STATEMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COOPERATIVE REPUBLIC OF GUYANA:
One week ago, the Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana issued a statement denouncing the aggressive new measures taken by Venezuela in furtherance of its groundless and unlawful territorial claim to Guyana’s Essequibo Region. These new measures included a purported national referendum to ratify the Venezuelan government’s apparent decision to withdraw from the present judicial proceedings in the International Court of Justice, and proceed unilaterally to incorporate the Essequibo Region into its own national territory as an integral part of Venezuela.
Guyana properly characterized this naked threat of territorial aggression as: “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.” Guyana’s statement added that: “Such a seizure of Guyana’s territory would constitute the international crime of aggression.
Following Guyana’s statement, CARICOM issued a strongly worded denunciation of Venezuela’s measures, fully supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana.
Yesterday, in further response to Venezuela’s sinister plan for seizing Guyanese territory, Guyana sought the urgent protection of the International Court of Justice, by filing with the Court a Request for Provisional Measures. In that Request, Guyana seeks from the Court an Order preventing Venezuela from taking any action to seize, acquire or encroach upon, or assert or exercise sovereignty over, the Essequibo Region or any other part of Guyana’s national territory, pending the Court’s final determination of the validity of the Arbitral Award that established the land boundary between our two States, and the final and binding nature of that boundary. Guyana has no doubt of the validity of that Arbitral Award and the land boundary, which Venezuela accepted and recognized as the international boundary for more than 60 years.
Because of the urgency of the matter, Guyana has asked the Court to schedule oral hearings on its Request at the earliest possible date in advance of December 3, 2023, the date Venezuela has fixed for its sham referendum.
Guyana insists, as does CARICOM, the Secretaries-General of the United Nations and Organization of American States, and the entire international community, that the controversy over the validity of the Arbitral Award and the land boundary must be resolved by the International Court of Justice, which will assure a just, peaceful, binding and permanent solution to this matter, in accordance with international law. In fact, the Court itself has determined, in two separate Orders, that it has the exclusive jurisdiction to resolve this matter, and that it will do so. Twice Venezuela has formally objected to the Court’s jurisdiction, and both times the Court overwhelmingly rejected Venezuela’s objections.
In the interim, pending the oral hearing on its request and the issuance of the Court’s Order, Guyana urges CARICOM and the international community to continue reminding Venezuela of its obligations under international law, including its obligation to accept the ICJ’s jurisdiction, plead its case to the Court, and comply with the Court’s rulings and Judgments.
October 31, 2023
See also the full release from the International Court of Justice (ICJ): 171-20231031-pre-01-00-en
The Guyana Government in seeking the assistance and legally and judicially determined intervention of the ICJ to pre-empt the holding of an illegal and irrelevant Consultative Referendum by Venezuela as a sham pretext to:
1.militarily invade and annexe the Essequibo Region;
2. that since 1899 and before constituted part and parcel of Guyana’s landed patrimony over which Georgetown exercised undisputed exclusive jurisdiction and control for six decades
3. until Venezuela woke up from its deep slumber to use this claim as a domestic political cohesive building strategy and rallying point and lacking in any legal merit.
The ICJ must intervene because “…Guyana seeks from the Court an Order preventing Venezuela from taking any action to seize, acquire or encroach upon, or assert or exercise sovereignty over, the Essequibo Region or any other part of Guyana’s national territory, pending the Court’s final determination of the validity of the Arbitral Award that established the land boundary between our two States, and the final and binding nature of that boundary. Guyana has no doubt of the validity of that Arbitral Award and the land boundary, which Venezuela accepted and recognized as the international boundary for more than 60 years.”
The holding of this domestic use of force and aggression planned Referendum while this matter is actively before the ICJ impugns and disrespects the integrity of the Court as the guardian and implementer of the tenets of international law.
This holding of a sham and self-serving Maduro controlled referendum to domestically “legitimise” aggression against one of the parties to the current boundary litigation must be rejected outright and condemned by the Court because it violates its legitimate expectations that Venezuela will not have anything illegal based on planned use of force to retard the on going ICJ judicial process.
The Court must diplomatically tell Venezuela told to hold its hand because it is acting as a rogue and pariah state after the SG of the UN referred the matter to the ICJ for determination of the legal merits after all his diplomatic efforts failed to reach a mutually accepted resolution.
As far as the ICJ is concerned at present, Venezuela is a party to the proceedings and to take such domestic sham action to “legitimise” planned military invasion and annexation of the area under legal consideration over which Guyana has exercised jurisdiction and exclusive control dating back to 1897 and even before is insulting to the status of the ICJ and its panel of judges.
Venezuela has played its hand in ignoring international opinion, the tenets of international law that justifies Guyana’s case over possession of the Essequibo Region, disrespect to the UN Charter and the S/G of the UN and taking planned alternative irresponsible military action/solution while it is a litigant before the ICJ’s proceedings.
This is state irresponsibility and total dictatorial madness of the lowest ebb and flow of Venezuela’s vagaries and vicissitudes in international relations in its impulsive and lack lustre positioning with its claim over more than two thirds of Guyana’s landed and maritime patrimony the latter of which extending to over 200 or sometimes 350 miles into the deep Atlantic.
Venezuela will have lost any and all credibility before the international community save and except the satellite countries to which it belongs.
It is doing everything disruptive to retard the process of Guyana’s development for the accelerated welfare of its peoples by the monetisation of its abundant natural resources and stabilising the volatile world energy market.
The ICJ is well within its current remit and having been seized of this dispute to advise the Maduro regime that its planned referendum is:
1. inconsistent with the boundary judicial proceedings before it;
2. it compromises the judicial status and reputation of ICJ; and
3. exposes it and brings its status and reputation as an independent judicial UN organisation into unnecessary odium and disrepute by this premeditated Venezuelan rejection of its ability to render a proper judgment based purely and exclusively on the widely accepted constructs and principle of international to which it is committed and precepted to by the UN.