Govt wary of national security risks of Venezuelans coming here

Last Updated on Thursday, 19 October 2023, 19:07 by Denis Chabrol

The Guyana-Venezuela border at the Cuyuni River. At the top right is San Martin in Venezuela, and the bottom left is Eteringbang in Guyana.

Wary of the security risks of the Venezuelan government using the exodus of refugees to infiltrate this country with military personnel and spies as part of more aggressive efforts to seize Guyana’s county of Essequibo, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said Guyana’s security personnel were screening people arriving here.

“The security forces are taking that concern seriously – the one raised- so it is not as though the concern doesn’t exist,” he told a news conference. In apparent reference to the recent arrival of 45 persons by boat on the Vergenoegen foreshore, East Bank Essequibo, he said those persons were subjected to “a lot of background checks” and interviews by security personnel.

Mr Jagdeo said a number of the Venezuelans were born to Guyanese parents and are entitled to Guyanese citizenship, a number of the migrants are Indigenous Warrau Indians who traverse the two countries freely and Venezuelans with no ties to Guyana. He said those with no ties would be required to leave Guyana when the crisis in Venezuela eases. The Vice President, like Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton, said those with no ties here must be treated as “refugees” rather than migrants. “Those of Guyanese parentage have additional rights once they are here and our laws don’t allow us to discriminate against them, nor our Constitution,” he said.

Asked whether steps were being taken to ensure that large numbers of Venezuelans were not concentrated in the County of Essequibo, he said there were no indications of that accounting but instead they were scattered throughout the country as far as Berbice. “We’ve seen no organised attempt to concentrate groups of Venezuelans in any geographic part of our country but we remain watchful,” he said.

He declined to divulge details of government’s efforts to keep a tab on the migrants, only saying that the security forces have “eyes and ears” in communities where there are pockets of Venezuelans. Reflecting on plans by the then A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change-led government (2015 to 2020) to establish settlements for Venezuelans, Mr Jagdeo recalled expressing concerns similar to those by Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton.

Guyana Defence F0rce Retired Rear Admiral Dr Gary Best recently advised that Guyana should manage the migration of Venezuelans to Essequibo to stave off the possibility of future generations of Spanish-speaking Guyanese calling for a referendum for Essequibo to break away.  He feared that if nothing is done, Guyana could face a situation like Crimea which was seized by Russia in March 2014 on the grounds that the population there is made up of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is yet rule on Guyana’s case that the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award that settled the land boundary with Venezuela is full, perfect and final. Guyana has also repeatedly dismissed calls by Venezuela, which does not recognise the ICJ’s jurisdiction in the case, for bilateral negotiations; a 50-year old mediation process under the aegis of the United Nations Secretary General that Guyana had said yielded no progress.