Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Statement of His Excellency, Brigadier David Granger,
President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana
to the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly,
September 29, 2015.
The security of small states in the international system.
Mr. President
Mr. Secretary-General
Distinguished Heads of States and Governments
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
The Cooperative Republic of Guyana is honoured to participate in this historic session of the United Nations General Assembly. We congratulate you on your election and pledge the cooperation of Guyana’s delegation as you guide the Assembly in the fulfillment of its task. We also thank your predecessor, Mr. Sam Kutesa, for his stewardship in piloting the post 2015 agenda. This process has culminated in the historic 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The sustainable goals contained in that agenda reflect a common consensus within the international community on the elements that are integral to human development.
Mr. President,
The United Nations – established seventy years ago and a mere five months after the formal end to the Second World War – became the midwife of a new international order.
The new order of world peace was depicted symbolically and powerfully in the form of a bronze statue located on the grounds of this, the Headquarters of the United Nations. It embodies the vision revealed in the Holy Bible in the book of Isaiah which states:
…And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
This prophetic verse became the philosophical basis of the United Nations. The U.N. became the organizational foundation for a global order which saw the emergence of a plethora of newly-independent states, resulting from the decolonization process after the Second World War. One hundred and twenty six states have gained their independence in the years following the establishment of the United Nations.
The United Nations began in 1945 with a membership of only fifty one countries but today it has almost quadrupled to one hundred and ninety three states. The majority of new states are mini-, micro- and small states. The undemocratic and warlike empires of which they had been colonies were dismantled after two World Wars.
The questions which small states ask of the United Nations on this its 70th anniversary are:
- How will our peoples be protected from foreign aggression?
- How will our territories be safeguarded from invasion?
- How will peace among nations be preserved?
- How will the independence of the new states be sustained?
The Charter of the United Nations enjoins this organization with the responsibility to:
…to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes”.
Mr. President,
This responsibility is essential to the existence and survival of small states that are threatened by powerful states. Small states risk being subjugated unless the international community can demonstrate the capability and commitment to provide an effective deterrent against domination by larger and stronger states.
The United Nations General Assembly, on May 9th 1994, in its 49th Session approved a Resolution (A/RES/49/31) which (inter alia) stated:
2. Recognizes that small states may be particularly vulnerable to external threats and acts of interference in their internal affairs;
3. Stresses the vital importance for all States of the unconditional respect by all States of all the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, including the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries and the peaceful settlement of disputes and their consistent application;
4. Stresses also the importance of strengthening the regional security arrangements by increasing interaction, cooperation and consultation;
5. Appeals to the relevant regional and international organizations to provide assistance when requested by small States for the strengthening of their security in accordance with the principles of the Charter;
6. Requests the Secretary-General to continue to pay special attention to monitoring the security situation of small States and to consider making use of Article 99 of the Charter; and
7. Calls upon the Security Council and other relevant organs of the United Nations to pay special attention to the protection and security of small States…
This, Mr. President, is a manifest over small states contained in the resolution passed by this General Assembly twenty-one years ago.
Mr. President,
Guyana is a small state. Guyana is a new state – Guyana is a product of the postWorld War II promise of peace. Guyana is a child of the United Nations. Guyana will, eight months from now, on May 26, 2016, mark the 50th anniversary of its independence. But for fifty years, our small country has been prevented from fully exploiting our rich natural resources. Venezuela has threatened and deterred investors and frustrated our economic development.
For fifty years our territorial integrity has been violated by Venezuela which has occupied a part of our territory, the most recent incident being on the 10th October, 4 2013 when Venezuela sent a naval corvette into our maritime zone and expelled a peaceful, petroleum exploration vessel which was conducting seismic surveys.
For fifty years Venezuela has promulgated spurious decrees claiming our territory, the most recent being on May 26th, our independence anniversary, when it issued Decree No. 1.787 with specified coordinates purporting to annex almost our entire maritime zone. That decree constituted a reassertion of its claim to five of Guyana’s ten regions.
Guyana rejects the threats and claims by Venezuela which are in defiance of international law. Guyana resists Venezuela’s acts of aggression in defiance of the Charter of the United Nations which prescribes the peaceful settlement of disputes and proscribes the use of armed force.
Mr. President,
Guyana’s border with Venezuela was settled 116 years ago. The entire world, except the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, accepts and acknowledges our borders.
Guyana, at the 23rd Session of this Assembly in 1968, explained to the world how, in 1897, a Treaty of Arbitration was signed between the United Kingdom and Venezuela. That treaty provided for the establishment of an arbitral tribunal “to determine the boundary-line between the Colony of British Guiana” as we were then and Venezuela. That treaty committed the parties “to consider the result of the proceeds of the Tribunal of Arbitration as a full, perfect, and final settlement of all the questions referred to by the Arbitrators.”
The tribunal issued its award on the 3rd of October, 1899, giving Venezuela 13,000 square kilometers of our territory, an area bigger than Jamaica or Lebanon. Venezuela was bound under international law to respect that award, which it did for the subsequent six decades.
Venezuela, however, at the onset of Guyana’s independence resorted to various stratagems to deprive Guyana of its territory. There has been a series of acts of aggression by Presidents of Venezuela against my country – from the time of President Raúl Leoni Otero’s Decree No. 1.152 of 15th June 1968 to the time of President Nicolás Maduro Moro’s decree of May 26th 2015.
Venezuela — more than four times the size of Guyana with armed forces that are more than forty times the size of Guyana’s Defense Force — mindful of its superior wealth and military strength, but unmindful of its obligation as a member state of the United Nations, as a member state of the Union of South American Nations and as a member state of the Organization of American States, Venezuela has pursued a path of intimidation and aggression. Venezuela is unsettling a settled border. It is destabilizing a stable region of the globe by the use of armed force against a peaceful, small state.
Venezuela has retarded Guyana’s development by threats that are intended to force a small state to yield its birthright.
Venezuela’s expansionist ambitions cannot be allowed to unsettle the principle of inviolability of borders, to undermine the tenets of international law and to unravel borders which have been undisturbed for decades.
Mr. President,
- Guyana recommits to preserving the Caribbean as a zone of peace.
- Guyana renews its pledge before this august General Assembly that it will pursue the path of peace for all time.
- Guyana reaffirms its commitment to the peaceful settlement of international disputes.
- Guyana reposes total confidence in international law.
- Guyana seeks a resolution of this controversy that is consistent with the Charter of the United Nations.
Mr. President,
The Geneva Agreement of 1966 signed between the governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Venezuela and British Guiana, as we were then, on February 17, 1966 provides for the Secretary General of the United Nations to take action to bring a resolution to the contention occasioned by the claim made by Venezuela that the Arbitral Award of 1899 was null and void.
Mr. President,
Guyana has the fullest confidence in the judgment and capacity of the United Nations, through the Office of the Secretary General, to identify solutions that will validate the ‘just, perfect and full’ nature of the award. We thank the United Nations and the Secretary General for appointing various Good Officers to help to resolve this controversy over the past twenty-five years. We feel, however, that this process has now been exhausted.
Guyana does not wish that this obnoxious territorial claim should obscure the prospects of peace and obstruct the possible growth of our country for the next fifty years. We need a permanent solution in order to avoid the fate of perpetual peril and penury. Guyana seeks a juridical settlement to this controversy.
Guyana reposes its faith. Guyana places its fate in the international system of peace that was promised by the Charter of the United Nations nearly seventy years ago. We want to bring an end to Venezuelan aggression. We want to develop our country, all of our country, in accordance with international law.
Guyana therefore call upon the United Nations to give real meaning to Resolution A/RES/49/31 of May 9th 1994 by establishing a collective security system not merely to ‘‘monitor’ but, more important to ‘maintain’ the security of small states. This Resolution, as I said before, is a ‘manifesto’ for small states security.
Mr. President,
The United Nations remains our best hope. The United Nations is our best prospect of peace. The United Nations is our best assurance of security for a small state. The United Nations is our strength. It is our support. It is our succour in times of danger. We pledge Guyana’s adherence to the Charter of the United Nations.
Mr. President,
Guyana seeks nothing more than the solidarity of this international community, of the assurance of the Charter and of the safety of international law.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, for your attention.
Attachments:
