- 8 hours ago
Statements by Acting president Delcy Rodriguez. teleSUR
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, distinguished members of the Court, all those present at this hearing,
00:09I come before this Court to bring you the voice of a people who deeply cherish justice, peace, and international
00:19law.
00:21The people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
00:27On the 3rd of December, 2023, our people turned out in large numbers at the polls
00:34and gave us a series of clear and unequivocal mandates.
00:39Allow me to highlight the following.
00:43Firstly, the mandate to maintain the historical position of not submitting existential matters
00:51such as independence and territorial integrity to judicial mechanisms.
00:57Secondly, the mandate to uphold the Geneva Agreement as a legal instrument for resolving the territorial dispute over Guayana Ezequiva.
01:09Thirdly, to defend, by all peaceful means, in line with international law, the territory of Guayana Ezequiva.
01:20True to these mandates this afternoon.
01:24Mr. President, members of the Court, Venezuela's historical position of not submitting matters related to its vital interests
01:34to judicial dispute resolution mechanisms is not an act of defiance nor of disregard of the Court as an institution.
01:47Venezuela is a fervent promoter and defender of international law.
01:53For this reason, it respects the International Court of Justice as the main judicial body of the United Nations.
02:02However, this is a matter of defending one of the essential attributes of our state, namely its sovereignty.
02:10Venezuela has never consented to submitting the territorial controversy over Guayana Ezequiva to the jurisdiction of this Court.
02:22In no way does Article 4 of the Geneva Agreement constitute a compromissory clause.
02:30With this in mind, since 2018, Venezuela has filed a number of submissions and has intervened in several hearings before
02:40this Court with a double purpose.
02:44Firstly, to attempt to uphold international law in the face of this anti-legal absurdity promoted by Guayana.
02:54Secondly, to demonstrate to the world the truth regarding the rights that since its inception have belonged to Venezuela with
03:04regard to the territory of Guayana Ezequiva.
03:06This does not imply in any way recognition of the court's jurisdiction in the territorial controversy.
03:17So, Mr. President, members of the court, the territorial controversy over Guayana Ezequiva is governed by a legally binding international
03:30treaty that must be complied with by the parties in good faith.
03:35This instrument is none other than the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
03:41It is a unique treaty for which it would be hard to find a parallel in decolonization practice.
03:48It seeks to resolve a colonial injustice through a mutually acceptable settlement.
03:55A negotiated solution is, therefore, an inevitable and an indispensable condition of the controversy.
04:06The Geneva Agreement buries and moves beyond the discussion over the validity or the invalidity of the 1899 award.
04:17The agreement recognizes that the boundary dispute could not be resolved in those terms and directs it towards a process
04:27aimed at achieving a practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable outcome.
04:32This framework cannot be circumvented or reformulated nor replaced through unilateral recourse to judicial resolution.
04:45It is law between the parties.
04:49The preparatory work on the Geneva Agreement, its title, its preamble, its articles, as well as the subsequent practice of
04:58the parties demonstrate that resolving the legal issue of the validity or invalidity of the award was never on the
05:07horizon.
05:08It was not ever a legal controversy.
05:12The object, the nature and the purpose have always been to resolve the territorial controversy of Uruguay and Esquiva through
05:21political, peaceful and diplomatic negotiation.
05:25The dispute controversy does not concern the confirmation nor the invalidation of an award.
05:32It concerns the resolution of a territorial dispute that both parties expressly recognized as unresolved in 1966 and for which
05:45they specifically agreed upon a method of resolution for that method is negotiation, not imposition.
05:53There are no winners or losers.
05:56This negotiation process was neither exhausted nor was it abandoned by Venezuela.
06:04It was undermined by Guyana's conduct.
06:07At a time when the mechanisms provided for in the Geneva Agreement remained fully in force, Guyana unilaterally chose to
06:16shift the controversy from the realm of negotiation to that of judicial resolution in open violation of the agreed upon
06:26legal framework.
06:26That shift was not innocent.
06:29That shift was not innocent.
06:29It coincided with an oil find in 2015 described as world renowned.
06:38Guyana at that point ceased to act in good faith and harbored a silent intention to evade compliance with the
06:50Geneva Agreement.
06:51From that moment on, Guyana abandoned the logic of a mutually acceptable solution and it adopted an unlawful strategy of
07:02judicialization aimed at obtaining through this court and without Venezuela's consent what it was not able to achieve under the
07:10Geneva Agreement, i.e. validation of a fraudulent award.
07:14It was an all or nothing approach.
07:19Negotiation was replaced by litigation, good offices by pressure and political consensus by a unilateral action that perpetuates and exacerbates
07:33the dispute.
07:33Venezuela cannot accept this shift driven by Guyana redefining the nature of the controversy or the manner in which it
07:46should be resolved.
07:47Nor can it support the use of the court as an instrument to consolidate that change in violation of the
07:56Geneva Agreement and of international law.
08:04Well, Mr. President, this is not a criticism of the judicial function.
08:10On the contrary, it is a defense of its scope.
08:15This court was not created to supplant the will of states, but to act within the limits defined by that
08:26will.
08:27And those limits in this case are clearly established in the Geneva Agreement.
08:36Let's be clear, Venezuela will not renounce its history nor its legitimate rights, rights expressly recognized and preserved in the
08:47Geneva Agreement, simply because Guyana now seeks unilaterally and opportunistically to redefine the controversy.
08:56For us, the Guayana is not just about mere economic and commercial interests.
09:04It is part of our inalienable historical legacy.
09:09Guyana is evading its obligations.
09:12It is seeking to revive a debate over the validity or the invalidity of the award.
09:19And through this manipulation, the agreement itself, the agreement itself, the Port of Spain Protocol, and decades of bilateral negotiations,
09:29including those conducted under the good offices of several UN Secretaries General, are being disregarded.
09:38And this is not an oversight.
09:41It is a clear violation of the 1966 agreement, which does not stand up to rigorous scrutiny.
09:49The narrative presented belongs to a different account, one that is divorced from historical and legal precedent.
09:57It invites the court, in bad faith, to set aside more than a century of state practice in favor of
10:06a doctored version of reality.
10:10Mr. President, members of the court, as part of its defense of the truth, Venezuela has made available to this
10:20court and, henceforth, to the world, abundant evidence confirming its historical rights over Guayana Ezequiva, as well as the party's
10:32decision to resolve the territorial dispute through the Geneva Agreement.
10:37Despite the British blockade of evident resources and despite the destruction of documents, Venezuela has compiled and submitted a comprehensive
10:51and coherent body of documentation consisting of more than 3,000 pages of evidence distributed across a number of volumes.
10:58The body of evidence presented to the court includes international treaties and agreements, it includes colonial and historical documents, extensive
11:12diplomatic correspondence, negotiation records, official statements, United Nations documents, as well as a substantial collection of maps.
11:29Taken as a whole, this evidence confirms the nullity of the 1899 arbitral award.
11:36It also unequivocally reflects long-standing practice and mutual recognition by Guyana and Venezuela of the existence of a territorial
11:49dispute and the need to resolve it through direct negotiations aimed at reaching a mutually satisfactory solution, as established in
12:01and required by the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
12:06The evidence is irrefutable.
12:10The evidence is irrefutable.
12:10Guayana Ezequiva has been part of Venezuela's territory since the country's inception.
12:16In 1777.
12:19In 1777, the Spanish crown created the captaincy general of Venezuela, comprising, among others, the province of Guayana.
12:29Guayana Ezequiva.
12:31This administrative unit is the territorial origin of what later became the Republic of Venezuela, which arose from its declaration
12:42of independence, its 1811 constitution.
12:47Since then, every constitution of the Republic of Venezuela has reflected the fact that Guayana Ezequiva is part of Venezuela's
12:55territory.
12:57In 1825, the United Kingdom recognized Gran Colombia.
13:03Its eastern border was the territory of Venezuela's Guayana Ezequiva.
13:08The United Kingdom never held any title to the territory of Guayana Ezequiva.
13:14Its successor state did not hold it either, nor does it hold it now, though it seeks to artificially forge
13:22such a title through this misleading proceedings.
13:26Beginning in 1840, the British crown, aware then of the immense gold reserves in the territory, designed a strategy to
13:36plunder it.
13:37To this end, it enlisted a German adventurer to unilaterally draw an arbitrary line within Venezuelan territory, the so-called
13:48Schomburg Line, which has never been validated nor recognized by Venezuela.
13:55Later, the United Kingdom attempted to consolidate this dispossession through a sham arbitration, which concluded with the fraudulent and rigged
14:05ward of 1899.
14:06Today, there is an attempt to validate that fraud through this biased process riddled with legal inconsistencies.
14:15There are even those who have dared to publicly predict the outcome of these proceedings.
14:23The truth of the award and its deceptive nature highlight Guayana's intention and that of those who pushed it towards
14:32this reckless action,
14:33to tarnish and to erode the prestige of this court.
14:39How can they expect this court to stain its own history with a ruling that revives, validates, legitimizes such a
14:50case of colonial judicial fraud?
14:51Mr. President, distinguished members of the court, the negotiating process carried out by the parties following the signing of the
15:01Geneva agreement demonstrates that there are various mechanisms available to definitively resolve the territorial dispute.
15:08All are based on political dialogue and direct negotiation between the parties, both in the Joint Commission talks and in
15:20the good offices process.
15:21Both parties put forward creative proposals aimed at reaching a practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable settlement.
15:33In fact, the former Prime Minister of Guyana himself, Forbes Burnham, signatory to the Geneva agreement, proposed signing a new
15:43agreement that would settle the border issue linked to the construction of a hydroelectric project in the Upper Mazaruni region.
15:53It should be noted that every step, every mechanism throughout this whole process was taken, was adopted with the prior
16:05and express consent of both parties to the Geneva agreement.
16:09Regrettably, the UN Secretary-General abandoned this practice, this repeated practice, which had been followed for over 50 years, yielding
16:21to strong and intense pressure from lobbyists hired by the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, driven by powerful energy interests.
16:32As we can see from the confessions of the former Guyanese minister, as we can see from the confessions of
16:37the former Guyanese minister, Raphael Trotman, this led to a dangerous exacerbation of the controversy between the parties.
16:48President, distinguished members of the court, the global energy landscape points to high demand for hydrocarbons in the short and
17:00in the medium term,
17:00driven, driven amongst other factors, by a boom in new technology.
17:07As you know, Venezuela has the world's largest reserves of oil on the planet, and it's considered a strategic target
17:16by major powers.
17:17At the heart of the current development of this territorial dispute lies the region's hydrocarbon wealth, which has sparked the
17:28interest of major consumers and transnational oil companies that see the resources available in the area as a major opportunity.
17:37These vital interests have further complicated this historical dispute.
17:45We have no doubt that only a practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable settlement can create the conditions of stability and
17:56trust required for both countries, as well as the interests of third parties present to fully capitalise.
18:07We have no doubt that the potential of this territory is the potential of the benefit of sustainable economic development
18:14and social well-being of the peoples of the region.
18:18Mr. President, the dichotomous approach of validity or invalidity of the award put forward by Guyana in its unilateral application
18:28is profoundly pernicious and futile.
18:33No judgment by this court on the territorial controversy will provide a definitive solution acceptable to both parties.
18:43On the contrary, it will exacerbate the differences between the parties and will lead the parties to entrench themselves in
18:51their respective positions,
18:53distancing them from the practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable settlement to which they committed in 1966 by signing the Geneva
19:01Agreement.
19:02Such a judgment may conclude the case, but it will not put an end to the territorial dispute over the
19:11Guayana Sequiva as conceived and as agreed upon by Venezuela, the United Kingdom and Guyana.
19:18At best, it would lead to a return to the same impasse that the Geneva Agreement overcame.
19:27Proof of this can be found in Guyana's unprecedented and extravagant submissions before this court, which reflect an inexcusable spirit
19:38of superiority.
19:41Just as colonial empires erased the history of the peoples they sought to dominate.
19:47This court is being asked to order the destruction of maps, to prohibit the teaching of history, to eliminate symbols,
19:54to tear Guayana Sequiva from the hearts of Venezuelans.
19:57The aim is to erase the memory of a people in order to nullify their future.
20:02Annihilating history will never, never legitimize dispossession.
20:08The truth will always prevail.
20:10Mr. President, this court was created to resolve conflicts, not to encourage conflicts.
20:19Only a political and negotiated solution to the territorial dispute can lay a solid and stable foundation for good neighbourliness,
20:30cooperation, shared economic development and the promotion of secure investment in the region.
20:37Venezuela will never endorse a violation of the Geneva agreement and international law.
20:45To validate a ruling that seeks to disregard a legal instrument that is in force and that has been duly
20:53deposited with the United Nations would run counter to the international legal order.
20:58Even if the court were to declare the award invalid, Venezuela would be unable to comply with such a ruling
21:08as it would also be nullifying the Geneva agreement and international law.
21:13It follows very clearly from this that there is no legal way of recognizing a decision resulting from this process,
21:22whatever that may be.
21:25President, members of the court, this is not an act of disrespect towards this esteemed court.
21:32It is an act of unwavering defense of Venezuela's rights of international law and of the integrity of this court
21:40as the main judicial organ of the United Nations.
21:44My presence before this court demonstrates not only the importance that the territory of Guaya Nisikiba holds for us as
21:52Venezuelans.
21:53It is also clear evidence of the respect we have for the court as an institution.
22:00Mr. President, Venezuela is ready and prepared to achieve the noble and peaceful purpose of the Geneva agreement to reach
22:11by all means at its disposal a practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable solution for the parties.
22:17In today's turbulent world, we have reached a historic moment where we can demonstrate that dialogue and negotiation are the
22:27path towards coexistence, happiness and well-being for our peoples.
22:32It is time to take a step forward.
22:34There's no other way.
22:36A high level bilateral meeting organized by key regional stakeholders will, without doubt, be far more productive and effective in
22:47achieving that goal.
22:48Mr. President, members of the court, a country's virtue is not measured by its territorial size, but by its efforts
22:58to legitimately defend its sovereignty, its territorial integrity and its inalienable rights.
23:06Guyana and Venezuela are called upon by history and by geography to coexist, to understand one another and to build
23:15a shared future.
23:16Therefore, the only real path forward for this controversy is a return to direct dialogue and the search for creative
23:25and mutually beneficial solutions that will allow us to turn a dispute inherited from colonialism into an opportunity for cooperation,
23:36joint development and the well-being of future generations of both peoples.
23:45Contrary to what has been said, Venezuela has always fully supported the decolonization of Guyana and it recognized from the
23:55beginning, the Republic, the cooperative Republic of Guyana.
24:01While still defending its rights over Guayana, Venezuela also promoted its development through development programs such as that of Pedro
24:10Caribe.
24:11Unfortunately, Venezuela is still victim of territorial colonialist despossession and it is not being receiving repairs for that.
24:25The people of Guyana say Venezuela is a peaceful nation and our common destiny will always, always be intertwined.
24:34Venezuela, however, will never surrender its historical rights and its territorial integrity, the legacy of our ancestors.
24:44127 years later, we stand up despite serious aggressions and threats to defend the territory of Guayana isekiva.
24:55We bear on our skin the scars of history and in our souls, the tenacity of peoples who learn to
25:05defend what is ours, to not give up in the face of difficulty and to march together towards a future
25:11of peace and development.
25:12Thank you very much distinguished president and members of the court.
25:18I'd now.
Comments