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All is Not Well in Georgetown: Guyana’s Emerging Hemispheric Role

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow: Alex Sanchez

• Guyana and Venezuela’s longstanding territorial dispute: the “frozen conflict,” which is asleep for now and hopefully forever

• Will Guyana’s Jagdeo become Washington’s new best friend on the continent?

The latest confrontation between Venezuela and Guyana, which indisputably took place on Guyanese territory, has reminded Washington that Guyana exists and that complexities abound for the long troubled nation which is located in one of the South America’s hot spots. The recent clash, which briefly revived the border dispute long bedeviling the two nations’, has pushed Washington into approaching Georgetown in a less cautious, and more engaged, effort in order to gain its friendship at the hoped for expense of Washington’s most determined regional adversary, Hugo Chavez. The recent meeting between Guyanese and American military officials over defense issues may very well put Guyana’s weakened leader, President Bharrat Jagdeo ultimately in an untenable position where he may have to reluctantly pick sides, even though most specialists dismiss the recent Georgetown visit of high U.S. naval officials as nothing more than a coincidence involving a long-scheduled event.

A “Frozen” Conflict
Ever since Guyana gained its independence in the 1960’s, Guyana and Venezuela episodically have been involved in a recurrent territorial dispute. Caracas claims, but has not been heavily pressuring, its sovereignty over two thirds of Guyana’s total of 83,000 square miles, mainly in the sprawling timber and mineral-rich Essequibo region. In 1899, while the United Kingdom was Guyana’s colonial ruler (the country was then known as British Guiana), an international tribunal had demarcated boundaries between the two states to be “a full, perfect and final settlement.” Nevertheless, throughout the years, Venezuelans have held mental reservations about that ruling and, from time to time, raised questions as if the issue at hand had not yet been finally determined.

At the 1899 boundary gathering, commissioners from the United States, Russia, Venezuela and Britain marked the border between the two states. Venezuela’s resentment over what it saw as an unjust demarcation became public only after its commissioner at the gathering, Mallet Provost, died in 1948. A November 21, 2007 article in IPS-Latin America explains that “writings [Provost] left behind appear to suggest that Venezuela was cheated out of the western Essequibo region that comprises a full two-thirds of Guyana’s [present] land area of 215,000 square kilometers, where most of its foreign investment in gold, diamond and timber is located.”

Latterly, Venezuela began reasserting its claim to the disputed territory, and in 1966 a commission was established to negotiate a settlement, but, as explained in the Caribbean Media Corporation in a November 17, 2007 report, border incidents repeatedly interrupted its work. However, observers are quick to point that the conflict has never been allowed to escalate into a full-fledged armed confrontation.
 
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The article continues at  http://www.coha.org/2008/01/23/although-all-is-not-well-in-georgetown-guyana%e2%80%99s-emerging-hemispheric-role  with the following paragraph headings and conclusion:

The November Incident
The Diplomatic and Political Hot Seat
Unrelated Incidents?
Washington’s Response
The Reason Why Borders Matter
 
Conclusion
The Venezuela-Guyanese border dispute could be characterized as a kind of “frozen conflict” (a term used to describe unsolved conflicts in the post-Soviet world). In spite of the long history of boundary issues, an open all-out war involving Guyana has never occurred, nor is it likely to take place in the near future. With Venezuela being one of the parties in the potential dispute, adding to the fact that there are even more significant natural resources likely to be found on Guyanese territory in the future, any ongoing friction between Guyana and Venezuela would be of great interest to several international actors, with Washington being at the top of the list.

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