At least three very senior Caribbean Community prime ministers are flying into St. Vincent and the Grenadines for Thursday’s emergency summit meeting between Guyana and Venezuela linked to their simmering row over land border and marine lines.
Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced overnight Tuesday that she is headed to the meeting and so did Keith Rowley of Trinidad and Roosvelt Skerrit, chairman of the 15-nation regional bloc and prime minister of Dominica. Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves will function as the facilitator of what is shaping up to be a tense if not contentious session starting at 10.a.m. as the two sides are poles apart on what the main agenda item will be.
PM Rowley said the meeting was“was born out of ongoing discussions and a decision taken at an emergency CARICOM virtual meeting held last Friday (Dec. 8),“ noting that the agenda will include “matters related to the border dispute,“ a point which Guyana seriously disputes as President Irfan Ali is adamant that that issue has long been settled by an 1899 treaty that drew border lines.
For her part, Mottley told reporters that “this is a border controversy, but it has the potential to significantly disrupt peace and stability, not only in the two affected countries, Guyana and Venezuela, but in the Southern and Eastern Caribbean.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is adamant that a discussion of Guyana’s Essequibo region, which it has long claimed will be on the agenda. Ali says he wants to talk peace and to remind Maduro that the Caribbean should remain a zone of peace. “In relation to our border, there is absolutely no compromise. The matter is before the ICJ and there is where it will be settled,” he said in a national broadcast at the weekend. “I have made it very clear that on the issue of the border controversy, Guyana’s position is non–negotiable.”
Both governments have written to PM Gonsalves to restate their positions and intentions at the meeting so it remains unclear what the outcome can be as Guyana has said it is depending on an impending decision from the World Court to settle the issue once and for all. Venezuela maintains that the Geneva Agreement signed in 1966 allows for direct, bilateral talks rather than a move to the court. It also allows the United Nations to refer the case as it has already done. Venezuela fears that its case at the court might be a little weak so it has derecognized the court and is pushing hard for direct talks.
