US, Britain reiterate support for Guyana’s boundary

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 November 2023, 22:47 by Denis Chabrol

The United States (US) on Tuesday called on Venezuela to stop the intensification of its demand for Guyana’s 160,000 square kilometre Essequibo County but stayed clear of indicating what might be the consequences of refusing to do so.

“We support the territorial sovereignty of Guyana, and we call upon Venezuela to do the same,” Ambassador to Guyana Nicole Theriot said when asked by Demerara Waves Online News. When asked if Venezuela’s does not do so, she added, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Top officials of the US Army and Guyana Defence Force on Tuesday ended two days of talks here that focused on “upcoming engagements to include strategic planning sessions and processes to enhance both countries’ military readiness and capabilities to respond to security threats.” The Guyana government has stopped short of explicitly stating that the US was on standby to provide military support to Guyana but has repeatedly said that US Department of Defence officials would be visiting here from this week throughout December.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is Friday scheduled to give its decision on Guyana’s request for provisional measures to block at least two key questions in Venezuela’s referendum on December 3 that seek a ‘yes’ vote.  Those questions are that that ICJ could not settle the territorial controversy, and that Essequibo be declared a Venezuelan state whose current and future residents would be taken care of and that they would be granted citizenship and national identification cards.

Ambassador Theriot said the US supports and respects the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award that established  Guyana’s current boundaries unless they are otherwise changed. “We believe that those should be respected until they are determined to be different by an international body such as the ICJ,” she said.

Meanwhile, United Kingdom High Commissioner to Guyana, Jane Miller also restated that her country believed that the Tribunal Award “remains valid”. She said the UK was in “regular contact” with the Guyana government. “It’s of concern. I hear what you’re saying but we’re in regular contact.,” she said. Asked whether the UK would be providing security assistance to Guyana, she maintained that, “we remain in contact, we’ll keep discussing with Guyana. We have a very good relationship and we remain that way,” he said.

Impatient with more fruitless bilateral dialogue with Venezuela under the aegis of the United Nations Secretary General’s Good Officer Process, Guyana asked the Secretary General to intervene. After a last ditch effort at dialogue, the UN Chief eventually chose the ICJ as the body to settle the controversy in keeping with the Geneva Agreement together with the United Nations Charter.

Venezuela maintains that it does not respect the ICJ’s jurisdiction and says that the issue should be resolved bilaterally.