Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Luis Alfonso Davila plans to visit areas bordering Essequibo today and statements he purportedly made sparked intense diplomatic exchanges between Georgetown and Caracas yesterday.
Stabroek News
July 21, 2001
Davila is to lead a group of members from the Defence and Foreign Affairs committees of the Venezuelan parliament. The Reuters news agency had earlier reported Davila as saying that he and his team were "going to travel to the claimed zone (Essequibo) to visit this portion of our national geography". An urgent clarification is to be sought on this statement and sources say Guyana will be watching keenly for what transpires today.
President Bharrat Jagdeo - who is presently in Essequibo - has been briefed about the situation and he is due to leave the area this evening.
An Office of the President official told Stabroek News that up to late last night the matter was being clarified and that there had been a flurry of diplomatic activity since the report was received.
Today's visit by the Venezuelan party was first reported on Thursday by the Venezuelan Online News Service (VONS) when Davila met with members of the two committees.
Before that meeting, Davila, according to VONS, told reporters Venezuela is not obligated to inform the Guyanese government about "movements that Venezuelan authorities carried out in the region". The report said that Davila did not disclose whether the participants of the trip would actually cross the border into Guyana.
However, both Foreign Minister, Rudy Insanally and Venezuelan Ambassador to Guyana, Jean Francois Pulvenis told Stabroek News yesterday that the parliamentary party would not be encroaching on territory recognised as belonging to Guyana.
Minister Insanally said that he had not seen the report of the planned visit but that it had been brought to his attention. He said that he had asked Guyana's ambassador to Venezuela, Bayney Karran, to ascertain more about the visit.
However, the Foreign Minister said that he has been advised that the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs regularly conducts these tours to the border areas and he has no reason to believe that there would be any encroachment of Guyana's territory.
Ambassador Pulvenis called the report a "gross distortion (of the facts)". He asserted that Venezuela was aware of all of "its binding legal commitments at the international level."
Ambassador Pulvenis said that the group will be visiting the Delta Amacuro region which borders Guyana, as part of its regular visits to the border areas with Colombia and Brazil as well as the country's maritime border areas. They will be on the Venezuelan side of the border.
VONS on Thursday reported that the Venezuelan Foreign Minister met with the members of the committees.
Venezuela claims the Essequibo region but Davila told Venezuelan reporters that the claim did not represent a threat to Guyana.
"Guyana is a friend, a brother nation and our claim should not be taken as a threat," the Minister said.
A day later he told Reuters "tomorrow (today), we are going to travel to the claimed zone to visit this portion of our national geography''.
"We are acting in accordance with our national interests and so there is no need for our claim, our visit or our actions to be taken as a threat,'' he added.
He said Venezuela was committed to pursuing through peaceful means its claim over the Essequibo.
At the CARICOM summit earlier this month in the Bahamas, CARICOM leaders reiterated their support for Guyana against what they called the "threat posed to its sovereignty and territorial integrity'' by the Venezuelan claim to the Essequibo.
"We reject the CARICOM declaration,'' Davila was quoted by Reuters as saying.
His comments followed a recent forceful reaffirmation by Venezuela of its sovereignty over another piece of Caribbean territory, the tiny Isle of Birds located 353 miles off the north coast of the oil-rich South American state. The Isle of Birds is claimed by Dominica and this matter became an agenda topic at the recent CARICOM Heads meeting.
After public statements from Antiguan Prime Minister Lester Bird questioning Venezuelan rights over the islet and its surrounding exclusive economic zone, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stressed in early July that Isla de Aves - as it is called by Venezuelans - was "as Venezuelan as Caracas".
A Venezuelan National Assembly delegation also visited the Caribbean islet, which is largely populated by birds and houses a small scientific station staffed by Venezuelan sailors.
Since 1989, Guyana and Venezuela have been searching under the aegis of the UN Good Officer process to identify a mutually acceptable means of settling the border controversy peacefully.
The salvo from Davila is the latest blast in a plethora of sabre-rattling statements and acts that have characterised the Chavez administration.