CARICOM determined to help Guyana preserve territorial integrity amid dispute with Venezuela

The Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Irwin LaRocque late last week stressed that the regional grouping is unwavering in its determination to preserve Guyana’s territorial integrity.

LaRocque gave the commitment when he met with Guyana’s President David Granger on Wednesday.

His comments came as Guyana remains in a border dispute with neighboring Venezuela.

“The community has been resolute in always preserving the territorial integrity of Guyana. It is an issue that we are always on. At appropriate junctures, statements have always been issued. I have made statements, the Community has made statements, the Chairman, at the appropriate occasion, and the matter of Guyana’s territorial integrity is sacrosanct. The Community will always be supporting Guyana in this issue. There is no question about it,” LaRocque said.

The CARICOM Secretary General said the matter will be discussed in the next few weeks at the regional Heads of Government Summit.

He met with Granger to discuss the status of the preparations and the agenda for the upcoming summit which is being co-hosted by Guyana since Dominica, which holds the current chairmanship and was scheduled to host, could not assume that responsibility as it is still recovering from the impact of Tropical Storm Erika, which battered that island-nation last year.

Granger had previously identified a number of the areas on which he would like to focus when Guyana assumes chairmanship of CARICOM in January 2017. Food security, environmental protection and the security and defence of small states, as well as the response to disasters, will be among CARICOM’S priority issues under his stewardship. The CARICOM Single Market Economy (CSME), an integrated development strategy aimed at promoting growth in the member states, will also be addressed in the push for food security

Venezuela has claimed ownership of Guyana’s Essequibo Region – the waters in which oil was discovered.