See below full statement issued by the Government of Guyana:
The Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana has taken careful note of the issuance by the National Electoral Council of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of five questions to be asked in the national referendum scheduled for December 3, 2023.
Among other questions, all of which are intended to further Venezuela’s unlawful and unfounded claim to more than two-thirds of Guyana’s national territory, question five is the most pernicious: it brazenly seeks the approval of the Venezuelan people of the creation of a new Venezuelan State consisting of Guyana’s Essequibo Region, which would be incorporated into the national territory of Venezuela, and the granting of Venezuelan citizenship to the population.
This amounts to nothing less than the annexation of Guyana’s territory, in blatant violation of the most fundamental rules of the UN Charter, the OAS Charter and general international law. Such a seizure of Guyana’s territory would constitute the international crime of aggression.
The Government of Guyana categorically rejects any attempt to undermine the territorial integrity of the sovereign State of Guyana. The Government finds abhorrent that the Essequibo region which forms part of the territory of Guyana in accordance with the 1899 Arbitral Award that demarcated the boundaries of the States of Venezuela and then British Guiana, should be ‘created’ into a State within Venezuela. Further, the Government rejects the internationally unlawful act to put forward the ‘granting of citizenship and Venezuelan identity cards in accordance with the Geneva Agreement and international law’. It is by way of the Geneva Agreement and the principles of international law that the question of the validity of the Arbitral Award of 1899 has been put before the International Court of Justice. That Court has ruled that it has jurisdiction to hear this case. Guyana has repeatedly encouraged Venezuela to participate in the case.
The people of Guyana remain resolute against any threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of their country.
Neither the Government or the people of one country have the right in international law to seize, annexe or take the territory of another country. International law emphatically prohibits this.
The Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana calls the attention of the international community to the actions being carried out by the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela which have the potential to incite violence and to threaten the peace and security of the State of Guyana and by extension the Caribbean region.
This unilateral imperialistic act ( December 3, 2023) following upon the recent provocative amassing of the Venezuelan military on the border with Guyana and which encourages the people of Venezuela to vote for the annexation of Guyanese Essequibo Region that belongs irrevocably to Guyana is unprecedented and is a naked and internationally illegal act of appropriation of two -thirds of the politically sovereign and independent state of Guyana even while the ICJ is adjudicating on this matter.
It is geared to impugn both the integrity of the ICJ and the indivisible sovereignty and territorial jurisdiction of Guyana.
The Security Council of the UN of which Guyana is a member must take note of this new development in which the rogue state of Venezuela now threatens the peace and security of the Essequibo Region in particular and of Guyana and the Caribbean in general. Venezuela cannot interfere in the internal affairs of Guyana because the status of the Essequibo Region is internationally sub judice before the ICJ.
Caricom must meet in emergency session to listen to the submissions of the Guyanese Government and issue a very strongly worded statement condemning Venezuelan potential aggression against a member state of Guyana ahead of the referendum and dispatching a peace restoration Mission to Caracas ahead of the proposed illegal Referendum.
The people of Guyana must assemble in their patriotic unified thousands in Georgetown to send a message to Caracas to stay clear of any attempt to annexe Guyanese territory of Essequibo and to desist from undertaking aggressive action that can delay and retard the rapid progress being achieved in Guyana with the clear intention to better the lives of the Guyanese people.
Individual member states of Caricom and the OAS must also issue statements urging Caracas to cancel the proposed referendum and to await the forthcoming judgement of the ICJ on this matter that is before it.
Maduro is desperate to get elected as the next President of Venezuela in 2024.Once again after failing the people,he is talking about taking over Essequibo.That should enhance his chances.
The people of venezuela can vote him out of power.
So here comes the beating of the “essequibo is ours”drum.
Only now the people of venezuela are important.
DO NOT VOTE FOR MADURO!