The attention of the Government of Antigua and Barbuda has been brought to a story published on December 3rd, in an internet news portal called, “Antigua News”, which attributed certain remarks to Prime Minister Gaston Browne, regarding Guyana and Venezuela.
The Prime Minister affirms categorically that his position, and that of his government, aligns fully with the public statement of CARICOM issued on December 1st, which recognises the territorial integrity of Guyana and supports the process at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the legal and peaceful means of dealing with this matter.
The Prime Minister said that his government rejects aggression of any kind, and insists that the Caribbean region must remain a zone of peace in the interest of the well-being and prosperity of the region’s people.
The Prime Minister added that, as recently, as yesterday he spoke with the Presidents of Brazil and Cuba asking them to urge President Maduro to respect the decision of the ICJ.
It encouraging to see another Caricom Prime Minster of Antigua and Barbuda, Mr Gaston Browne pledging his full support to Guyana in its legitimate quest to retain and get the ICJ’s approval of its 123 year-old right to exercise exclusive jurisdiction and control over The Essequibo Region that incidentally was never ever under the control nor ownership of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela .
On what grounds Venezuela today is prosecuting its outlandish claim to three quarters of Guyanese territorial jurisdiction have been lost in in the hallucinatory rhetoric and emotionalism coming out of Caracas and the Miraflores Palace of lawlessness and illegal appropriation of foreign territory in its expansionist drive defying world public opinion, international law, law of Treaties, the UN Charter, the 1966 Geneva Agreement, the OAS Treaty, the 1899 Treaty of Washington, the 1982 UNCLOS and customary international law.
I am awaiting anxiously for the PMTT to join his Caricom colleagues in prevailing upon President Nicolas Maduro to accept and adhere to the Judgement of the ICJ and not to take any action that infringes the right of Guyana to continue unhindered to exercise its over123 -old continuous and unbroken right that the ICJ recognised, endorsed and reinforced as valid and opposable to Venezuela.
There are several positive and legally permissible implications than can be gleaned from the ICJ Judgment in issuing the requisite Provisional Measures that Guyana requested and was granted unanimously.
In my humble reasonable opinion the Court made certain declarations during the course of its Judgment that lead me to conclude that this matter of the right of Guyana to retain The Essequibo Region as three quarters of its 83,000 square miles of landed jurisdiction as well as the appurtenant off shore maritime areas is now unquestionable, unassailable and a fait accompli.
The important development is the Court’s order to Venezuela : Do not Cross the Border because beyond the border is Guyana’s sacrosanct, indivisible and exclusive territorial sovereignty going back to pre-1897 days and years that the 1899 Arbitration Award gave its legal stamp of approval and from which Venezuela profited and accepted as legally binding in perpetuity and worked to establish the official boundary.