Mottley urges peaceful end to land dispute between Guyana and Venezuela

Prime Minister Mia Mottley is calling on Venezuela and Guyana to have a peaceful end to their ongoing land dispute.

Late last month, it was reported that the Venezuelan National Assembly announced its intention to seize and occupy some two-thirds of the Essequibo Region in a referendum that is scheduled for early December.

In a wide-ranging address to the 84th annual Barbados Labour Party (BLP) conference on Saturday evening, Mottley called on the two countries to ensure the Caribbean remain a zone of peace, as she expressed concern about the uncertainty surrounding future gas price, due to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.

“Even with oil prices coming down, what do we now have? Last night Gaza looked like a firestorm, and we sit here today not knowing what our future will be like in a few weeks’ time, it could just as easily go right back up. That is why what is required is for us to craft our future responsibly because we do not know where that will be,” said Mottley.

“I hope that the rhetoric and the noise between Venezuela and Guayan does not turn our Caribbean into anything that is not a zone of peace because it matters to us that this Caribbean remains a zone of peace,” she said.

Mottley said she was aware that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat had commented on the development between Venezuela and Guyana.

However, noting that Barbados had a perspective on the matter, Mottley said “the average man and woman in this country … must know that what we are facing is not only of our own making, but we are also victims of an international set of circumstances”

“We ask those parties to recognise that their actions go beyond their two countries. CARICOM has spoken, but equally, we know that Venezuela has been a good sister country to us, and we pray that therefore, persons will allow maturity to attend all of their actions and conversations,” she said.

(MM)