Guyanese politicians must exhibit to the world that they can set aside their differences in defending against “bullyism” from the Venezuelan government, says Guyana’s Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall during his live Facebook programme, “Issues in the News”, last evening. His call for unity comes days after Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro’s latest decree, claiming sovereignty of territory in Essequibo.
Nandlall is of the opinion that Venezuela “wants to go rogue”, which has prompted the Irfaan Ali-led administration to appeal to its “friends” in the region and around the world for their support and their solidarity.
“Venezuela, obviously, is moving in the direction of a rogue nation. It is not considering itself bound by international law, international practices and international procedures, international precedence – it just wants to behave like a bully, it wants to abrogate international law, it doesn’t want to settle the dispute in a court that has the jurisdiction to do so…Well, we are not going to accept such bullyism,” Nandlall said.
He added that fortunately for Guyana, its politicians have been mature enough to put partisan politics aside and have fielded a united front whenever this matter is raised.
“Right now, it is at its fore and I hope that the same type of unity and the same type of nationalism will be galvanized across the political divide so that we can show the world that at least on this issue – we may have a million or a billion differences – all the politicians, all the political parties, all the people, every ethnic group, every racial group, every religious organisation, every national important organisation stand firmly and stand unitedly on defending our territorial sovereignty.”
The AG said that the government will continue to do the right thing, which is to “persevere” in further prosecuting the claim which Guyana has laid before the court.
Nandlall is optimistic that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule in favour of Guyana. That ruling hopefully would “effectually and effectively dispose of all manner of contention” between the two countries, the AG said.
