Venezuela and Guyana agree to resume border dispute negotiations under UN umbrella

Monday, September 2nd 2013 - 12:35 UTC

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ended a one-day visit to Guyana on Saturday in a move that strengthens the relationship between the two countries that have had a long standing border dispute. The two countries have agreed to ask the Jamaica-born academic, Professor Norman Girvan to continue as the United Nations (UN) Good Officer as they seek to settle their border dispute. Read full article

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GFace
“ Venezuela is claiming ***159.500 square kilometres*** in the Essequibo region, from Guyana’s total area of ***214.000 square kilometres***.”

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnd we're done.

There really is a point where you just have to sit and look at the size of the chunk of land and just say “No,” plain and simple. This claim and resulting arbitration is over a century old, and most importantly egregiously friggin' huge beyond reason. (And of course now gets trumped by the wishes of the people living there.) It's not even justifiable to use that as a starting point and to then “haggle down” to sound “reasonable.” The “good officer” really just needs to say “No. Work on what you can do together but don't even begin to waste diplomatic or legal time on such an over the top claim.”
Sep 02nd, 2013 - 05:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Anglotino
Interesting historical footnote that the area was once called 'Nova Zeelandia'.

Lucky for my Kiwi cousins.

Also the Dutch settlement that started this mess was almost 200 years before Venezuela's independence. As messy as this historical claim is, I find it hard to reconcile fraternal South American words with a country of almost 1,000,000 km2 claiming 74% of a neighbour to leave them with a rump country of only 54,000 km2.

Them there the almost 200,000 Guyanese or 25% of the population that would be transferred to a foreign country.
Sep 02nd, 2013 - 05:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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GFace
@2 “Them there the almost 200,000 Guyanese or 25% of the population that would be transferred to a foreign country.”

Which tells me that just ain't gonna happen, which also tells me that these negotiations should not be wasting anyone's time. But yeah, they are effectively claiming Guyana -- not just “everything to Essequibo,” rather like that sleazy family in Boulder who got their buddy judge to rule to give them a “tiny” sliver of adjoining land on which someone was going to build their retirement home (rending the entire property unusable for nothing but green space - to be sold to them of course, or the city, for a reasonable market price no doubt.). If Venezuela would prevail, what was left behind would not be Guyana in the sense that we know it.
Sep 02nd, 2013 - 06:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Anglotino
Correct. I can't see anyone transferring 75% of the land and 25% of a population to a foreign country based on perceived or actual historical misdeeds from centuries ago.

The world has moved on from the 60s and 70s. It has moved on from Tinet, East Timor, West Papua, Goa, Cyprus, Western Sahara, Vietnam etc.

The days of invasion and annexation or awarding lands and populations is gone.

The only country to try it recently is Russia. But I'd put the end roughlyt about 1982. Argentina proved that the world doesn't work that way anymore.

So no, Venezuela will not win and get most of Guyana. Guatemala won't get Belize. Argentina won't get the Falklamds. Spain won't get Gibraltar.

Why? Because it's 2013.
Sep 02nd, 2013 - 07:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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GFace
But in South America it's always 1833, I always thought.
Sep 03rd, 2013 - 11:29 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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Anglotino
Only in Argentina, Venezuela and Bolivia.

Colombia doesn't claim Panama and they lost it only 110 years ago. Paraguay doesn't keep harping on about chunks of Argentina.

So just those countries that are run by inept populists live in the past.
Sep 03rd, 2013 - 05:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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