[www.inewsguyana.com] – The Caribbean Community (Caricom) supported Guyana’s stance vis-à-vis its border dispute with Venezuela, in a communiqué published on its website arguing that the Arbitral Award of 1899 is valid.
The 15 countries comprising the Caricom rejected a communiqué issued on March 3 by the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and published in several Caribbean newspapers. In that text, Venezuela contended that the Arbitral Award of 1899 was null and void. For their part, the Caricom argued that such award “definitively settled the boundary between the two countries.”
According to the Caricom, “Guyana has commenced a review of the options available under Article 33 of the United Nations Charter as provided by the 1966 Geneva Agreement, including the judicial option, that could serve to bring an end to the controversy and ensure stability in the relations between the two countries.”[El Universal]
Does Caricom really serve any useful purpose? In a world where there’s the UN, EU, SAARC, OIC, etc., Caricom is akin to a toothless old dog wandering about. Guyana is better off aligning itself with T&T and Suriname to form a more useful and strategic political and/or economic union. The rest of the Caribbean can merge together as the OECS is already doing.