Gya: Chavez making nice with Guyana

To be on the safe side, the government of Guyana ought to check for the knife in the other hand. Venezuela has a long history of infringing on its neighbors' territory. Chavez's riff on "imperialist" thinking conveniently ignores the imperialist aspirations of socialist/communist countries such as Nazi Germany (Poland, Czechoslovakia, et al), communist USSR (see Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria, and all the stans), and China (Tibet, anyone?)

PRESIDENT Hugo Chavez has signalled the dawning of a new era in relations with Guyana with which it has had a longstanding border controversy.

"The Essequibo issue will be removed from the framework of the social, political, economic relations between the two countries and we will tackle each issue from a different perspective based on mutual respect ..." Chavez said yesterday.

At a joint press conference with President Bharrat Jagdeo late last evening at State House, President Chavez said that things have changed drastically from the "imperialist" thinking of the past and Venezuela now has "no kind of sentiment against Guyana whatsoever."

Rather, Venezuela seeks to foster closer relations with Guyana.

Manifestations of the closer cooperation between the two neighbouring states were the cancellation of US$12.5M of the debt Guyana owes Venezuela, and the undertaking by President Chavez to favourably consider adjusting to terms and conditions of the Caracas Energy Cooperation Accord to make it compatible with Guyana's obligations under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. The HIPC conditions prevented Guyana from benefiting from the Accord.

Hopefully, President Jagdeo will try to keep this old enemy closer than many of his friends.