Venezuela urges the Caricom to «play a constructive role» and avoid a regional conflict after controversy with Guyana

The Executive Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, urged the Caribbean Community (Caricom) to «play a constructive role» already avoiding a «conflict» in the region, after this group of countries Tildara of «provocative incident» the presence of Venezuelan naval ships in waters that Guyana considers as part of its territory.

Through Telegram, Rodríguez called «third -rank bureaucrats» to the Caricom – integrated by Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Granada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, San Cristóbal and Nieves, Santa Lucía, San Vicente and the Grenadines, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago- «Assign Venezuela».

«The Caribbean countries are called by history to play a constructive role in this territorial dispossession created artificially by ancient empires,» said the official in reference to Esequibo, a territory of almost 160,000 square kilometers that Venezuela and Guyana dispute and consider their own.

Likewise, the head of Hydrocarbons warned of the CARICOM that «they are in time to avoid» that the region «enters a conflict to legitimize the energy voracious of the exxonmobil,» the American company that has Guyana concessions to exploit oil.

Through a statement, the Caricom urged Guyana and Venezuela on Saturday to «avoid unnecessary confrontation actions» and asked the administration of Nicolás Maduro to «order the urgent withdrawal of the Ship of the waters of Guyana and, in addition, refrain from coming into contact with the FPSO platforms» (Flot Production Units, Storage and Download of Exxonmobil).

In previous statements, the president of Guyana, Irfaan Ali, transmitted his «serious concern» to the presence of Venezuelan naval ships in what he considered Guyanesas jurisdictional waters.

However, Venezuela responded through a statement that Ali hides that these waters «are not part of the Guyanés territory,» since it is, «he added,» a maritime zone pending delimitation according to international law. «

«It is inadmissible, and constitutes a serious violation of international law, which Guyana has a territory over which there is a controversy and worse, it has a pending sea to delimit, granting illegal concessions for the exploitation of energy resources,» the statement added.

The differences due to the border limits around the Esequibo, which occupies two thirds of the territory of Guyana and that Venezuela has claimed for more than a century, began with the arbitral award of Paris of 1899 that gave the sovereignty of the territory to the then British Guyana.

Decades later, Venezuela declared that ruling void and signed with the United Kingdom the 1966 Geneva agreement, which determined to create a commission to resolve the historic controversy, which has not materialized.

EFE