In a statement widely disseminated by local media, the president of Guyana, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, alluded to the announcement the day before by President Nicolás Maduro about several measures that his Government intends to take to enforce the result of the referendum held in Venezuela last Sunday.
“As I have made clear from the date the referendum was first announced, this is a direct threat to the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Guyana, and a violation of the fundamental principles of international law enshrined in the Letters from the United Nations and the Organization of American States,” he said.
“The announced measures blatantly ignore the order issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on December 1,” said the president, stressing that his country considers this an imminent threat to its territorial integrity and will intensify the precautionary measures. to safeguard their territory.
Irfaan Ali mentioned conversations held with the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres and several leaders to alert them about “these dangerous developments,” noting that they have involved regional organizations such as the Caribbean Community and many of the bilateral partners.
He stated that nothing Caracas does will prevent Guyana from proceeding with the case before the ICJ, nor from it ultimately issuing its final ruling on the merits of the case.
“We will not allow our territory to be violated or the development of our country to be hindered by this desperate threat,” he concluded.
On December 1, the ICJ asked both parties to avoid actions that complicate the long-standing dispute before that body or make it more difficult to resolve.
In its ruling, the highest court of the United Nations Organization also notified that Venezuela “must refrain from taking any measure that could modify the situation that currently prevails in the disputed territory” which “Guyana administers and exercises control over that area.”
For more than a century, the two South American countries have had a controversy over that space of almost 160 thousand square kilometers, and in recent weeks it escalated with the Venezuelan side denouncing tenders to oil transnationals in undelimited waters.
Among the announcements made by President Maduro to materialize the results of last Sunday’s consultative referendum, in which the people said yes to the five questions in defense of Guayana Esequiba, is the release of a decree that creates the integral Defense Zone of that territory.
This Wednesday, Caracas proposed to Georgetown to return to the path of direct dialogue through the 1966 Geneva Agreement and denounced the intention to install US military bases in its territory.
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