VENEZUELA: Launch Site in Guyana Could Strain Relations with US

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Luis Córdova

CARACAS, Jul 28 2000 (IPS) - The proposed installation of a base for launching commercial satellites in a region of Guyana claimed by Venezuela could hurt relations between Caracas and Washington, local officials warned here Thursday.

“A dangerous breach will be opened” in Venezuela’s relations with the United States if the project goes ahead, stated foreign relations minister José Vicente Rangel.

If the US government approves the construction of the launch site in the Essequibo region, an environmentally sensitive area in western Guyana, comprising two-thirds of that English-speaking South American nation, “it would become partly responsible for” violating Venezuela’s rights in the case, according to Rangel.

The announced installation of the launching pad in a remote area between the Waini river and the Atlantic coast in the 156,000- square km region of Essequibo, the centre of a century-old territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana, upset the government of Hugo Chávez.

In a huge rally for Sunday’s general elections — which the president is slated to win hands-down — he called on Venezuelans Wednesday to “defend the country’s honour.”

“We will not allow it, gentlemen of the government of Guyana!” declared the president, perched on a platform in front of tens of thousands of his supporters. The launch base would be built on territory “that was stolen from us 100 years ago,” he maintained.

Rangel, meanwhile, wrote in an opinion page of the daily ‘El Nacional’ Thursday that if the project went ahead, it would amount to a “provocation” for Venezuela, and would hurt the country’s “tradition of excellent relations” with the United States.

In May, the government of Guyana signed a contract with the Texas-based Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc. for the installation of a launch pad in northern Guyana from which telecommunications satellites — up to 12 rockets a year in the 50 billion dollar commercial satellite industry — could be launched as of 2002.

Although Beal is a private company, it will need authorisation from the US government to export sophisticated missile technology, and from the US Environmental Protection Agency to set up a base for launching satellites in a fragile ecosystem.

“Perhaps the most important aspect of this shady deal is the participation of the United States,” wrote the foreign relations minister, who maintained that Guyana’s contract with the aerospace company amounted to a “partial surrender of sovereignty.”

Rangel drew parallels with instances of ongoing US military presence in Latin America, such as the Guantanamo base in Cuba, the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal zone, the hand-over of which was completed last year.

The contract between Guyana and Beal “involves the future of a territory to which Venezuela stakes a fair claim, and the theft of which our country will never accept,” he wrote.

The United States, through its embassy in Caracas, said the agreement on the installation of the launch site in Guyana was “a private business deal,” and that the role of US authorities was limited to making sure there was no improper transfer of technology.

The United States has a policy of refraining from commenting on the merits of border and territorial disputes between other countries, said US Ambassador John Maisto, who insisted that Guyana and Venezuela resolve the problem on their own, in a peaceful manner.

The origin of the dispute over Essequibo was an arbitration decision signed in Paris in 1899 that granted Britain, the colonising power in Guyana at the time, sovereignty over the region. But Venezuela says the document is “invalid and void,” arguing that there was willful misrepresentation in the negotiations 100 years ago.

The dispute was inherited by Guyana when it became an independent republic in 1966. That same year Guyana and Venezuela signed a protocol in Geneva in which both countries committed themselves to the search for a peaceful, negotiated solution to the thorny problem, which has long overshadowed relations between the two countries.

In the 1980s, the two countries requested that the office of the United Nations secretary-general facilitate negotiations. After a decade in which no progress was made, the talks had begun to pick up steam when the news of the deal for the launch site stirred things up once again.

Within the next few weeks the foreign ministries of the two countries are expected to make contacts to discuss Venezuela’s concerns within the framework of the UN-mediated talks, which are focused on seeking “practical” solutions to the territorial dispute.

Any “practical” solution, however, will have to deal with the fact that the territory claimed by Venezuela amounts to two-thirds of Guyana’s surface area.

In his article, Rangel pointed out that the dispute was cast in a “David and Goliath” light, with Guyana, population 750,000, depicted as a weakling beseiged by a more powerful nation with a population of 23 million.

“We run the risk of appearing to the international community to be taking a domineering stance, which in the case of Venezuela is not true,” wrote the minister, who said that Guyana was indeed caught up in such a situation as part of another dispute, with Surinam on its eastern border.

Both Chávez and Rangel stress that despite their determination to work out the Essequibo conflict and prevent the installation of the satellite launch base, Venezuela is not interested in anything but a peaceful solution.

The sparsely inhabited swampy area chosen for the launch site on the northeastern Atlantic coast is considered ideal because of its remoteness and its proximity to the equator, which allows an easy launch to the north and east, cuts rocket fuel consumption and permits heavier payloads to be launched into space.

In the midst of the debate on the aerospace project, Venezuela has once again raised its complaints that logging, mining and oil concessions have been granted in Essequibo.

The foreign relations minister suggested that Venezuela may also begin rewarding oil drilling concessions in parts of the Orinoco delta, adjacent to the disputed region.