An Editorial Viewpoint
WHAT MAY seem routine for those yet to appreciate its significance, this past Friday’s reaffirmation of support from the Caribbean Community for Guyana and Belize against territorial claims, respectively, by Venezuela and Guatemala, would have been most welcome by the governments of these two member states of CARICOM.

There can be nothing routine about external claims that threaten the territorial integrity and sovereignty of either Guyana or Belize.

Therefore, it must be viewed as being quite positive when, on the Community’s 35th anniversary meeting on Friday in Antigua and Barbuda, CARICOM leaders unanimously chose to once again reaffirm their “full support for the maintenance of the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Guyana and Belize.

Both these countries continue to suffer from the claims from their respective border neighbour with which they wish to live at peace without, in any way, compromising their territorial integrity and sovereignty.

With respect to Venezuela’s age-old 19th century claim to two thirds of Guyana’s sovereign territory, on the basis of its refusal to recognise the ruling of an international tribunal that in 1899 declared that ownership claim to be “null and void”, successive administrations in this country have had to point out how this is affecting efforts to push ahead with economic development in the so-called “disputed” area in the Essequibo region.

Last week, CARICOM leaders stressed the need for Venezuela to recognise Guyana’s “right to develop its resources in the entirety of its territory.” They also took note of Guyana’s reporting on efforts being made to resuscitate the United Nations “Good Offices Process” and expressed the view in a statement that it was “critical for a new Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to be appointed as soon as possible in order to advance the Good Offices Process”.

Previous Special Representatives of the UN Secretary General in this matter were the former Secretary General of CARICOM, Alister McIntyre, and later the now late Barbadian diplomat and jurist, Oliver Jackman.

All countries represented in the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the United Nations would be fully conscious of how unresolved territorial problems negatively impact on developments among nations of this hemisphere and quite contrary to otherwise positive initiatives to promote coordinated approaches for trans-border economic development for the benefit of their peoples who well understand the evil consequences of colonialism and imperialism.

It is imperative that vigorous new initiatives to resolve lingering differences over territorial integrity be pursued to coincide with visionary efforts by major Latin American partners in our hemisphere in boldly promoting new models for social and economic development and create banking financial and other arrangements to attain these laudable objectives.

In the case of Guyana, the government may well have to consider initiating a new offensive to broadcast its concerns about the hurdles that militate against attracting required significant investments for diversified economic development in the Essequibo region–as a direct result of Venezuela’s territorial claim.

The government in Caracas has been increasingly demonstrating some commendable initiatives to promote structural socio-economic changes at home and among member states of the hemisphere.

It is, therefore, time for a new approach to also be made in Caracas to bring an end to its claim to two thirds of Guyana that has so long ago been ruled by international jurists to have NO validity, and who ruled the existing territorial demarcation as constituting a “full, perfect and final settlement”.

Let it be recalled that way back in the final decade of the 19th century, a Venezuelan administration in Caracas had fully concurred with the terms of the “1897 Treaty of Washington” that unanimously ruled against the territorial claim to a then colonial British Guiana.

Today’s Republic of Guyana anxiously await the realisation of that historic judgement. Guyana’s CARICOM partners stand on solid legal ground in continuing to express their unequivocal moral support for safeguarding of this country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Quite commendable also is CARICOM’s unequivocal support for Belize against Guatemala’s threat to its territorial integrity.