As Venezuela continues to present its case before the International Court of Justice, its Agent, Samuel Moncada, told the Court that Venezuela poses no threat to Guyana and instead has been acting within the confines of the Geneva agreement.

Moncada said any assertion that Venezuela poses a threat to Guyana is propaganda and must be rejected.

This is despite Venezuela’s historical aggression towards Guyana, including seizure of fishing vessels, intimidation of the crew of oil vessels operating offshore Guyana, and military overflights in Guyana’s airspace.

Despite that, Mendoca said Venezuela maintains good neighbourly relations with Guyana.

“Let me reiterate, it is impossible for the Geneva agreement in its implementation to pose an existential threat to one of the parties. Anything otherwise is simply an act of propaganda which must be publicly denounced. In fact, Venezuela good faith and neighbourly spirit is clear in its joint development proposal that are extremely beneficial to Guyana,” Moncada noted.

The Venezuelan agent told the International Court that historically Venezuela has supported Guyana and the two countries have always benefitted from each other.

“President and members of the court, allow me to be more precise, despite Guyana’s repeated assertions, the Geneva agreement of 1966 remains the legal framework that governs this matter. This agreement expressly recognised the existence of a territorial controversy—the territory is subject of dispute between the parties. As a result, the characterization by Guyana of an alleged threat to its territorial integrity, constitutes a flagrant misinterpretation and misleading both facts and law,” he noted.

He said Venezuela has always regarded Essequibo as part of its territory and has been laying the groundwork to regain Essequibo since 1966, but said it remained peaceful and within the confines of the Geneva agreement through all those years.

“The Geneva agreement remained in effect between Venezuela and Guyana until 2015 when energy interest prompted a change in the Guyanese government’s position. The Geneva agreement is therefore a crucial instrument of decimalization,” Moncada stated.

Venezuela’s position is that the border controversy must be resolved in  the interest of both parties and that resolution must be in line with the Geneva agreement. Venezuela has been pushing for dialogue even as the case is now firmly before the International Court.

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