Guyana condemns Venezuela objection to Aurora gold project October 23, 2015
DESPITE undertaking to work towards a peaceful settlement of the border controversy, Venezuela has objected to a major Canadian mining company operating here, a move roundly condemned by President David Granger who has insisted that Guyana has a legal right to the Essequibo region. Canada-based Guyana Goldfields only recently poured its first gold at its Aurora, Mazaruni mine, but Venezuela’s Ambassador to Ottawa sent a letter, dated 13th October, to the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of the company warning against its operations. This announcement was made by President David Granger when he addressed the Parliament on Thursday.
President Granger told Parliament that Venezuela’s claims of aggression by Guyana defy logic and commonsense, pointing out that quite the opposite is true. He lamented that its neighbour to the west continues to breach the Geneva Agreement, which does not allow the parties involved to make new claims.
Recently, Venezuela promulgated two new decrees laying claim to vast expanses of Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone and dissuading foreign investors from developing Guyana’s territory. The President told the Parliament that Venezuela’s Ambassador to Ottawa on October 13 sent a threatening letter to the CEO of Guyana Goldfields Inc., which operates mines at Aurora in Guyana’s Cuyuni-Mazaruni region. An excerpt of the letter read by the President warned, inter alia, that the opening of the gold mine would be “infringing on the territorial sovereignty of Venezuela and committing unlawful actions which could incur legal consequences.”
It added: “As such, you are hereby fully given notice of the respective legal actions that could herein occur.” According to Mr Granger, the Ottawa letter reflects the approach adopted by the late President Hugo Chvez Frias during his state visit to Guyana in February, 2004. Mr Chvez had reportedly told the press that his administration would have no objection to everyday infrastructural works such as roads, water and electricity that directly enhance the lives of residents. But strategically sensitive projects – including major offshore oil exploration ventures, mineral exploration or the involvement of foreign governments – were another matter and should be discussed within the framework of the high-level Bilateral Commission.
Chvez doctrine “The ‘Chvez doctrine,’ in short, meant that Venezuela demanded a role in determining the developmental destiny of Guyana’s Essequibo. Another impudent example of that ‘doctrine” was President Chvez’s opposition to the proposed satellite project in the Barima-Waini Region in 2000. Chvez at that time had intervened to undermine the agreement between the Government of Guyana and Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc., which aimed at establishing a satellite launch station in the Barima-Waini region.
“Is it that Venezuelan leaders derive satisfaction from the prolongation of this controversy?” the President asked. President Granger said the territorial issue, in the hands of President Hugo Chvez and his successive ministers of External Relations, became a sharp instrument of “Finlandisation.”
The Guyanese leader contended that Venezuela’s interest in the continuance of the Good Offices Process would allow it to exert perpetual pressure on Guyana’s economy and enhance its political influence in the Caribbean with regard to its territorial claim. Venezuela, for 25 years, has been able to apply that pressure with impunity and in spite of the existence of the Good Offices Process.
Venezuela’s aim
Granger told the Parliament that Venezuela’s aim has been to obstruct Guyana’s development in spite of the so-called bilateral dialogue. The foreign ministers of both countries engaged in dialogue in the wake of the incident of October 10, 2013 in which the Venezuelan naval corvette – the Yekuana – expelled the ‘Teknik Perdana,’ a petroleum exploration vessel, from Guyana’s EEZ.
The vessel, however, never returned to continue its work. The investors as well as others were scared into inactivity by Venezuela’s aggressive naval action. “Venezuela, apart from sending sent its navy to expel vessels from Guyana’s waters, also promulgated decrees purporting to annex Guyana’s maritime spaces; it augmented its military manpower and exhibited offensive weapons and materiel to unprecedented levels; it conducted provocative manoeuvres on Guyana’s borders; it recalled its ambassador to Georgetown and it suspended the process of acceptance of Guyana’s Ambassador-designate to that country,” the President said.
Guyana has reacted to these provocations with dignity and firmness and on the basis of compliance with international law.
This country, Granger said, has always been respectful to the government and people of neighbouring states, confident in the correctness of its policies and in the justness of its cause. “Venezuela’s fear is that once a juridical process could prove that its contention that the Arbitral Award of 1899 was a nullity was proven to be baseless, its 50-year strategy of attrition aimed at gaining territory from Guyana stands in jeopardy of the prospect of collapse,” the Guyanese leader said.
By Tajeram Mohabir