ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – For sixty years, from their entry into faculty, Venezuelans have been skilled into believing that the Essequibo area of Guyana belongs to Venezuela. Consequently, whatever the information, this perception is ingrained within the Venezuelan psyche.
For this reason the one matter on which the contending political factions in Venezuela can agree is that Essequibo is Venezuelan.
It has lengthy been a political tactic that, when there’s home discord, a standard enemy must be created to realize political assist usually. Therefore, the periodic however persistent proclamations from Venezuela, claiming Essequibo.
The most recent try to validate the acquisition of the Essequibo area is clear within the questions posed to the Venezuelan voters in a forthcoming referendum with a predetermined consequence.
The contrived referendum, prejudicially titled “in protection of Guayana Esequiba,” might be held on Dec. 3, 2023. Amongst its intentionally main questions, designed to get a desired optimistic reply, is the next: “Do you agree with the creation of the Guayana Esequiba state and the event of an accelerated plan for the great care of the present and future inhabitants of that territory that features, amongst others, the granting of citizenship and Venezuelan identification card by the Geneva Settlement and worldwide legislation, consequently incorporating stated state on the map of Venezuelan territory?”.
On condition that for over 60 years, successive governments of Venezuela have carried out a propaganda coverage of brainwashing their individuals to undertake the declare that Essequibo belongs to Venezuela in defiance of an 1899 Worldwide Arbitral Award, the query is framed to safe the voters’s assist as validation of the annexation of Essequibo.
Considerably, the questions for the referendum ignore fully that there’s an present arbitral award since 1899 that establishes the boundaries between Venezuela and Guyana. Equally, the questions ignore the historic proof that Venezuela proclaimed the arbitral award and ratified it of their congress.
The referendum additionally makes no point out of the truth that, since 2018, there was a case earlier than the best authorized Courtroom on the planet, the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ), to settle the validity of the 1899 award. The one reference to those proceedings is contained in query 3 of the referendum, which, prejudicially, poses the loaded query: “Do you agree with the historic place of Venezuela to not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice to resolve the controversy over the territory of Guayana Essequiba?”.
The Venezuelan authorities ought to have suggested their voters of Articles 92 and 93 of the Constitution of the United Nations. Article 92 states, “The Worldwide Courtroom of Justice shall be the principal judicial organ of the United Nations,” Article 93 declares, “All Members of the United Nations are ipso facto events to the Statute of the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice.” Not recognizing the jurisdiction of the ICJ is tantamount to a repudiation of the UN Constitution.
Furthermore, the ICJ has already twice determined that it has jurisdiction to find out the validity of the 1899 award and the associated land boundary between Venezuela and Guyana. The putting of the query within the referendum, within the method during which it’s framed, is a flagrant disregard for worldwide legislation, the UN Constitution, and the ICJ.
It’s clear that this contrived referendum is designed to guide the Venezuelan voters into giving cowl for the federal government’s determination to disregard the ICJ proceedings and, as an alternative, to take unilateral motion to “incorporate” Essequibo into “the territory of Venezuela.”
The Caribbean Neighborhood (CARICOM) rightly responded to this case by noting that “two of the questions accepted to be posed within the Referendum, if answered within the affirmative, would authorize the federal government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to embark on the annexation of territory, which constitutes a part of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, and to create a state inside Venezuela generally known as Guyana Essequibo.”
Additional, CARICOM reaffirmed that “worldwide legislation strictly prohibits the federal government of 1 State from unilaterally seizing, annexing or incorporating the territory of one other state. An affirmative vote as aforesaid opens the door to the potential violation of this basic tenet of worldwide legislation.”
In opposition to this background, the Venezuelan authorities is satisfied that its probabilities of a good determination from the ICJ of its claims are slim. Due to this fact, it’s transferring to annexation, a blatant violation of the Constitution of the UN and the Group of American States.
Venezuela has reached this level after many efforts to scuttle the ICJ course of by asserting that the controversy with Guyana could possibly be settled by dialogue and negotiation between the 2 states. In making this assertion, Venezuela ignores the 50 years of joint commissions, direct negotiations, and UN good places of work mediation, which all failed. It additionally ignores that the current ICJ course of, which flowed immediately from the 1966 Geneva Settlement during which each Venezuela and Guyana agreed, below Article IV (1), that the UN Secretary-Basic shall determine on “one of many technique of settlement supplied in Article 33 of the Constitution of the United Nations”. The Secretary-Basic agreed on the ICJ.
And Venezuela had each alternative to take part actively within the proceedings even after it misplaced its authorized arguments objecting to the Courtroom’s jurisdiction. Due to this fact, Venezuela’s name for dialogue and negotiation is one other gambit to keep away from the judicial technique of settlement.
Worldwide legislation and the ICJ course of are the professional and peaceable pathways to a definitive settlement of the land boundary.
Any try to unilaterally incorporate Essequibo into Venezuela as is promoted by the deliberate referendum or any subsequent navy motion in furtherance of such a contrived referendum will rightly be met by worldwide hostility, condemnation, and motion.
*(The author is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the USA and the Group of American States. He’s additionally a Senior Fellow on the Institute of Commonwealth Research on the College of London and Massey School on the College of Toronto. The views expressed are fully his personal.)
Associated