No Guyana-Venezuela Territorial Dispute Exists

Venezuela has been covertly entrapping Guyanese at home and abroad to use phrases like, “Guyana-Venezuela border dispute” and “Guyana-Venezuela territorial dispute”. Let me set the record straight. Any territorial dispute that Guyana had with Venezuela was settled, once and for all, in 1899, in favour of Guyana, by a United Nations arbitration tribunal.

President Nicolas Maduro

More than 100 years ago, Venezuela willingly agreed to take that dispute before the arbitration tribunal and had no issue with the outcome, until decades later, contrary to international law. There exists, however, a border controversy created by Venezuela for economic dominance in the region.
Venezuelan government ministers have been traversing Latin America beating the drum of international law by demanding that Guyana cease all oil exploration in the "disputed” Essequibo region and adhere to the Geneva Agreement of 1966. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez, was even quoted in Caracas publication El Universal as saying, “there is no historic or political doubt regarding the legitimate rights of Venezuela over the Essequibo”. 
Venezuela is the country that has been violating international law by failing to recognise the 1899 UN arbitration tribunal award declaring Essequibo Guyana's territory. In fact, the Venezuelans have injected the term dispute into the dialogue and many Guyanese are using the term loosely without even realising the connotation. The same 1966 Geneva Agreement entered into by the British, Venezuela and British Guiana, in the run-up to independence in 1966, never uses the word dispute. Dispute is an illusionary and deceptive term. The Geneva Agreement uses the term controversy throughout the text, implying that the dispute had already been settled in 1899, as seen below:

VENEZUELA

and UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN

AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Agreement to resolve the controversy over the frontier between Venezuela and British Guiana. Signed at Geneva, on 17 February 1966

“The Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in consultation with the Government of British Guiana, and the Government of Venezuela; Taking into account the forthcoming independence of British Guiana; Recognising that closer cooperation between British Guiana and Venezuela could bring benefit to both countries; Convinced that any outstanding controversy between the United Kingdom and British Guiana on the one hand and Venezuela on the other would prejudice the furtherance of such cooperation and should therefore be amicably resolved in a manner acceptable to both parties; In conformity with the agenda that was agreed for the governmental conversations concerning the controversy between Venezuela and the United Kingdom over the frontier with British Guiana, in accordance with the joint communique of 7 November, 1963, have reached the following agreement to resolve the present controversy :

Article I

A Mixed Commission shall be established with the task of seeking satisfactory solutions for the practical settlement of the controversy between Venezuela and the United Kingdom which has arisen as the result of the Venezuelan contention that the Arbitral Award of 1899 about the frontier between British Guiana and Venezuela is null and void.” 

(https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/.../volume-561-I-8192-English.pdf)

The Essequibo River

I feel strongly that the United Nations Good Offices Process, set-up to facilitate dialogue on the territorial controversy, was and is a waste of time, makes Guyana look weak and could ultimately undermine Guyana’s sovereignty over Essequibo. President David Granger and Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge took the right decision when they announced that Guyana was no longer interested in the UN Good Offices mechanism and the only option was to have the issue pronounced on judicially, at the international level.
Guyana’s position on ending this controversy judicially is absolutely necessary based on the fact that the Venezuelans seem to be operating without reason or rationale with President Nicholas Maduro stating publicly that President Granger was not really running Guyana. Maduro suggested that Granger was receiving directives from certain Western powers who were the real architects of what he called "provocation against Venezuela".

Venezuela has broken international law by ordering its military to operate in Guyana’s waters if necessary to protect that country’s co-called territorial integrity. With Exxon Mobil exploring for oil in the Atlantic Ocean off-shore Guyana, the next time Venezuela enters into Guyana’s waters, the Government of Guyana must mobilize the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom to bring strong sanctions against the Spanish-speaking nation.

Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter specifically states:

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

This is the same President Maduro who is accusing President Granger of provocation while breaking international law himself. Maduro is on the brink of political suicide. It is just a matter of time that his political strategy of bullying smaller neighbouring nations in the Caribbean who are too timid to speak out for fear of losing oil deals with Venezuela, will implode. Venezuela is facing an internal economic crisis with sky-rocketing inflation and lack of basic necessities on the shelves, so Maduro’s solution is to turn to land grabbing.

President of Guyana, Brigadier (Retired) David Granger.

In a rambling rant during a television interview last week with teleSUR, a desperate Maduro declared, “There is a brutal campaign against Venezuela of lies, funded by Exxon Mobil, a U.S.-based oil transnational linked to the gun lobby in Washington, which has great influence within the Pentagon. While Obama is the president of the United States, his empire's influence goes far beyond him. Exxon Mobil has funded TV, radio and press campaigns, as well as political factions in the Caribbean, specifically Guyana.”

A fired-up Maduro continued,“...President Granger, if you see this video, read the story of the signing of the Geneva Accord, the British Empire recognizes that the (Essequibo dispute) has not been resolved, with negotiations and definitions pending. That agreement was signed by the Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister, Ignacio Iribarren Borges, and the foreign minister for Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Michael Stewart, and Forbes Burnham, who was a leader in Guyana and prime minister of British Guiana,” 

The aforementioned statement by Maduro actually contradicts the spirit and intent of the Genera Accord. Maduro uses the word dispute when the actual document repeatedly talks of a controversy. It also merely states that Venezuela now does not accept the decision of the 1899 UN arbitration tribunal award of Essequibo in favour of Guyana, which Venezuela is bound to do in international law. It is for these reasons that I say again, there is no territorial or border dispute, but a controversy invented by Venezuela.