Extraordinary Parliamentary sitting now set for Monday after meeting with Gov’t, Opposition Chief Whips
Government Chief Whip and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira on Wednesday met with Opposition Chief Whip, Christopher Jones and Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amanza Walton Desir where the two sides amicably agreed to an Extraordinary Sitting of the National Assembly.
The sitting previously set for Friday will now be held on Monday, November 06 at 10 a.m.
The two sides, in a united front, have agreed to discuss a motion of support for the Government and people of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana and will reaffirm recognition of the 1899 Arbitral Award and the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Anil Nandlall said the Guyana Government and the political opposition remain united in a national approach regarding developments surrounding the border controversy with Venezuela.
Nandlall said notwithstanding the domestic political developments, the two sides will speak from the National Assembly with one voice on the border controversy and the recent actions taken by Venezuela.
The sitting will be held one month before Venezuela holds a referendum to ask its citizens for the creation of a new state, which makes up the territory of Guyana that it claims.
The Guyana government has condemned what it sees as Venezuela’s expansionist ambitions and said the border controversy should be resolved in court as the case is before the International Court of Justice as dictated by the United Nations Secretary General as the means to settle the controversy.
Guyana has since approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ), seeking an injunction to prevent Venezuela from taking action through its provocative referendum over Guyana’s territory – Essequibo.
The borders of Guyana and Venezuela were determined by an arbitral tribunal on October 3rd, 1989, and Venezuela inherited 13,000 square kilometers of Guyana’s territory (then under British rule).
When the Joint meeting of solidarity against Venezuelan planned aggressive take over of the Essequibo Region was convened between HE President Ali and Opposition Leader Audrey Norton I called for the Opposition Leader to issue an additional Statement on the outcome of the meeting to ensure total commitment to the process of dealing with the Venezuelan threat and that the Opposition was unconditionally co-operating with the Government.
As it turned out now Audrey was not speaking totally on behalf of the Official Opposition who met with Gail Teixeira and changed the date for the debate on the Joint Resolution to be held on Monday 6 November instead of the original Friday 3 November.
I wanted to hear in his own words and voice his decision to co-operate with the Ali Administration to effectively deal with this Venezuelan threat to take over the Essequibo Region and annexe it as a part of the territory of Venezuela based on some sham and illegal referendum to be held on 3 December 2023.
Two key officials from the Opposition in the National Assembly seem to be reading from a different page and riding a separate wave length from Opposition Leader Audrey when all hands must be on deck to ward off this outlandish, illegal and expansionist preemptive threat being incubated by the Venezuelan National Assembly just a short time before the Presidential Elections where the Essequibo is being used and abused as a domestic football to galvanise declining political support and sabre rattling to appeal to the voters to support Maduro. This is cheapness of the lowest order by creating tension in a neighbouring state just to win an elections and alienate more Venezuelan refugees to foreign lands including in Guyana where they eke out a living to send to their families in Caracas.