St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Ralph Gon­salves Thurs­day de­scribed as “un­for­tu­nate” a pho­to­graph show­ing him and his For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Keisal Melis­sa Pe­ters, with the map of Venezuela that in­cludes Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo Coun­ty.

“It has been drawn to my at­ten­tion that a pho­to­graph, tak­en in De­cem­ber 2022, in which 1 ap­peared with oth­er per­sons os­ten­si­bly show­ing a “pa­pi­er-mâché” de­pic­tion of a map of Venezuela which, con­tro­ver­sial­ly, in­cludes the Es­se­qui­bo or part of it, has sur­faced/resur­faced on so­cial me­dia,” Gon­salves said in a Jan­u­ary 4 let­ter to Pres­i­dents Dr. Ir­faan Ali of Guyana and Nico­las Maduro of Venezuela.

Prime Min­is­ter Gon­salves, is al­so the Pro-Tem­pore Chair­man of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) that played a ma­jor role in get­ting Maduro and Ali to meet in Kingstown on De­cem­ber 14 last year.

The dis­cus­sions were fa­cil­i­tat­ed by Gon­salves and Do­mini­ca’s Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, who is al­so the chair­man of the 15-mem­ber Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM).

Gon­salves and Sker­rit, to­geth­er with Cel­so Amor­im, spe­cial ad­vis­er and per­son­al en­voy of Luiz In­á­cio Lu­la da Sil­va, pres­i­dent of Brazil, act­ed as prin­ci­pal In­ter­locu­tors.

The meet­ing led to the Ar­gyle De­c­la­ra­tion eas­ing the ten­sion be­tween the two coun­tries over the own­er­ship of the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion that makes up about two-thirds of Guyana and is home to 125,000 of the coun­try’s 800,000 cit­i­zens.

On Wednes­day, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed States and the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS), Sir Ronald Sanders post­ed a copy of the pho­to­graph on his Face­book page.

The Guyanese-born diplo­mat said he be­lieves that Prime Min­is­ter Gon­salves was un­aware that the Venezue­lan map in­di­cates the an­nex­ure of the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

“I have known and high­ly re­gard­ed Dr Ralph Gon­salves for over 40 years. I can­not be con­vinced that, when he held up this map, show­ing the Es­se­qui­bo in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to Venezuela, he was made aware of the im­age.

“The Ralph Gon­salves, I know and re­spect, would not con­scious­ly do such a one-sided thing while the world awaits a de­ci­sion on the Guyana-Venezuela con­tro­ver­sy from the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice, and while he, him­self, is play­ing the role of CELAC’s hon­est bro­ker,” Sir Ronald wrote.

In his let­ter to the two pres­i­dents, Prime Min­is­ter Gon­salves said he had been “ad­vised that the event at which this pho­to­graph was tak­en was one com­mem­o­rat­ing the life and work of the great Lib­er­a­tor, Si­mon Bo­li­var”.

He said the event took place on the grounds of the res­i­dence/ of­fice of the Charge d’Af­faires of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela to St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

“I do not re­call ever see­ing this pho­to­graph be­fore its cur­rent cir­cu­la­tion. I am in­formed that pho­tographs were be­ing tak­en in front of flags of St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines and Venezuela and a bust of Bo­li­var.

“While the pho­tographs were be­ing tak­en, I am ad­vised that some­one at­tached to the Venezue­lan Em­bassy placed the “pa­pi­er-mâché” de­pic­tion of the said map in front of us. | did not look at what the de­pic­tion was. I as­sumed that it was about Si­mon Bo­li­var,” he wrote.

Gon­salves, the longest serv­ing head of gov­ern­ment in CARI­COM, said that “it is un­for­tu­nate that this in­no­cent in­ad­ver­tence on my part has been used by some to drum up, un­nec­es­sar­i­ly, an­tipa­thy of one kind or an­oth­er.

“I un­der­stand all the emo­tions at­ten­dant on this con­tro­ver­sial is­sue, and from time to time there will be flare-ups. As al­ways, though, we as lead­ers must main­tain a pa­tience and a calm know­ing that sun bright­ens stone, even as the riv­er burns.”

He re­mind­ed the lead­ers of the “Joint De­c­la­ra­tion at Ar­gyle for Di­a­logue and Peace Be­tween Guyana and Venezuela for all of us, es­pe­cial­ly both of you, to ap­ply and build up­on.”

Gon­salves said he has “spo­ken to my friends” Ir­faan and his Vice Pres­i­dent Bhar­rat Jagdeo “about this mat­ter of the “pa­pi­er-mâché” de­pic­tion,” adding “hope­ful­ly it has been laid to rest, where it ought prop­er­ly to re­side among the as­sort­ed ghosts from the past, which ought nev­er to rule us from the grave”.

Gon­salves said he is al­so “pro­found­ly en­cour­aged” by the let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 2, 2024 from the Pres­i­dent of Guyana to the Pres­i­dent of Venezuela in re­spect of ar­rang­ing the first meet­ing of “The Joint Com­mis­sion” in Brasil­ia to ad­vance fur­ther the Ar­gyle De­c­la­ra­tion and its pur­pos­es”.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ar­gyle De­c­la­ra­tion, “both States agreed to meet again in Brazil, with­in the next three months, or at an­oth­er agreed time, to con­sid­er any mat­ter with im­pli­ca­tions for the ter­ri­to­ry in dis­pute, in­clud­ing the above-men­tioned up­date of the joint com­mis­sion”.

The de­c­la­ra­tion had al­so in­di­cat­ed that both coun­tries had agreed that “di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, will not threat­en or use force against one an­oth­er in any cir­cum­stances, in­clud­ing those con­se­quen­tial to any ex­ist­ing con­tro­ver­sies be­tween the two States”.

They al­so “agreed that any con­tro­ver­sies be­tween the two States will be re­solved in ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing the Gene­va Agree­ment dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 17, 1966” and are “com­mit­ted to the pur­suance of good neigh­bourli­ness, peace­ful co­ex­is­tence, and the uni­ty of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean”.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vin­cent, Jan 4, CMC -

CMC/gt/ir/2024