Jagdeo blasts opposition for playing ‘cheap politics’ with border issue at expense of national solidarity

– says recent opposition comments have implications for national security, well-being

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo has chided the PNC-led APNU+ AFC opposition for its recent comments on the Guyana/Venezuela border issue, noting that this can have implications for national security and well-being.

The general secretary who was speaking at his weekly press conference at Freedom House on Thursday highlighted the “dangerous notions” entertained at the opposition’s recent press conference and blasted the AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan for expressing his support in this regard.

“They entertained this notion and confused it that somehow that we were going to cede control of our exclusive economic zone or we agreed to share our exclusive economic zone with Venezuela and that I had said that we agreed to do this and from Ramjattan’s comment, he confused it with what is before the ICJ.

“Now let me make is clear that no time in our history has any government moved away from our position that they find there has been a final solution to our borders with Venezuela based on the arbitration that took place is 1899, and the demarcation of our boundaries in 1905.”

Dr. Jagdeo warned that this posturing is dangerous since it touched on a sensitive issue that can be easily misinterpreted by those unfamiliar with the antics of the Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton and his party.

He stated categorically that, “We have had a single position in government and out of government, the People’s Progressive Party, and a national consensus on this issue, which is, that our boundaries are inviolate, they are established and they cannot be altered and that Venezuela’s claim to any part of our territory, these claims are spurious.”

Dr. Jagdeo said the opposition’s press conference was characterised by “half-truths and a lot of fabrication conjecture and lies.”

“They dealt with a grave matter but here you had two policy lightweights and people who have not been at the centre of the serious discussions on national security and our preserving the integrity of this country,” the GS said.

He pointed out that for Ramjattan to take a false statement and convert it to something that is before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “is a very dangerous thing to do, because by implication you are saying that somehow there may have been a different position between the political parties here in Guyana or by a former president.”

Dr. Jagdeo cited the need for a united front given the seriousness of the decades-old matter and chided the opposition for playing cheap politics at the expense of national solidarity. In a recent statement, the Government of Guyana assured that it remains on guard and has shared the increased military activities by Venezuela taking place on its border with CARICOM Heads and other international partners.