HL Deb 24 July 1981 vol 423 cc534-8

4.2 p.m.

Lord Northfield rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will confirm their support for Guyana in the present border dispute with Venezuela.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall be very brief and we can dispose of this matter in a few minutes. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for staying to deal with this at the end of a long day. This issue has importance for three reasons. It is not just a small border claim. It is a claim by Venezuela to five-eighths of the whole territory of the independent country of Guyana, the whole of the former Dutch colony of Essequibo, which we conquered in 1803 and which was ceded to Britain in 1814.

It is important for a second reason. Since we were responsible for the whole of the territory from 1814 until independence in 1966, and signed all the treaties concerning the definition of the territory, our honour is involved and we cannot, I submit to the House, escape from our responsibility to back Guyana in this issue.

The third reason why it is important is this. As I shall show, the latest 12-year agreement to freeze the dispute ends on 17th June 1982 and all signs indicate that a bigger dispute—perhaps something even worse than that—will follow that date in June 1982. It is, therefore, important now for Her Majesty's Government to say that their support for Guyana is firm and openly expressed.

The history of this matter can be briefly summarised. The early period of colonial conquest left disputes about boundaries in all such great areas of South America. We can perhaps start with 1897, when Venezuela, with the support of the United States, asked for the whole matter to be reopened. There was then the Washington Agreement of 1897, establishing an international tribunal of arbitration, with two distinguished United Kingdom judges, two United States judges and one Russian jurist. This held long hearings and gave unanimous findings, putting this territory firmly into Guyana. The boundary was worked out by a mixed boundary commission and has been reproduced on Venezuelan maps for about 60 years. So for a long time after that arbitration in 1897 with this distinguished participation of foreign judges, the boundary was fixed and was apparently largely acceptable to Venezuela.

But then came the situation which reopened the matter. Mr. Mallet-Prevost, who was one of the Americans appearing for the Venezuelans, in 1949 left some posthumous allegations that the settlement of 1897 had been a "political deal between the United Kingdom and Russia". This has been hotly disputed. The papers have been examined, after the British had offered to do so. There has been no agreement as to whether they were fake or had any meaning at all. But Venezuela has objected to Guyanan independence, based upon this one posthumous document of one man who had been in the employment of the Venezuelan Government and which nobody else accepts. So Guyana came into independence with Venezuela disagreeing with the situation.

In 1966 we had the Geneva Agreement which set up a mixed Guyana-Venezuela Commission with the "task of seeking satisfactory solutions for the practical settlement of the controversy". This mixed commission met for four years and reached no conclusion. Indeed, during that period there were breaches of the Geneva Agreement. There was the occupation of Ankoko Island by the Venezuelans; there was annexation of the territorial waters of Guyana; and there have been incidents on the frontier, with penetration of Guyanese territory.

So we reach 1970, with the breakdown, if you like, of the Geneva Agreement which was supposed to be trying to settle it after 1966. There again it was not settled. With the intervention of other countries, we had the new agreement, the Protocol of Port of Spain, which was to freeze the issue for 12 years in the hope that it would all calm down. It was firmly stated in that Protocol of Port of Spain that, after all, there should be, if necessary, use of Article 33 of the United Nations Charter which covers means—for example, negotiations, mediation, arbitration, et cetera—to a peaceful settlement.

Therefore, since 1970, when it was supposed to have been frozen for 12 years, there have been some attempts at resuming normal relations and building friendship, including the presidential visit by Mr. Forbes Burnham to Venezuela. But in 1981, after that visit, the whole situation has again been thrown open by a most belligerent, uncompromising statement from the Venezuelan President and Government reinstating their claims and saying that they will pursue them by all means and that they are unwilling to extend the 1970 Protocol beyond June 1982. We have in the making, therefore, a very dangerous situation.

I can therefore summarise the situation and bring my remarks to a close. The present situation is as follows. There is no doubt that next year this situation will be very bitter. There is the new dimension of possible oil and other discoveries in five-eighths of the territory of Guyana and in the territorial waters. No doubt this is inflaming Venezuelan claims and making them more strident, belligerent and uncompromising. They have gone further. They are objecting to the Upper Mazaruni hydro-electric project and trying to stop the World Bank from offering money to Guyana to get that huge project—a project of immense importance to that part of South America—under way. That is our first point in the present situation. It is bitter, it is divisive, it could blow up at any moment in the period beginning next June, and meanwhile Venezuela is even trying to stop economic development in the disputed territory.

The second point about today's situation is that there is no doubt that the area is peopled by Guyanese citizens and that a long period of history besides the 1899 arbitration award has surely given the present boundaries full viability. The third point is that Venezuela is involved in other disputes and so one has to judge this partly by the fact that Venezuela seems to be disputing all round its borders with other countries and we have to take that into our consideration in regard to Guyana.

So I come to my last point: the importance, which I reiterate, of Her Majesty's Government making our position clear ready for June 1982, when the present protocol and the freeze on the matter come to an end. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to say that we stand firmly by Guyana, as in honour we are bound to do, given our historic involvement in all the treaties concerned. In this respect, I would agree with part of the sentiment of a letter which the Minister of State, Mr. Ridley, has written to Sir Nigel Fisher, the Member of Parliament, who has provided me with a copy. I agree with him that the best thing would be for Venezuela to take their obligations under the Geneva Agreement seriously and therefore to follow them through and use the means of peaceful settlement provided for in Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations.

The part of the letter which does concern me is where he says: Now that Guyana is fully independent, it would be wrong for Britain to take an active part. Neither the 1966 Geneva Agreement, nor the 1970 Port of Spain protocol obliges us to take any specific action".

I hope it will be agreed that that is not strong enough. I must press the noble Lord to be more firm in support of Guyana in this present situation, and to say that we are prepared to come out openly and say that, given the history of the whole matter, this is a wholly unjustified claim and that we will stand by Guyana now and in 1982 when the protocol expires.

My final words are these: I hope we shall realise how this is seen in Guyana. It is a black country; it is small; it is ex-colonial. It sees Venezuela in a sense as the Spanish Conquistadores in a new guise, imposing the yoke of colonialism on a newly emerged colonial state. Therefore, if I may suggest it, it has wider repercussions than simply, as I said at the beginning, a border dispute. When a small country such as this is threatened in that way, and when another country is demanding five-eighths of its territory, I hope we shall take this matter very seriously and stand by the involvement that lies at our door, given our long period of history in the matter.

Lord Peart

My Lords, I shall only make a brief intervention. I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Northfield on a concise speech which has explained the issue in connection with Guyana. At different times I have spent long periods in Guyana, and also I had to do the sugar negotiations and I always found the people loyal and very anxious to help Britain when we needed them. I believe that now we should defend them and that we should take the line which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has stressed so strongly and so eloquently.

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, at this late hour perhaps I may reply briefly to the terms of the noble Lord's Question. I should like to express to him the appreciation of the House for the very accurate manner in which he has dealt with the history of the problem that we are now discussing. What the noble Lord is essentially asking is what is the present position of Her Majesty's Government.

There is of course no question of our changing our historical view of the 1899 Award. However, now that Guyana is independent and a sovereign state, we believe that it would not be right for us to take an active part in pursuing the settlement of the controversy. It is for the Governments of Venezuela and Guyana to settle this matter between themselves. As the House will know, neither the Geneva Agreement nor the Port of Spain Protocol provides for any further action on the part of the United Kingdom after Guyanese independence.

At the same time, we naturally wish to see this controversy peacefully resolved. We would view with the very gravest concern any development which put in jeopardy the principle enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, that the adjustment or settlement of international disputes should be brought about by peaceful means. We believe, therefore, that it is important that if the Port of Spain Protocol is terminated in June 1982 the Governments of Venezeula and Guyana should pursue the procedures for arriving at a peaceful settlement provided in the Geneva Agreement. When my noble friend met the Foreign Minister of Venezuela on 26th June, he indicated to him that that was our view. My honourable friend the Minister of State conveyed a similar message to the High Commissioner for Guyana on 2nd July. It is our present understanding that both Governments will follow this course.

Lord Northfield

My Lords, may I ask, follow which course? Does the noble Lord mean that they will refer it to the Article 33 procedure?

Lord Skelmersdale

Yes, my Lords. In these circumstances, and referring to the terms of Lord Northfield's Question, it would not seem either appropriate or helpful for Her Majesty's Government now to play an active role in this controversy. We are naturally concerned that it should not be allowed to develop into a further source of tension in the Caribbean area. The central point, therefore, is that the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Agreement, to which eve are a signatory, should be observed by the Governments of Venezuela and Guyana in seeking a peaceful settlement. We earnestly hope that this will result in a solution to the controversy which is acceptable to both parties.

Lord Denham

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I must inform the House that Royal Assent will not be given today, because another place rose some time ago, and therefore it is impracticable.