Head of the Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence De­part­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, does not be­lieve there will be a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the Guyana-Venezuela Es­se­qui­bo bor­der con­flict. She says the lat­est resur­gence of that dis­pute, which dates back to 1899, has al­so put T&T in an awk­ward po­si­tion.

“I think the Gov­ern­ment will find it­self be­tween a rock and a hard place in hav­ing to tow the line be­tween Cari­com and Venezuela at this time,” she said.

On Mon­day at a news brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said while the sit­u­a­tion was full of risks, he was con­fi­dent of a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion.

Es­se­qui­bo, a dis­put­ed ter­ri­to­ry west of the Es­se­qui­bo Riv­er, is ad­min­is­tered and con­trolled by Guyana. How­ev­er, Venezuela is now mak­ing a fresh claim to the re­gion and will hold a De­cem­ber 3 ref­er­en­dum on whether to move ahead with that plan. Last week, Guyana asked the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice for an or­der to halt the ref­er­en­dum on the ter­ri­to­r­i­al claim but the South Amer­i­can coun­try dis­agreed.

Dr Ram­per­sad, who de­scribed Venezuela as an ag­gres­sive state, said: “It’s all about pow­er, it’s about con­trol, it’s about in­flu­ence and it’s about pres­tige. I don’t think Venezuela is go­ing to be rea­son­able about it. I think the Prime Min­is­ter is hop­ing for that.”

She said oth­er na­tions could get in­volved in the es­ca­lat­ed dis­pute, not­ing the Unit­ed States, Iran and the Unit­ed Na­tions were in sup­port of Guyana while Rus­sia and Chi­na might sup­port Venezuela.

In com­ment­ing on the dis­pute, Dr Row­ley said if there was any coun­try that un­der­stood T&T’s po­si­tion, it would be Venezuela.

“It was on a Venezue­lan is­sue when Venezuela’s lifeblood was at stake, that Trinidad and To­ba­go took its most prin­ci­pled pub­lic po­si­tion. Not once, but more than once,” he said.

“We are con­fi­dent that the gov­ern­ments of Venezuela and Guyana would know that Cari­com’s po­si­tion, that our re­gion is and must re­main a zone of peace, is the best po­si­tion for all of us.”

Dr Ram­per­sad said at this point, Row­ley will have to firm­ly let Venezuela know where this coun­try’s al­le­giance stands as an ac­tive mem­ber of Cari­com.

Mean­while, Guyanese in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr Fitzger­ald Yaw said his coun­try has al­ways tak­en a peace­ful ap­proach. He not­ed that Ankoko Is­land should have been split be­tween Guyana and Venezuela but Venezuela took over the en­tire is­land.

“It is Venezuela which raised the is­sue of some sort of ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­pute,” he said.

He hopes for a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion, but does not be­lieve T&T should aban­don the Drag­on Gas deal.

“In go­ing for­ward ... it should be clear to the Venezue­lan part­ners in this po­ten­tial deal that Trinidad’s po­si­tion is that it sup­ports Guyana. In oth­er words, it sup­ports the fact that the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion be­longs to Guyana and every­thing go­ing for­ward is based on that,” he said.