-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Venezuela-Guyana: Border Tension over Operation to Shut Down Illegal
Gold-Mining
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Venezuela Information Office (VIO)
http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com
excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - Dec 12, 2007
[The New York Times and the AFP re****t on a recent border skirmish
between Venezuela and Guayana, in which the Venezuelan military
destroyed two illegal gold mining dredges that were outside of its
jurisdiction.-VIO]
The New York Times - December 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/world/americas/12venez.html
Venezuela and Guyana to Improve Alerts After Border Incursion
By Simon Romero
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Guyana and Venezuela agreed on Tuesday to
establish ways to prevent Venezuelan military activities in Guyanese
territory, after re****ts that Venezuelan soldiers had entered Guyana in
November and destroyed two gold-mining dredges.
The move is intended to relieve new tension between the countries.
President Hugo Ch!vez's government had previously sought to smooth over
a long-simmering territorial dispute with ****pments of subsidized oil
to Guyana. Venezuela still claims about two-thirds of Guyana's
territory, in the gold- and timber-rich Essequibo region.
"We have agreed to set up some mechanisms that would not only address
this particular issue but try to prohibit other similar incidents from
occurring," Rudy Insanally, Guyana's foreign minister, said in
Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, after meeting with Venezuelan
officials, according to Agence France-Presse.
The details of the agreement remained unclear on Tuesday.
The tension involves the region around the Cuyuni River, a ****ous area
claimed by Guyana and Venezuela that is rife with illegal mining.
Guyana's military says 36 Venezuelan soldiers entered the area last
month, using helicopters and C-4 explosives to blow up the dredges.
A spokeswoman for Vice Adm. Elas Daniels, director of the special
office for Guyana in the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, said he was
unavailable for comment on Tuesday. Officials here said this month that
they would issue a re****t on the incident.
Guyana, with a population of less than a million, has been seeking to
lure foreign investment, particularly from Russia, despite the
Venezuelan claim. The dispute seems to be viewed as a minor irritant in
Venezuela, which has a population of 27 million, but in Georgetown it
is considered a major development.
Anger erupted there after a self-congratulatory statement last month
from Venezuela's embassy about the delivery of 16,000 barrels of
subsidized fuel; the ****pment was announced shortly after re****ts
surfaced of the military incursion.
"The reality is that we are being treated with utter contempt by an
infinitely larger and wealthier neighbor whose head of state never
tires of expatiating on the bullying tactics of the U.S., but is
apparently blind to those of his own armed forces," the newspaper The
Stabroek News, in Georgetown, said in an editorial.
Relations between the nations had improved in recent years, with Mr.
Ch!vez moving away from vociferous claims he made early in his
presidency to Guyanese territory. But Venezuela's reluctance to
withdraw its claim still irks Guyana.
The dispute is rooted in an 1899 accord in Paris that established
Venezuela's boundaries with Guyana, then a British colony. A letter by
Severo Mallet-Prevost, who represented Venezuela in the talks, was
published in 1949 suggesting the deal was void because it involved a
secret deal between Britain and Russia.
Several Venezuelan leaders have pressed ahead with the territorial
claim. National maps here still describe the disputed land as a
"reclamation zone."
***
AFP via NASDAQ - Dec 12, 2007
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20071211%5cACQDJON200712111802DOWJONESDJONLINE000834.htm
Venezuela, Guyana OK Plan to Prevent Military Incursion
Agence France Presse
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AFP)--Guyana and Venezuela have agreed to establish
a mechanism to prevent another Venezuelan military incursion into its
smaller neighbor, Guyana's foreign minister said Tuesday.
Guyanese Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally made the announcement after
talks between Venezuelan and Guyanese officials, one month after Guyana
accused the Venezuelan military of blowing up two gold-mining dredges
in its territory.
"We have agreed to set up some mechanisms that would not only address
this particular issue but try to prohibit other similar incidents from
occurring," Insanally, who refused to provide details, told re****ters.
In its official response to Guyana's complaint over the incident, the
Venezuelan government didn't repeat its claim that the incident had
taken place in Venezuela, Insanally said.
Venezuela's Ambassador to Guyana, Dario Morandy, had said last month
that the military operation had taken place in Venezuelan territory and
targeted illegal gold mining operations that were polluting rivers.
Guyana had threatened to take up the issue to the U.N. Security Council
or the Organization of American States.
*
=================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Our main website: http://www.blythe.org
List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
=================================================================
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (FreeBSD)
iD8DBQFHYG3iiz2i76ou9wQRAqw2AJ95a/y+/5oCdzcPB6akfCu9og95xQCgptJU
opeoxXWvgMZtd+oOnzR0poI=
=Vzn6
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
|
