Caricom backs Guyana; warns against using regional platforms to advance territorial claims

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Cari­com has warned that its plat­forms must not be used to ad­vance ter­ri­to­r­i­al claims, even as it reaf­firmed strong sup­port for Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty fol­low­ing con­cerns raised by Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali over re­cent ac­tions from Venezuela.

The re­sponse comes af­ter Pres­i­dent Ali wrote to Cari­com chair­man and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew, rais­ing alarm over what he de­scribed as a “provoca­tive” dis­play by Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez dur­ing re­cent vis­its to re­gion­al states.

In his let­ter, Ali ob­ject­ed to the use of im­agery de­pict­ing Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo re­gion as part of Venezuela dur­ing of­fi­cial en­gage­ments, warn­ing that such ac­tions risk un­der­min­ing re­gion­al uni­ty.

“I note with grave con­cern the pub­lic dis­play of a map pur­port­ing to in­cor­po­rate Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo re­gion as part of Venezuela,” Ali wrote.

The “map” he’s re­fer­ring to is a brooch worn by Ro­driguez on her out­fits.

He stressed that while Guyana re­spects the sov­er­eign right of Cari­com coun­tries to en­gage Venezuela diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, it is “deeply re­gret­table” that those en­gage­ments have been ac­com­pa­nied by sym­bols as­sert­ing Venezuela’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al claim.

“The use of Cari­com en­gage­ments to project or pro­mote a ter­ri­to­r­i­al claim risks be­ing in­ter­pret­ed as ac­qui­es­cence or tol­er­ance,” Ali said.

The Es­se­qui­bo re­gion is a re­source-rich ter­ri­to­ry com­pris­ing two-thirds of Guyana. Venezuela has con­sis­tent­ly laid claim to the ter­ri­to­ry, while Guyana main­tains le­gal own­er­ship and is seek­ing a fi­nal judg­ment from the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice. Ten­sions have spiked re­cent­ly fol­low­ing ma­jor off­shore oil dis­cov­er­ies, es­ca­lat­ing the stand­off over sov­er­eign­ty and mar­itime rights.

In a state­ment re­spond­ing to Ali’s April 28 let­ter, Cari­com said it had tak­en note of “re­cent of­fi­cial en­gage­ments” with­in the re­gion where ma­te­r­i­al as­sert­ing Venezuela’s claim to Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo re­gion was dis­played.

While un­der­scor­ing that each mem­ber state re­tains the sov­er­eign right to con­duct bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions, the re­gion­al bloc stressed that those en­gage­ments must re­main con­sis­tent with shared oblig­a­tions un­der the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.

“At the cen­tre of those com­mit­ments stands the Re­vised Treaty, which com­mits mem­bers to the preser­va­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty’s in­tegri­ty and co­he­sion in their ex­ter­nal re­la­tions,” Cari­com said via a me­dia re­lease.

The re­gion­al body added that in ex­er­cis­ing their sov­er­eign rights, mem­ber states must re­main mind­ful of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to up­hold in­ter­na­tion­al law, re­spect ju­di­cial process­es, and main­tain good neigh­bourly re­la­tions.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Cari­com cau­tioned that its fo­rums must not be used to le­git­imise claims cur­rent­ly be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice.

It reaf­firmed its “long­stand­ing and un­equiv­o­cal sup­port” for Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty and for a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of the dis­pute through the Court, adding that this po­si­tion “re­mains firm and un­changed.”

Mean­while, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley who did not di­rect­ly ad­dress the cor­re­spon­dence from Cari­com or the Guyanese Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali, is­sued a state­ment on X yes­ter­day evening af­ter the let­ters be­came pub­lic.

Shar­ing a video of her meet­ing with Del­cy Ro­dríguez, Mot­t­ley wrote: “Bar­ba­dos and Venezuela are bound by more than ge­og­ra­phy. We are bound by the ur­gent need to work to­geth­er for our peo­ple. We must not let his­to­ry or lan­guage pre­vent us from find­ing the best pos­si­ble co­op­er­a­tion for our two coun­tries and our two peo­ples.”