Territorial water dispute simmering between U.S., Venezuela
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A dispute is brewing between Caracas and
Washington over the status of the Gulf of Venezuela, where Venezuelan
warplanes buzzed a U.S. Coast Guard vessel on October 21, officials said
on
Wednesday.
Venezuela says that the body of water, a large inlet from the Caribbean,
has
always had the status of "internal waters," subject to Venezuelan sovereignty
much as land would be.
But a U.S. official said Washington first learned of the Venezuelan claim
in the
last few weeks and did not think it had any validity.
"Our understanding is they claim that the Gulf of Venezuela is internal
waters.
This is the first time we have heard of it and the United States does not
recognize
that," said the official, who asked not be named.
The official said that such a claim would need to have a historical basis
but that
no relevant Venezuelan laws or decrees make any reference to a special
status
for the gulf.
"To be 'historic waters' there has to be clear publication of your claim
and it has
to be acceptable to the international community over a period of time,"
he said.
Venezuela passed a maritime law in 1956, and a presidential decree in 1968
established a straight baseline along the eastern coast of the country.
But neither
included a claim to the Gulf of Venezuela in the west, he added.
A Venezuelan embassy official disputed that account. "Venezuela says it
(the
vessel) was in internal waters, very Venezuelan waters. That is an old
position,"
he said.
Counternarcotics mission
He noted that his country did, however, have a dispute with neighboring
Colombia, which holds the northwestern stretch of the coast and claims
a share
of the waters.
In the October 21 incident, a Venezuelan navy patrol detected the U.S.
Coast
Guard vessel Reliance in the gulf. The U.S. official said Venezuelan F-16s
then
buzzed it -- in other words flew over it at low altitude.
The Reliance was on a counternarcotics mission, seeking small vessels which
might be taking drugs from Colombia or Venezuela out into the Caribbean.
Caracas complained to the United States and then rejected the U.S. reply
to its
complaint, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel had breakfast in Caracas on Wednesday
with U.S. ambassador, Donna Hrinak, and later told reporters that everything
had
been clarified and the incident was a closed chapter. He did not elaborate.
But the incident adds to a series of public disagreements between the United
States and the government of populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez upset the United States in August by visiting Iraq for OPEC, the
Organization of Petrol Exporting Counties. Last month he hosted Cuban
President Fidel Castro on a state visit.
The Chavez government has also revived an ancient territorial dispute with
its
eastern neighbor Guyana. It claims 75 percent of the small former British
colony.
Copyright 2000 Reuters.