Venezuela still protesting Guyana’s request to extend borders

The Venezuelan government has criticised the fact that the Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf (CLCS) is considering a request made by Guyana last year to extend its continental shelf. Caracas expressed its view before the United Nations (UN) about Guyana’s application.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, through a statement, reported on Tuesday that Caracas reminded the UN that the territory west of the Essequibo River is the subject of a territorial sovereignty dispute “inherited from colonialism” and subject to the Geneva Agreement of 1966 and, within this context, to the Good Offices of the UN secretary general, “to which Venezuela is fully commit ted”.

According to the press release, Venezuela “informed promptly the government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana about our move, which complies with international law and the procedures of the Organisation of the United Nations”. Guyana’s application, submitted on September 6, 2011 to the CLCS, states that “there are no disputes in the region relevant to this submission of data and information relating to the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles”.

“Guyana’s claim that there are no disputes in the region disregards the contents of the Geneva Agreement, under which the then British Guiana recognised the dispute over the Essequibo and agreed to seek a settlement satisfactory to both parties,” the Venezuelan government said. The CLCS will meet on March 19.

Following Guyana’s application, the Venezuelan government had reacted strongly in a statement which prompted a meeting between the two countries foreign ministers: Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Nicolás Maduro.

The two ministers had met in Trinidad and Tobago last year September to discuss the issue. The UN Good Officer, Professor Norman Girvan, was invited to the meeting.

Venezuela had branded Guyana’s request to the United Nations to expand the limits of its continental shelf from 200 to 350 nautical miles as an “irregular situation”, and chastised Georgetown for not informing Venezuela directly.

But Guyana said it was taking the necessary actions to preserve the right that assists it with respect to the projection of its seafront.

In its reaction, Venezuela said it received, on September 7, 2011, the official notification that Guyana had lodged a presentation on the outer limits of the continental shelf of Guyana, within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which this country belongs to, with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS).

The presentation “does not prejudge” the limits between the two countries, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in a statement, while adding later that Venezuela “manifest(ed) its concern upon realising that the government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana did not inform it beforehand of this action, in spite of existing fluid mechanisms of communication, like the good officer of the office of the UN secretary general, or the permanent bilateral dialogue the authorities of both countries keep”.

Guyana responded on September 27, refuting Venezuela’s statement, saying that since 2009 it submitted its claim for the extension of the continental shelf to the Venezuelan Embassy under cover of a note verbale. The embassy, the release said, was served a copy of the preliminary information which was submitted to the secretary general of the United Nations. “That document constitutes the executive summary of Guyana’s full submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, except for the fact that it has adjusted coordinates for the outer limits of the extended continental shelf based on additional seismic data that were obtained after May 2009.”

“The government of Guyana wishes to state that, as was made pellucid in Guyana’s submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, Guyana’s submission of information and data pursuant to Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is without prejudice to any future maritime delimitation exercise with neighbouring states. The communiqué from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela recognises that fact, since it declared that the submission of the Republic of Guyana does not prejudge eventual maritime delimitation between Guyana and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” the release said.