Venezuela Rejects CARICOM Position on Guayana Esequiba

On Tuesday, the Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil rejected the interfering, imprecise, and false opinions included in a statement issued by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) regarding the Law for the Defense of the Guayana Esequiba. The Venezuelan statement is reproduced below. 

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"The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects the interfering statement issued today by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), expressing imprecise and false opinions about the Organic Law for the Defense of the Essequibo Guyana, a product of an absurd policy of automatic solidarity incapable of correcting Guyana's hostile, illegal, and predatory attitude against Venezuela's historical rights and the most elementary principles of international law.

Exercising its exclusive attributions, the Venezuelan National Assembly fulfilled a sovereign mandate, approved in the consultative referendum of December 3, 2023, by discussing and approving an organic law, which contemplates legitimate actions to ensure national sovereignty, in strict respect for the commitments assumed with the Cooperative Republic of Guyana for the management of the territorial controversy over the Essequibo, with the 1966 Geneva Agreement being the only legal instrument in force to resolve this controversy. 

Venezuela is still awaiting CARICOM's statement regarding the plot concocted between Guyana, Exxon Mobil, and the United States to disregard and violate the Geneva Agreement, the only mechanism to guarantee a political and peaceful solution to this territorial controversy. 

It is concerning that CARICOM has overlooked, for almost a decade, Guyana's constant violations of international law, whereby illegally and illegitimately it has disposed of territory that does not belong to it and has granted oil concessions to ExxonMobil in an undelimited maritime area, in blatant violation of international law. 

Venezuela aspires to a deep reflection by CARICOM on the military alliance of its partner with the U.S. Southern Command, the operational presence of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the deployment of UK military frigates, as well as Guyana's grave call to form an international alliance to aggress Venezuela, all instrumentalized against the regional peace and stability. 

In reality, the only threat to the regional stability is Guyana and its illegitimate and all-costs pretension to seize territory that has never belonged to it and will never belong to it, solely to satisfy Exxon Mobil's hegemonic interests, which have neo-colonized the government of that nation. 

Venezuela makes a special call to CARICOM not to replicate its position on the territorial controversy between Guyana and Venezuela, its weak stances on relevant issues such as the situation of Haiti, which undoubtedly facilitated the serious political and institutional crisis of that nation and its surrender to imperial powers, which has plunged the brotherly and noble Haitian people into an unjust humanitarian crisis. 

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reaffirms its full commitment to international law and the declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a peace zone, while reclaiming its sovereign and irrevocable right over the Guayana Esequiba territory, which has belonged to it since its inception. The Sun of Venezuela Rises in the Essequibo!"