the observation, naturally from the wait and see school, that it was "a little far-fetched." Five months after the publication of his article, Romulo Betancourt, the firebrand, would assume office as President in October 1945. He would pay a state visit to Guatemala and address the Congress alluding to Guatemala's claim to British Honduras. After the address the British Ambassador, L Hughes-Hallett, spoke with President Betancourt. He was reported as reaffirming his belief that the possession or occupation of any territory in Latin America by any non-American power was contrary to the principles for which the democracies had fought. He explained that Latin America was on the side of the democracies in the war against Nazi barbarism and believed the sincere word of President Roosevelt when he proclaimed the fight for the four freedoms as a justification for the war. Following this denunciation of the European colonies, Betancourt issued a statement to the press declaring that, "with regard to the retention by the British of some part of Guiana territory I say our Government have not studied the question." Guyana territory refers to all the land between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. This notion of "re-incorporation" resurrected the theory of discovery and a superior title bequeathing to Venezuela sovereignty without occupation or political control. This was the crux of Venezuela's argument before the arbitral tribunal. Venezuela claimed, as heir to Spain, that it inherited the territory known as the Captaincy-General of Venezuela, one of the provinces being Guiana limited on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and on the south by the Amazon. Notwithstanding the acknowledged invalidity of the claims that discovery alone gave title, notwithstanding the patent absurdity that legal recognition of such would be tantamount to admitting an overlordship over both north and south America, Venezuela persisted in the advocacy. Further, both official and semi-official statements referring to that "part of Guiana held by the British" meant that British sovereignty over the entire colony of British Guiana should be terminated and the colony ceded to Venezuela. The interest was never in the Essequibo region; the ambition was always an inherited colonialism. The irony of all ironies is that Venezuela, boasting a proud tradition of anti-colonialism, was posturing around at one time as the new conquistador to "re-incorporate" or "integrate", essentially colonise, Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire, Trinidad (not Tobago) and British Guiana. Recognising the incongruity of promoting this imperial ambition in the 1960s, Betancourt refined it by supporting the independence of British Guiana and fastening on the claim to two-thirds of the new state, a trifle short of full colonisation. Today, at the commencement of a new millennium, pursuit of this claim, endorsed by the new constitution, along with reminders of the politics of oil and the dream of reunification of the Bolivarian republics of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, constitutes a vibrant neocolonialism. In July 1949, the article about the Mallet-Prevost memorandum and the allegation of a deal appeared in the American Journal of International Law. The Foreign Office deemed the allegation unconvincing but serious enough to warrant a reply. Clifton Child, of the American Department of the Foreign Office, responded. The editors of the American Journal, not only delayed publishing Child's reply but unknown to the British arranged a rejoinder from Professor William Dennis. Dennis had met Mallet-Prevost during the summer of 1910 and had discussed the arbitral proceedings but, as he recounted in the rejoinder, could not recall him saying anything about a deal. Dennis' article did not help the Mallet-Prevost allegation. Indeed, Dr Francisco Ravard, Director of International Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was reported as admitting in November 1962 that when the memorandum was first published, Venezuelans had shared the doubts of others that it was simply the "belated self-justification of an elderly lawyer". Venezuela would change this opinion later. Nevertheless, Foreign Minister, Dr Gomez Gil, took advantage of the article. In an interview with the correspondent of El Universal in January 1951 he described the award as "the unjust conservation of the imperialist policy pursued by the European powers in the nineteenth century". He also recalled the remarks of Ambassador Escalante in Washington, DC in 1944. The Foreign Office concluded that the Foreign Minister's interview did not reflect any change in the Venezuelan government's policy nor did it lead to any further attempt to reopen the boundary dispute. The Mallet-Prevost episode would be prematurely closed. Child would record in January 1951 that "shorn of its cardinal allegation about a supposed deal and vitiated by its many inaccuracies, the memorandum seemed to become a comparatively innocuous document." Child did not think that it could stir up the trouble which it might otherwise have done and, unless there were further contributions on the subject, he advised that there was no need to prolong the controversy. The available documents are scant about articles/comments in the late 1950?s regarding the elimination of the European colonies. Yet the issue was not abandoned. Two remarks merit reference. First, the British Ambassador in Caracas, visiting Trinidad in June 1951, reported that the Governor had informed him that the Venezuelan Consul General had made a farewell statement to the effect that the United Nations should redistribute certain territories and that Venezuela could hope to receive Trinidad. Second, Jose Gonzalez, a Copei Ultra-nationalist lawyer, writing in El Universal in September 1952, observed inter alios that one of the oldest and most cherished Venezuelan aspirations was to secure a revision of the boundary with British Guiana and that the Antilles including Trinidad, Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire should be integrated within the national community. To secure this end, he offered, Venezuela would need to improve its treatment of black West Indians living in Caracas. In February 1959, Romulo Betancourt would return to the presidency for a second term. He would revise the original intent about "re-incorporation" of European possessions for the benefit of the new states emerging from European colonialism. He would court the Afro-Asian bloc with his appeal about perfidious Albion, about which they were not unlearned. He would excite United States sensibilities about a Communist threat inherent in Dr Cheddi Jagan's office. He would try to persuade the British Ambassador, quietly, about the joint administration of an indeterminate area along the frontier of British Guiana. And, formally before the United nations, on the eve of political independence he would launch a full-blown claim to the Essequibo region on the basis of the Mallet-Prevost memorandum. Why then did Britain, knowing what it knew about Venezuela's designs for re-incorporating Guyana, agree to reopen the boundary issue after official and private declarations that the award was final? Britain was fully aware that it could muster the necessary votes at the UN General Assembly, including the substantial support of Latin America, to block inscription of the Venezuelan item on the agenda to discuss the boundary issue. The United States position, still carefully guarded by the censors despite the Freedom of Information Act, was deemed by Britain to be neutral. Why did Britain proceed with the tripartite agreement to study the documentary material, with the acquiescence of Dr Jagan, who it is very likely, would not have been fully seized of all aspects of the matter? The answer has to be sought in the political opportunism of the Cold War prism. For the caveat which Britain recorded about not engaging in substantive talks about the revision of the frontier was but a feather in a hurricane. The outcome has been to compromise Guyana's national security and territorial integrity to the present day. Whatever develops from the preferential access to petroleum afforded by Venezuela to certain regional countries, two things are evident: one, the admission, or reminder that oil has always been a political weapon in the relationship with Venezuela and, second, the decision by Jamaica and the Caricom Bureau to accept the Venezuela offer without any preambular affirmation of Guyana's territorial integrity is a major, if not dangerous and predictable slippage in Guyana's foreign policy, as it is the penetration, hopefully incipient, of a vital security circumference. A reconstruction of Guyana's national security, territorially, militarily and philosophically, should respond, sooner rather than later, to refurbishing the Good Offices process of the UN Secretary General. The process has served its purpose during the decade of its existence and runs the risk of being discredited by the rush of events. One option available, and within the context of article 1V(2) of the Geneva Agreement, is to initiate the procedure in the UN General Assembly or the Security Council to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the Venezuelan contention that the arbitral award is null and void. The Court's judgement of November 1960 in the case of the Arbitral Award made by the King of Spain in December 1906 (Honduras v Nicaragua) though with a dissenting opinion and some divergent positions on nullity at the time, ought to be considered for any reference to the judicial process. Regarding Suriname, the CGX rig has long ceased to be the issue. The complex matter of the border requires attention. The principles in international law pertaining to the exclusive economic zone and to river boundaries support Guyana's case. It is fairly well elaborated that the rights of navigation, fishery and irrigation to riparian states are justiciable and that settlement of a river boundary is not wholly informed by dividing sovereignty but can have recourse to the concept of joint ownership, control and use.
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