The government of Guyana is being urged to lobby nations in Latin American to ensure that neighbouring Venezuela complies with the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) final ruling on the long standing border dispute.
International Relations Professor Dr. Mark Kirton, said that lobbying Latin American nations will be beneficial in convincing Venezuela on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award on the land boundary with Guyana.
He also urged Guyana to recognise Brazil as a valued strategic partner and emerging regional and global player in fora such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC).
“I have no doubt that the spurious claim will not be entertained by the ICJ but I think that compliance could be a question that will be raised and, therefore, even before that judgement is made somewhere, certainly by 2024-2025, that we should enlist stronger support from Latin American states to ensure compliance with the judgement wherever it goes and that Brazil, to my mind, may be a key player in that particular issue,” he told the launching ceremony of his latest publication titled “Building Bridges in The Amazon – Guyana Brazil Relations Into the 21st Century”.
Kirton is a former member of the Guyana Defense Force (GDF).
Meanwhile, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo earlier this week acknowledged the historic role that Brazil has played in the Guyana-Venezuela boundary dispute by taking the position that its existing borders would not be changed.
“We have had public declarations from major countries in the region. Brazil, for one, said as far said that as they are concerned, the border is fixed… several administrations saying that so in Latin America we have had successes too,” he said.
Jagdeo noted that Brazil’s position is based on the fact that Guyana has contiguous borders with that country and Venezuela “so any adjustment of say the border will have an impact too n Brazil and so they took a definitive position. .
In response to the ICJ’s dismissal of Venezuela’s preliminary objection earlier this week, on the grounds that Britain had a say in the border case, Caracas vowed to take all steps to pursue its claim to the mineral and forest-rich Essequibo Region.
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will exhaustively evaluate its implications and adopt all the measures at its disposal to defend its legitimate rights and territorial integrity,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.
The Nicolas Maduro-led administration dismissed the ICJ’s decision that Britain was not an indispensable party to the case because Guyana was granted independence in 1966.
Despite that judgement, Venezuela continues to maintain that Britain should be considered at the ICJ because that European Union had used “fraudulent mechanisms” to seize its territory.
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