‘Referendum is maneuver to distract from Venezuela’s failures’ – says ex-Venezuelan Minister
See below full statement from former Venezuelan Minister Sadio Garavini di Turno:
The referendum that the Maduro government has decided to call on the Essequibo claim is not only useless, but harmful to the interests of Venezuela. Of the five questions presented to the electorate, two are absolutely inconsequential and are equivalent to the question: “Do you love your Mom?” In the question in which the people are asked if they support the 1966 Geneva Agreement, as the only instrument to resolve the controversy, the regime forgets to mention that we are in the process of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), because two UN Secretaries-General, the last “good officiant-mediator” and the ICJ itself, interpreted the Geneva Agreement in such a way that the UN Secretary-General had the competence to bring the case to the ICJ. Where it is asked whether one agrees not to recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ to resolve the controversy, there is a clear intention to use the probable affirmative answer to get out of the process initiated in the ICJ, in which Venezuela has already accepted the jurisdiction of the Court, by participating in it. In the regime, the sector that maintains that an “anti-imperialist” ideological “narrative” must be assumed and the government of Guyana and the ICJ itself must be accused of being puppets of EXXON. Forgetting, “curiously”, that EXXON’s partners in Guyana are the Chinese State Oil Company (CNOOC) and CHEVRON, which operates in Venezuela.
This position is extremely irresponsible, as well as not very serious. The Court, with or without the presence of Venezuela, would follow the process and in a few years would issue its ruling, which is mandatory and unappealable. Furthermore, we must not forget that, after the decision on the 1899 Award and the definition of the land border, it is very likely that the ICJ will also have to intervene in the delimitation of marine and underwater areas.
In the last question, the possibility of creating a new Venezuelan state is raised, in the disputed territory, incorporating it into the map of Venezuela and preparing an accelerated plan to grant citizenship and all the “services” of the Venezuelan State to the Essequibans. This is an unreal question, which has also given the basis for Guyana and all the CARICOM countries to denounce to the international community that Venezuela intends to militarily occupy the region.
It is unreal, among other things, because it is ridiculous to think that the Essequibans, who live in the world’s fastest growing economy, could be interested in the citizenship of a country in the midst of a socioeconomic disaster and from which, in just a few years, more than 7 million inhabitants, 35,000 of which in Guyana itself. To make matters worse, the Foreign Ministry, after calling this referendum, in a very unserious official statement, after stating that the Guyanese government is a puppet of EXXON and the US Southern Command, asks that same government to sit down to negotiate. bilaterally.
In my opinion, the referendum is a maneuver to distract public attention from the enormous socioeconomic failure, in view of the announced 2024 elections, by raising the nationalist flag. Furthermore, it is also about forgetting the irresponsible and very unprofessional handling of the controversy, during these two decades, which has led us to the ICJ, the scenario preferred by Guyana since 1966.
Now, the responsible thing is to prepare ourselves with the support of the best national and international experts, to defend at the ICJ, our position that the 1899 award is null. Being done?
Venezuela knows that it has no legal nor “continuous”occupation” grounds on which to appear before the ICJ to argue because hitherto it has not disclosed the fundamental change of circumstances (rebus substantibus) that can potentially provide the legal and treaty bases upon which the 1899 Award can be invalidated or rendered null and void and of no effect in accordance with the Law of Treaties. Even if there are compelling factual considerations producing adverse legal effects that can invalidate the 1899 Arbitration Award and the consequential bilateral boundary, the inescapable fact without any fiction is that Guyana has exercised continuous and unbroken sovereignty and exclusive control over its current 89.000 square miles of landed patrimony including over the whole of the Essequibo Region with the full acquiescence and indeed the recognition and acceptance of Venezuela over a long period of sixty years that is eminently adequate and convincing evidence of a superior claim to the area as a part of the territory of Guyana that may be considered more “legally sound and unimpeachable” than the 1899 Award Treaty of 1907. After the expiration of this 60-year period in which Guyana displayed all the acts and attributes of the sovereign state and exercised complete and uncontested jurisdiction and exclusive control over the Essequibo as it did with all other parts of its recognised territory without any acts of protest from Venezuela the latter now is estopped from claiming any rights over the Essequibo Region because Guyana has both title and continuous occupation and control exclusive entitlement.
Venezuela knows that it has no case to argue before the ICJ and now has embarked upon pre-emptive withdrawal and use of illegal and sham domestic legislation to shore up its waning posturings and position because were it to lose at the ICJ after participating in the substantive hearings all hell will break loose in Caracas and heads will roll.