For the first time since the signing of the Geneva Agreement in February 1966, a frigate of the Armada de Venezuela (Venezuelan Navy) crossed the international maritime median line into Guyana's waters to demand the release of a delinquent Venezuelan trawler that had been seized by Guyana's Coast Guard.
Although the commanding officer of the Venezuelan frigate - Pigassa - withdrew when the commanding officer of the Coast Guard's Essequibo warned him that he had trespassed into Guyanese territory, denied his demand for the release of the trawler and informed him that the matter had passed into the diplomatic domain, the incident marked a serious new turn in the Guyana-Venezuela maritime controversy.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela attaches the highest priority to its maritime security. It has the longest Caribbean coastline of any state (2,718 km) and most of its population, petroleum industry and manufacturing centres are located within 80 km of that coast. In addition, the protection of the sea lanes through which its petroleum must be exported has been Venezuela's foremost national defence concern.
To project its power and protect its resources in this maritime area, Venezuela possesses the best navy (armada) in the Caribbean, manned by over 18,000 personnel and equipped with guided missile frigates, submarines, amphibious vessels and fast attack craft, supported by aviation and marine (naval infantry) components. Given its historical background of major maritime disputes with Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, the Venezuelan Navy leaves little to chance. The prompt appearance and intervention of the Pigassa in what could be considered a minor maritime misdemeanor - illegal fishing - suggest that crossing the median line may not have been a navigation accident or miscalculation.
Guyana's maritime boundaries have been well known for the last 25 years, having been promulgated in its Maritime Boundaries Act of 1977. To support that Act, Guyana took the trouble to acquire an armed, 30-metre offshore patrol vessel which, backed by a network of coastal radar stations and reconnaissance aircraft, enforced sovereignty over its 130,000 km2 sea space.
Over the years, Guyana exercised this sovereignty effectively, entering agreements with other States, granting licences, and bringing captains of vessels of various states - Barbados; Korea; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Trinidad and Tobago; Venezuela, and others - before its courts for fishing illegally in its Fishery Zone. Guyana also promulgated the Petroleum Exploration and Production Act of 1986 to consolidate the exercise of its sovereignty, and issued licences to several foreign companies to explore for petroleum.
Venezuela and Suriname threatened Guyana's maritime sovereignty seriously over the past two years. Venezuela's petroleum Minister Ali Rodriguez Araque demanded the suspension of licences issued to the USA's Century and Exxon petroleum companies to explore off the Essequibo in its so-called zona en reclamacion and Suriname's Jules Wijdenbosch's Administration drove away the CGX petroleum exploration platform in 2000 from the disputed zone in the Atlantic.
At the heart of these incidents and, probably, the Pigassa's recent intrusion, is the fact that Guyana has not reached agreement on the delimitation of its maritime boundaries with its two continental neighbours. Both Venezuela and Suriname continue to employ their maritime superiority to exert psychological and diplomatic pressure on Guyana with the intention of driving it into the unfavourable bargaining position of accepting their definitions of the median lines.
The trend towards 'squeezing' Guyana's EEZ in the West and East became evident when Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago concluded a treaty on 'The Delimitation of Marine and Sub-Marine Areas' in April 1990, defining their maritime boundaries in the Atlantic, and in pursuit of the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon resources, possibly to the prejudice of Barbados and Guyana.
Until the eastern and western maritime boundaries are demarcated, satisfactorily, Guyana can expect more visits from the Venezuelan armada.