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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GEORGETOWN 000365 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PBTS ECIN EINV EPET EAID XL VE GY
SUBJECT:  Venezuela and the Caribbean 
 
¶1. Following is text of the editorial in today's Stabroek 
News newspaper, Guyana's leading independent newspaper.  The 
editorial is a good reflection of the Guyanese thinking man's 
view of Venezuela, Chavez, and the 160 year-old boundary 
dispute. 
 
¶2. BEGIN TEXT: 
 
It was columnist Mr. Reggie Dumas writing in the Trinidad 
Express earlier this week who reminded readers of Dr Eric 
Williams's famous speech to the PNM in 1975 entitled 'The 
threat to the Caribbean Community.' In an address which 
sounds almost prophetic today, the late Prime Minister 
described Venezuela's Caribbean vision and ambitions as 
"starting off from barren, uninhabited rocks to a network of 
economic arrangements out of which is emerging a Venezuelan 
oil and industrial metropolis and an indebted Caribbean 
hinterland, the Caribbean as we know it integrated into 
Venezuela, the naval power of the future, the oil power of 
the present, the tourist mecca in the making, its position in 
its Venezuelan Sea fortified by its 200-mile exclusive 
economic zone: all to the plaudits of the Caribbean people 
themselves, with Trinidad and Tobago the odd man out." 
 
There should be one qualification to this assessment. At the 
time when Eric Williams said it, Trinidad and Tobago was not 
the only odd man out; Guyana too was not in any doubt about 
Venezuela's strategic objectives. The issue is, has anything 
changed in Venezuela since that time to cause one to conclude 
that Dr Williams's views no longer have applicability? 
Certainly, where internal politics are concerned, President 
Hugo Chavez has brought a revolutionary style to government 
in Caracas; but what about foreign policy? 
 
 
Where Guyana specifically is concerned, prior to his 
accession to office President Chavez's pronouncements on the 
border controversy were the most hawkish since the days of 
President Herrera Campins in the early 1980s. Things did not 
improve after he became head of state. President Jagdeo 
landed up at a South American leaders' summit in Brasilia, 
for example, to find his Venezuelan counterpart in full swing 
with maps pinned up and pointer in hand belabouring the 
international media on the subject of Venezuela's claim. On 
October 3, 1999, the one hundredth anniversary of the Paris 
award, Mr. Chavez - among other things - sent his warplanes 
to violate Guyana's airspace, his officials proffering some 
ludicrous excuse for the occurrence. 
 
And then there was the case of the Beal spaceport proposal, 
which was to be sited in the Waini and which Miraflores 
vigorously opposed. Exactly how significant that opposition 
was in helping to scuttle the deal, we shall probably never 
know; however, in the case of the oil companies which were 
granted exploratory concessions in Essequibo waters by the 
Guyana Government, the situation is much clearer. Those which 
were already working fields in Venezuela itself were left in 
no doubt that if they did not relinquish their Guyanese 
licences, it would have an impact on their Venezuelan 
investments. 
 
And then two years ago President Chavez breezed into 
Georgetown for a 'love-fest,' all bonhomie, charm and seeming 
generosity. He was thinking roads, not invasion, he told a 
receptive Government of Guyana, and suggested he might be 
open to allowing Essequibo to develop its resources. Since 
then we have had PetroCaribe, more talk of a road linking 
Caracas and Georgetown, and Mr. Chavez's version of the 
Guyana Shield Project. So exactly which Hugo Chavez is the 
real one? 
 
On the matter of boundaries, it must be noted that the 
government of our neighbour to the west has not seen fit to 
withdraw its spurious claim to three-fifths of our land; and 
while it might be argued that no Venezuelan head of state 
could suddenly announce such a dramatic turnabout one bright 
morning and still survive, one would expect a softening of 
approach. But where allowing us free rein to develop our 
Essequibo resources is concerned, then Foreign Minister Roy 
Chaderton explained to the press following President Chavez's 
visit here that things which would help communities develop, 
such as water, agricultural programmes or electricity, would 
not be opposed, but Venezuela would not tolerate any 
multinationals developing hydrocarbon reserves, for example, 
in Essequibo. 
 
 
As for the first-named, Caracas has never opposed 
electrification or water projects at the village level (large 
hydropower schemes were a different matter), and where the 
second is concerned, if our neighbour dictates what kind of 
 
GEORGETOWN 00000365  002 OF 002 
 
 
company can operate in our territory, exactly what has 
changed? In this instance, Miraflores knows well that we have 
no state entity capable of developing an oil and gas 
industry, so is this just creating a possible opening to 
bring in PdVSA to assist in due course, and perhaps 
reintroduce a state capitalist element back into Guyana? And 
make no mistake, PdVSA is not as autonomous as it was; it is 
now an instrument of President Chavez's social and political 
policies. 
 
And there has been no change in Venezuela's irredentist 
behaviour in relation to other Caribbean territories either. 
President Chavez has been even more diligent in preferring 
his country's claim to Bird Rock, for example, than were his 
precedessors. Never mind that if that were declared to be 
 Venezuelan, several of our Caricom sister territories would 
lose their EEZ. So much for Caracas's vaunted concern for the 
poor and under-privileged. And it was Mr. Dumas who pointed 
out that Venezuela still had not abandoned its claim either 
to the Trinidadian islands of Monos, Huevos and Chacachacare. 
 
And then we have PetroCaribe. Mr. Dumas, with the clinical 
approach of someone whose country simply does not need 
Venezuela's oil, has drawn attention to the small print. He 
quotes the agreement, which says, "[w]ithin the framework of 
PetroCaribe, state bodies shall be required to implement 
energy-related operations. Venezuela offers technical 
cooperation to support the creation of state agencies in 
countries not possessing qualified state institutions for 
this purpose." In addition, he says, the PetroCaribe 
Secretariat would be "assigned to the [Venezuelan] Ministry 
 
SIPDIS 
of Energy and Petroleum" for the purposes of the day-to-day 
administration of the programme. In other words, as he 
observes, despite Caricom's commitment to the private 
sector's role, the signatories to PetroCaribe have now "opted 
for a reversion to statism..." 
 
As for the much-touted road from Caracas to Georgetown, it 
would simply bring the North-West District and coastal Guyana 
within the Venezuelan sphere, while the Guyana Shield Project 
was originally envisaged as achieving the economic 
integration of the area between the Orinoco and Amazon 
Rivers, but as amended by President Chavez, significantly, it 
now omits Brazilian Guiana. The Government of Guyana has 
never even had the courtesy to open up the serious 
implications of such a project for public discussion. 
 
So then, has President Chavez changed? The short answer is, 
only his methods. He has been open enough to tell the world 
what he seeks: a socialist universe, the elimination of US 
influence on the continent and the integration of South 
America and the Caribbean under his socialist Bolivarian 
Alternative - for which one can read Venezuelan hegemony. It 
was reported yesterday that he had said he was "ready to 
programme a new Mercosur" far from the currents of neo- 
liberalism, and that he was withdrawing from the Andean pact 
because of the recent trade agreements made by Peru and 
Colombia with the United States. 
 
It is alleged he has used oil money to interfere in the 
politics of various South American countries, and only 
yesterday too, the Peruvian Association of Exporters accused 
him of funding a campaign against their country's free trade 
agreement with the United States. Angered by US naval 
exercises in the Caribbean he has announced his own naval 
manoeuvres off his coast. 
 
President Chavez will run up against all kinds of impediments 
to the implementation of his vision in the case of several of 
the larger Latin countries, who among other things, have 
their own international ambitions, but he is off to a flying 
start in the Caribbean and Guyana. Of course he doesn't need 
to send his warplanes to violate our airspace, when he can 
integrate a large part of our territory, and that of our 
neighbours within the Venezuelan sphere by blandishments and 
oil payment concessions. And all this "to the plaudits of the 
Caribbean people," as Eric Williams put it. 
 
END TEXT. 
 
THOMAS