By Neil Marks in The Hague
A defiant Delcy Rodriguez, Vice President of Venezuela, Wednesday declared to the World Court that nothing will stop Venezuela from proceeding with its December 3 referendum, which Guyana has argued seeks to annex the Essequibo region.
Rodriguez further declared that once the referendum is over and the votes are counted, “the State of Venezuela will not turn its back on what the people decide.”
Guyana Tuesday argued before the Court that the referendum is intended to be used as a trigger for Venezuela to seize Guyana’s territory by military force.
Rodriguez painted Guyana as an aggressor State that plans to attack Venezuela with the help of its ally the United States, something which Guyana has denied, saying it has no interest in disturbing the peace of the Caribbean region.
Rodriguez said the referendum is an internal matter and that by coming to the Court to prevent Venezuela from carrying out is referendum in its present form, Guyana was seeking to institute “judicial colonialism.”
Attorney General Anil Nandlall said Venezuela has a right to hold any referendum it chooses, but its referendum cannot seek to dictate action to violate another country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Guyana argues that because the referendum has direct bearing on the case before the Court, the ICJ is empowered to rule on provisional measures until it determines the full case before it.
Mr Nandall says even if the Court rules that it cannot prevent Venezuela from holding its referendum, Guyana hopes the Court can say something that would prevent Venezuela from taking action on the results of the referendum.
After decades of negotiations failed to bring a resolution to the border controversy, the United Nations Secretary-General referred the controversy to the World Court and Guyana filed its case in March 2018 to obtain a full and final settlement.
The provision for the UN Secretary-General to determine the means to permanently settle the border controversy is provided for in the Geneva Agreement. This agreement was signed by then Prime Minister of Guyana Forbes Burnham and Venezuela’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ignacio Borges in 1966 shortly after Venezuela first raised an objection to the 1899 arbitral award that settled the boundaries of Guyana.
Venezuela accepted that award and participated in the marking of the boundary line, accepting Guyana’s land area as legal, doing so for six decades until it raised an objection to the arbitral award on the eve of Guyana’s independence from Great Britain.
In Court Wednesday though, Rodriguez said Venezuela has “alienable” rights to the territory of Guyana it claims, charging that Venezuela was a victim of the British empire.
Guyana argued in Court that Venezuela has already decided to annex Guyana’s territory and that the referendum was just a rubberstamp, a farce, designed to conjure up the idea that the move to annex Guyana’s territory was a desire of the Venezuelan people.
Rodriguez said Guyana’s move to the World Court to seek to curtail the referendum was “abhorrent and illegal behaviour.” She further labelled Guyana as an aggressor state, a predator of natural resources, and a violator of international law.
Rodriguez said the move to the World Court to settle the border controversy only arose when ExxonMobil began making world-class oil discoveries offshore Guyana.
But Guyana has rejected this claim, as it was the United Nations Secretary-General who determined that the matter should be settled at the World Court after negotiations failed.
Venezuela’s agent before the Court, Samuel Moncada, said the 1899 arbitral award was a “crime” from which Guyana benefitted and said nothing in the Geneva Agreement prevents Venezuela from undertaking its referendum.
The Geneva Agreement states that “no acts or activities taking place while this Agreement is in force shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty in the territories of Venezuela or British Guiana or create any rights of sovereignty in those territories.”
The President of the World Court announced that the court would give its order in the case as soon as possible.
On Tuesday, one of Guyana’s lead attorneys in the case, Mr Paul Reichler argued that Guyana risks irreparable harm or permanent loss of its territory if the referendum, in its present form, goes ahead and Venezuela takes action to annex the Essequibo region. If the court decides on the substantive case later and rules in Guyana’s favour, Mr Reichler argued that it would be difficult to reverse the annexation.
But he said the Court, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, has time and can act before Venezuela does.
Guyana’s agent in the case, Mr Carl Greenidge, pointed to the danger of the referendum to Guyana’s sovereignty.
“Once Venezuela creates a new state incorporating this territory and grants Venezuelan citizenship to the population, how will this seizure of Guyana’s territory be reversed, if in its judgements on the merits the court rules that the 1899 award is valid and that Guyana is the lawful sovereign? How will Venezuela’s actions be reversed and Guyana’s rights to the territory be restored if Venezuela rejects the Court’s jurisdiction and refuses to recognise the validity of its judgements on the merits?
“As I stand today, Guyana’s rights to over two thirds of its territory are threatened, not only by irreparable injury but by permanent loss,” Mr Greenidge stated.
The Venezuelan Referendum
The Venezuela referendum on December 3 asks the Venezuelan people to agree or reject the 1899 Arbitral Award.
They are also being asked to say whether support the Geneva Agreement as only means to settle the controversy, with Rodriguez again parroting the argument that the Geneva Agreement only provides for dialogue to settle the controversy when the agreement when explicitly allows for the UN Secretary General to determine the way forward if direct talks yield no fruit.
The referendum also includes a question for the Venezuelan people to say whether they agree with the Venezuela government for not recognizing the jurisdiction, or the legal right of the Court.
The most contentious of the questions is that asking the Venezuelan people to agree with using Guyana’s territory it claims, for the creation of a new State called the “Guayana Esequiba”, and grant Venezuelan citizenship and ID cards, and incorporate the territory on the map of Venezuela.
PROVISIONAL MEASURES
On October 30, Guyana filed its request for provisional measures.
Guyana is asking the Court to indicate the following provisional measures:
- Venezuela shall not proceed with the Consultative Referendum planned for 3 December 2023 in its present form;
- In particular, Venezuela shall not include the First, Third or Fifth questions in the Consultative Referendum;
- Nor shall Venezuela include within the ‘Consultative Referendum’ planned, or any other public referendum, any question encroaching upon the legal issues to be determined by the Court in its Judgment on the Merits, including (but not limited to):
- the legal validity and binding effect of the 1899 Award;
- sovereignty over the territory between the Essequibo River, and the boundary established by the 1899 Award and the 1905 Agreement; and
- the purported creation of the State of ‘Guayana Esequiba’ and any associated measures, including the granting of Venezuelan citizenship and national identity cards.
- Venezuela shall not take any actions that are intended to prepare or allow the exercise of sovereignty or de facto control over any territory that was awarded to British Guiana in the 1899 Arbitral Award.
- Venezuela shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve.”
The Court is likely to render its ruling before the Venezuelan referendum.
Rodriquez is just like MAD URU.
I am not all surprised by the embarrassingly low level of untruths, deliberate misrepresentations/fabrications, distortion of the 1966 Agreement and outright propaganda that were served up by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to the ICJ that is really an affront to the dignity of the Venezuelan delegation while addressing the Panel of Judges as it they were “tabula rasa”.
She accused Guyana of being an aggressor state that is far from the truth, of undertaking abhorrent and illegal behaviour when that more applies to Venezuela on several fronts and of violating international law and the 1966 Agreement that cannot stand the test of empirical information from the conduct of the erratic Venezuelans.
The VP was more keen to condemn Guyana on very false grounds rather than outline Venezuela’s case on the proposed 3 December Consultative Referendum to counteract the submissions made by Guyana on Tuesday 14 November to request the Court to issue provisional measures against Venezuela because the referendum infringes, conflicts with, compromises, prejudges the outcome of the ICJ judgement, is illegal and undermines the integrity of the Court to decide the matter in accordance with its well-recognised level of jurisprudence and its knowledge of the salient legal principles that impact on the issue.
The Venezuelan Delegation ought to have addressed and assessed all and each one of the measures requested by Guyana and that Guyana submitted to the Court as the basis for the request to the Court to grant provisional measures urgently.
It appears that Venezuela wants its own way to hold sway irrespective of the lack of convincing argumentation and downright lies that are clearly indicative why the bilateral diplomacy and the good offices of the Secretary General failed to bring about a mutually acceptable outcome and why Guyana relies heavily on the competence of the ICJ to pronounce of the validity of the 1899 boundary and the 1905 Agreement as binding to and opposable to The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.