Venezuelan officials reacted exuberantly to the outcome of the December 2023 encounter at the Argyle Airport in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Venezuelan President exulted that ‘We did it’. The Vice-president blustered that “…Guyana must sit down to negotiate over the disputed territory”. The Foreign Affairs Minister boasted that the summit was “…a victory for Venezuela’s commitment to dialogue” and cited the Geneva Agreement as “…the only valid instrument to resolve the controversy.” The Defence Minister bragged that the Bolivarian National Armed Forces would remain “…present on our Atlantic facade until this territorial controversy over our Essequibo ends in a practical and satisfactory solution.”
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – explained that Venezuela’s ebullience signified the success of its scheme to shift consideration of its territorial claim away from the UN process and the International Court of Justice and back to a regressive and sterile dialogue process. He said that the Argyle encounter ignored the causes of unstable relations which are rooted in Venezuela’s provocation over the past six decades by seizing Ankoko Island; seizing the Teknik Perdana and intercepting the Ramform Tethys petroleum vessels and issuing a series of offensive decrees − Nos. 1.152; No. 1,787 and No. 4,415 − which its Armed Forces were authorized to enforce. These decrees have never been rescinded.
Mr. Granger described the Guyana-Venezuela Presidential encounter to discuss matters which were already properly before the United Nations and the International Court of Justice as a diplomatic blunder. The engagement was engineered by Venezuela’s close ally in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – St. Vincent and the Grenadines – and attended by a throng of onlookers from the Caribbean Community, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and United Nations. He explained that, in preparation for the Argyle encounter, and in defiance of the ICJ’s ruling on 1st December 2023 that Venezuela was to “…refrain from taking any action which would modify the situation that currently prevails in the territory in dispute”, Venezuela implemented a menu of five pre-planned measures two days later.
The stratagem included, first, a referendum asking the public whether they agreed with “…the creation of the Guayana Esequiba State and that an accelerated and comprehensive plan be developed for the present and future population of that territory; second, claiming a mandate from the referendum’s results, to establish the spurious Guayana Esequiba state and to appoint a provisional administrator over the territory; third, promulgating “the Organic Law for the Defense of Guayana Esequiba’ thereby creating a Defense Operational Zone for the entire Essequibo and publishing new maps showing Essequibo as part of Venezuela; fourth, inducing Guyana to accede to the Declaration of Argyle for Dialogue and Peace between Guyana and Venezuela; and, fifth, enmeshing Guyana in a joint commission of foreign ministers.
The Former President expressed the view that the Argyle engagement was a diplomatic disaster for Guyana and a bonanza for Venezuela which easily institutionalized its long-held preference for bilateral dialogue. It demonstrated the dangers of departing from the UN-ICJ process, of relying on dubious ‘honest brokers’ and of ignoring the necessity of removing the injurious decrees as a condition for improved relations. He said that Guyana needs to do much to repair the damage, restore confidence in the UN-ICJ process and resist entrapment in a process to revisit a matter that had been fully, finally and legally settled 125 years ago!
