An in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert is call­ing on T&T and by ex­ten­sion Cari­com to do more to help de­fend Guayana over Venezuela’s am­bi­tions in the on­go­ing bor­der dis­pute.

The for­mer act­ing di­rec­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Dr Ray­mond Mark Kir­ton al­so called for a re­gion­al mil­i­tary de­fence force to de­ter Venezuela’s am­bi­tions over its bor­der dis­pute with Guyana.

He spoke yes­ter­day at a High-Lev­el Pan­el Dis­cus­sion en­ti­tled “The Guyana-Venezuela Bor­der Dis­pute—a mat­ter of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance” host­ed at the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies cam­pus, Val­sayn.

Kir­ton, who is al­so a fel­low at the Col­lege of Labour, point­ed out that over the last few weeks, there has been an in­cur­sion of a Venezue­lan ves­sel in­to Guyana’s mar­itime space which in­volves oil and gas pro­duc­tion and at­tacks by armed Venezue­lans on Guyana’s mil­i­tary per­son­nel which he de­scribed as “un­pro­voked events.”

He said Venezuela’s ac­tions must re­ceive full con­dem­na­tion from “broth­er and sis­ter Cari­com states.”

He al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the re­gion should ap­proach the Unit­ed Na­tions for tech­ni­cal help in this area.

Dur­ing the ques­tion-and-an­swer seg­ment when asked for more de­tails on a Cari­com peace­keep­ing force, Kir­ton ex­plained that Venezuela’s mil­i­tary is much big­ger and more pow­er­ful than Guyana’s and so Guyana has to take strong mea­sures to de­fend it­self.

“ There is no match be­tween Guyana and Venezuela in terms of its mil­i­tary ca­pa­bil­i­ty. If the sit­u­a­tion aris­es and there is armed mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion, we will have to look for al­lies in the process.”

Kir­ton added that T&T has an im­por­tant role to play in this process.

“T&T is the lead coun­try in Cari­com in se­cu­ri­ty. My view is that T&T could move for­ward with this en­hanced re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem. T&T is not a mem­ber of the RSS but Guyana is and the small­er states with lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ty. I be­lieve that T&T could fash­ion a struc­ture that could en­hance the RSS and be seen as one of the first de­ter­rent el­e­ments in any move­ments to­wards in­cur­sion in­to Guyanese ter­ri­to­ry.”

Carl Greenidge, Ad­vi­sor on Bor­ders, Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, Guyana and Guyana’s Agent at the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) in the on­go­ing bor­der case said Guyana’s ex­is­tence is be­ing threat­ened and must pro­tect it­self.

When asked what role T&T can play in con­tribut­ing to greater di­a­logue in the con­flict, Greenidge re­spond­ed by say­ing that T&T does have a role de­spite “in­ter­nal dif­fi­cul­ties.”

“Trinidad can use its re­sources by speak­ing, by at­tend­ing meet­ings and par­tic­i­pat­ing in those meet­ings, by speak­ing to its col­leagues and en­sur­ing it is prop­er­ly briefed and the likes. This is what is re­quired. Some­times you need to try to win more po­si­tions on the in­ter­na­tion­al front so you are recog­nised and peo­ple will say that is T&T and they have that prin­ci­ple.”

On March 1, a Venezue­lan war­ship en­tered Guyana’s ex­clu­sive eco­nom­ic zone (EEZ), ap­proached the Liza Des­tiny, an Exxon­Mo­bil oil fa­cil­i­ty, and de­mand­ed in­for­ma­tion from its crew.

This pro­voked an­oth­er es­ca­la­tion in the long-run­ning con­flict be­tween the two coun­tries. Guyana—with sup­port from the broad­er in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty—con­demned the in­cur­sion and mo­bilised its mil­i­tary, pledg­ing to seek a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the con­flict but promis­ing to pro­tect the na­tion’s sov­er­eign­ty.

Venezuela re­spond­ed by al­leg­ing those wa­ters form part of a con­test­ed mar­itime zone and re­fut­ed claims that it vi­o­lat­ed Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty.