— By MOHAMED HAMALUDIN
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and opposition forces got together in August to work out an accord which would hopefully ease international sanctions in a country with the largest oil reserves and one of the worst economic slumps.
The meeting took place in Norway – the second in two years–and participants managed to unite on one issue which had nothing to do with sanctions: a 180-year-old claim to “the historic and inalienable rights of Venezuela over the territory of Essequibo.”
That territory is two-thirds of Guyana, whose government said it “firmly rejects the agreement [as] an overt threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana,” adding, “Guyana cannot be used as an altar of sacrifice for settlement of Venezuela’s internal political differences.” The opposition APNU+AFC Coalition affirmed the country’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The government and the opposition noted the issue is before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the latest stage of a dispute which began in 1841 involving two wholly unequal neighbors. Continue reading
Belize: Put the National Interest FirstSir Ronald Sanders | Caribbean 360
Belize: Put the National Interest First
BELMOPAN, Belize – Narrow party-political ambitions frequently thwart the wider national interest in practically every country.
The world is watching this play-out now as a public spectacle in Britain where the Brexit question continues to be deeply immersed in both personal political purposes and a struggle for the supremacy of one political party over another. At the end of it, Britain will be a much-diminished nation economically. It will also have little clout in the international community.
But it is not in Britain alone that this tragedy of political ambition over wider national interest is being displayed. On April 3, seven days before a referendum is scheduled to be held in Belize to determine if the country should take its border dispute with Guatemala for final arbitration to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the opposition political party, the Peoples’ Unity Party (PUP), obtained an injunction from the Chief Justice, Kenneth Benjamin, to stay it. Continue reading →
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