Guayana Esequiba

Map showing:
* The extreme border claimed by Britain
*The current boundary(roughly) and
* The extreme border claimed by Venezuela

Map of Gran Colombia (1819) including the Essequibo border

Guayana Esequiba (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡwaˈʝana eseˈkiβa]) is a territory administered by Guyana but claimed by Venezuela. It includes the territory between the Cuyuni River to the west and the Essequibo River to the east. Guyana divides the area in six administrative regions (Barima-Waini, Cuyuni-Mazaruni, Pomeroon-Supenaam, Potaro-Siparuni, Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo and Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) while Venezuela treats it as a single entity (Guayana Esequiba or "Zona en Reclamación"). The area of the territory is 159,500 km². The territory is the subject of a long-running boundary dispute inherited from the colonial powers and complicated by the independence of Guyana in 1966. The status of the territory is today subject to the Treaty of Geneva (17 February 1966), which stipulates that both sides will agree to find a practical, peaceful and satisfactory solution to the dispute.

History

In 1648 Spain signed the Peace of Münster with the Dutch Republic, whereby Spain recognized small Dutch possessions located east of the Essequibo River. A few decades later, however, the Dutch began to spread gradually, building settlements west of the Essequibo River, which was objected to by Spain. Spanish authorities in a report dated 10 July 1788 put forward the first claim:

It has been stated that the south coast of the Orinoco from the point of Barima, 20 leagues more or less inland, up to the creek of Curucima, is low lying and swampy land and, consequently, reckoning all this tract as useless, very few patches of fertile land being found therein, and hardly any savannahs and pastures, it is disregarded; so taking as chief base the said creek of Curucima, or the point of the chain and ridge in the great arm of the Imataka, an imaginary line will be drawn running to the south-south-east following the slopes of the ridge of the same name which is crossed by the Rivers Aguire, Arature and Amacuro, and others, in the distance of 20 leagues, direct to the Cuyuni; from there it will run on to the Masaruni and Essequibo, parallel to the sources of the Berbis and Surinama; this is the directing line of the course which the new Settlements and foundations proposed must follow.

When Spain created the Captaincy General of Venezuela in 1777, the Essequibo river was claimed as the natural border between Spanish territory and the Dutch colonies of Demerara, Berbice and Essequibo. Under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 those colonies were transferred to Great Britain. In 1831, Britain merged Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo into British Guiana, with the Essequibo River as its west border, although many British settlers lived west of the Essequibo.

In 1822 José Rafael Revenga, Minister Plenipotenciary of Gran Colombia to Britain, complained to the British government at the direction of Simón Bolívar about the presence of British settlers in territory claimed by Venezuela: "The colonists of Demerara and Berbice have usurped a large portion of land, which according to recent treaties between Spain and Holland, belongs to our country at the west of Essequibo River. It is absolutely essential that these settlers be put under the jurisdiction and obedience to our laws, or be withdrawn to their former possessions."

In 1824 Venezuela appointed José Manuel Hurtado as its new Ambassador to Britain. Hurtado officially presented to the British government Venezuela's claim to the border at the Essequibo River, which was not objected to by Britain. However, the British government continued to promote colonization of territory west of the Essequibo River in succeeding years.

Schomburgk Line

In 1835, under the aegis of the Royal Geographical Society, the German-born, explorer and naturalist Robert Hermann Schomburgk conducted botanical and geographical exploration of British Guiana. This resulted in a sketch of the territory with a line marking what he believed to be the western boundary claimed by the Dutch. As a result of this, he was commissioned in 1840 by the British government to survey Guiana's boundaries. This survey resulted in what came to be known as the "Schomburgk Line". Schomburgk's initial sketch, which had been published in 1840, was the only version of the "Schomburgk Line" published until 1886, which led to later accusations by US President Grover Cleveland that the line had been extended "in some mysterious way".

The Line went well beyond the area of British occupation, and gave British Guiana control of the mouth of the Orinoco River. Venezuela disputed Schomburgk's survey, claiming that the Britain had unilaterally and illegally acquired an extra 30,000 square miles (80,000 km²) of territory. In 1840 Venezuela claimed all of Guyana west of the Essequibo River — 62% of Guyana's territory. Britain and Venezuela argued over the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela for much of the 19th century.

On 21 February 1881, Venezuela proposed a frontier line starting from a point one mile to the north of the Moruka River, drawn from there westward to the 60th meridian and running south along that meridian. This would have granted the Barima District to Venezuela.

In October 1886 Britain declared the Schomburgk Line to be the provisional frontier of British Guiana, and in February 1887 Venezuela severed diplomatic relations. Venezuela appealed to the United States to intervene, citing the Monroe Doctrine as justification. The United States expressed concern but did little in the way of resolving the situation, until the Venezuela Crisis of 1895.

Venezuela Crisis of 1895

Main article: Venezuela Crisis of 1895

The longstanding dispute became a diplomatic crisis in 1895. Venezuela hired William Lindsay Scruggs as its lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Scruggs took up Venezula's argument that British action violated the Monroe Doctrine. Scruggs used his influence to get the US government to accept this claim and get involved. President Grover Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the Doctrine that did not just simply forbid new European colonies but declared an American interest in any matter within the hemisphere. British prime minister Lord Salisbury and British ambassador to the US Lord Pauncefote both misjudged the importance the American government placed on the dispute. The key issue in the crisis became Britain's refusal to include the territory east of the Schomburgk Line in the proposed international arbitration. Ultimately Britain backed down and tacitly accepted the US right to intervene under the Monroe Doctrine. This US intervention forced Britain to accept arbitration of the entire disputed territory.

The Treaty of Washington

The Treaty of Arbitration between Great Britain and Venezuela was signed in Washington on 2 February 1897. This treaty specifically stipulated the legal framework for the arbitration, and its first article stated that "An arbitral Tribunal shall be immediately appointed to determine the boundary line between the United States of Venezuela and the Colony of British Guiana". The third article reasserted this, saying that "The Tribunal shall determine the boundary line between the United States of Venezuela and the Colony of British Guiana."

Arbitration

The rival claims were presented to a tribunal of six arbitrators: two from Britain, two from the US (representing Venezuela's interest) and two from Russia, who were presumed neutral. Venezuela reiterated its claim to the district immediately west of the Essequibo, and claimed that the boundary should run from the mouth of the Moruka River southwards to the Cuyuni River, near its junction with the Mazaruni River, and then along the east bank of the Essequibo to the Brazilian frontier. In 1899 the Tribunal ruled largely in favour of Britain. The Schomburgk Line was, with two deviations, established as the border between British Guiana and Venezuela. One deviation was that Venezuela received Barima Point at the mouth of the Orinoco, giving it undisputed control of the river, and thus the ability to levy duties on Venezuelan commerce. The second placed the border at the Wenamu River rather than the Cuyuni River, giving Venezuela substantial territory east of the line. However, Britain received most of the disputed territory, and all of the gold mines.

Dispute renewed

Map of Guyana, showing the Essequibo River and (shaded dark) the river's drainage basin. Venezuela claims territory up to the eastern bank of the river.

In 1949, the US jurist Otto Schoenrich gave the Venezuelan government a memorandum written by Severo Mallet-Prevost, the Official Secretary of the U.S./Venezuela delegation in the Tribunal of Arbitration. This document was written in 1944 to be published only after Mallet-Prevost's death. Mallet-Prevost surmised from the private behavior of the judges that there had a political deal between Russia and Britain. Mallet-Prevost said that the Russian chair of the panel, Friedrich Martens, had visited Britain with the two British arbitrators in the summer of 1899, and subsequently had offered the two American judges a choice between accepting a unanimous award along the lines ultimately agreed, or a 3:2 majority opinion even more favourable to the British. The alternative would have followed the Schomburgk Line entirely, and given the mouth of the Orinoco to the British. Mallet-Prevost said that the American judges and Venezuelan counsel were disgusted at the situation and considered the 3:2 option with a strongly worded minority opinion, but ultimately went along with Martens to avoid depriving Venezuela of even more territory. As a result of Mallet-Prevost's claims, Venezuela revived its claim to the disputed territory.

Venezuela formally raised the issue again in 1962, four years before Guyana won independence from Britain. Venezuela cited the alleged Russia-UK deal noted above, as well as several improprieties and vices in the ruling, especially Ultra Vires, due to the fact that the referees drew the border between British Guiana, Brazil and Suriname, and also decreed freedom of navigation in the Amacuro and Barima rivers, exceeding the scope of powers granted by the arbitration treaty, in 1897.

The Venezuelan claim of the nullity of the 1899 ruling has been acknowledged by several foreign scholars and jurists, such as J. Gillis Wetter of Sweden, in his work The International Arbitral Process (1979), awarded by the American Society of International Law. Wetter provides further evidence of the shady deal between Britain and Russia, what made him conclude that the ruling was marred by serious procedural and substantive defects, evidence that it was more a political compromise than a court ruling. Uruguayan jurist Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga, former President of the International Court of Justice, came to similar conclusions.

At a meeting in Geneva in 1966, Britain and Venezuela agreed to receive recommendations from a representative of the UN Secretary General on ways to settle the dispute peacefully, by means of the Geneva Treaty (1966). Diplomatic contacts between the two countries and the Secretary General's representative continue.

In its note of recognition of the independence of Guyana on 26 May 1966, Venezuela stated:

Venezuela recognises as territory of the new State the one which is located on the east of the right bank of the Essequibo River, and reiterates before the new State, and before the international community, that it expressly reserves its rights of territorial sovereignty over all the zone located on the west bank of the above-mentioned river. Therefore, the Guyana-Essequibo territory over which Venezuela expressly reserves its sovereign rights, limits on the east by the new State of Guyana, through the middle line of the Essequibo River, beginning from its source and on to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean.

After the Rupununi Uprising, Presidents Rafael Caldera and Forbes Burnham signed the Port of Spain Protocol, which declares a moratorium on Venezuela's reclamation of Guayana Esequiba. Venezuelan maps produced since 1970 show the entire area from the eastern bank of the Essequibo, including the islands in the river, as Venezuelan territory. On some maps, the western Essequibo region is called the "Zone in Reclamation".

References

• LaFeber, Walter. "The Background of Cleveland's Venezuelan Policy: A Reinterpretation." American Historical Review 66 (July 1961), pp. 947–967.
• Schoult, Lars. A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
• U.S. Department of State, "Venezuela Boundary Dispute, 1895-1899"

See also

• Gran Colombia
• Guayana Region
• Essequibo (colony)