Venezuela responds with patrols on the Atlantic facade
Ships from the United States and Guyana in the combined exercises. Photo: Guyana Defense Force
14/01/2021 | Caracas
Carlos E. Hernndez
The United States and Guyana conducted a joint exercise at sea and signed a defense cooperation agreement. This deployment takes place in the context of the growing tensions between the English-speaking South American nation and Venezuela, in relation to the Venezuelan claim to the Essequibo area.
The combined naval exercise was conducted off the coast of Guyana on January 9. He US Coast Guard unfolded it cutter Uscgc Stone (WMSL-758), while the Guyana coast guard participated with smaller patrol boats, type 957Y and Metal shark 38 Rebellious.
He Uscgc Stone it is a patrol craft of the class Legend built by the shipyard Huntington Ingalls Industries, from Pascagoula, Mississippi, and delivered in November 2020. It displaces 4,500 tons and is 127 feet long, 16 wide and 6.9 feet deep. The armament consists of a cannon Mk-110 57 mm, single cylinder Phalanx Bloc 1B 20mm machine guns, two 12.7mm machine guns and two machine guns M240 7.62 mm. It has a cockpit and hangar with the capacity to house two helicopters Airbus MH-65C Dolphin MCH. The crew consists of 120 crew members.
With regard to Guyanese units, the coast guard of that country has five types of patrol boats 957Y as reported by China in April 2017 and February 2019 Infodefensa.com, while the seven Metal Shark speedboats 38 Rebellious available, were received during 2014 and March 2017.
New defense agreement
At a later date, on January 11, the commander of the United States Southern Command (US Southern Command), admiral Craig S. Faller, visited Guyana for a Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement with the head of Mayor stands from Defense Force, Brigade General Godfrey Bess, whose aim is to simplify the process of exchanging goods or services “in support of effective and mutually beneficial defense cooperation”.
The United States and Guyana have recently strengthened their military ties. They signed it in September 2020 Ship Rider Agreement, aimed at cooperation in the sea area, including the performance of combined exercises such as those of the past days. In addition, the United States donated engines and parts for its boats to the Guyana Coast Guard that same month, as was also reported. Infodefensa.com.
Venezuela response
A new incident has been presented in the Venezuelan claim of the 159,000 km of the Essequibo area, which is currently owned by Guyana, formerly English Guiana, and so it has “inherited” it from the United Kingdom. Venezuela was stripped of that territory in 1899 by an arbitral tribunal set up in Paris with British, American and Russian judges, in which it was not allowed to participate in the deliberations.
In 1966, Venezuela and Guyana signed an agreement in Geneva by which they agreed to seek a solution to the territorial dispute under the auspices of the United Nations. However, in January 2018, the UN decided, at Guyana’s request, to refer the case to the International Court of Justice, a body that does not recognize Venezuela in the context of the claim, and, in a recent decision, gave that body its jurisdiction in the Venezuelan claim for Essequibo territory that relations between the two countries have deteriorated because the Geneva Agreement is unilaterally unknown.
In that order of events, the Venezuelan government decided on January 8, to strengthen the territorial claim, to establish the Strategic Development Zone of the Atlantic Façade, which is intended to provide “protection and safeguarding of jurisdiction” in that territory.
In addition, it has been tasked with increasing the active presence of military units by permanently patrolling all parts of the Atlantic façade, while through the Minister of the People’s Power for Defense, the joint American-Guyanese naval maneuvers and the presence of the Commander of the Southern Command in Guyana were denounced and rejected.
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