GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — President David Granger said yesterday that Venezuela was building up troops near the border with Guyana as the two countries continue to spar publicly about

their centuries-old border dispute.

“It is very provocative and we feel Venezuela is treading a very dangerous course at this point in time. Rather than seeking a peaceful resolution to the matter, Venezuela seems to be pursuing a very defensive and aggressive course,” President Granger told reporters.

“We have recently received reports that Venezuela has been making extraordinary military deployments in eastern Venezuela, that is western Guyana, which seem to be impacting on Guyana’s territorial defence,” he added.

Granger, a retired army brigadier, who came to power early this year in the general election, said Guyana has every reason to believe that this “abnormal” military presence is a threat to Guyana’s territorial integrity and as such the Government is preparing to take whatever actions are appropriate to protect its border.

“I have been, in my earlier profession, familiar with Venezuelan behaviour and what we have noticed during the month of September is an extraordinary escalation of Venezuelan military activity in eastern Venezuela,” he said.

Earlier this month, Granger met with a delegation from the United Nations as it sought a solution to the border dispute between the two countries.

The UN is hoping to broker a meeting with President Granger and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro on the margins of the UN General Assembly to be held later this month.

Venezuela has renewed its claim to the mineral-and forest-rich Essequibo region and all of the Atlantic Sea off the Essequibo Region.

Maduro issued a Decree on May 26 that includes all the Atlantic waters off the Essequibo Coast.

The purported annexation of the waters off Essequibo now takes in the oil-rich Stabroek Block, where American oil giant Exxon Mobil in May found a “significant” reserve of high quality crude oil.

Exxon Mobil said the discovery was made in one of the two wells it dug, in the Liza-1 drill site, which realised more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone.

At the end of their annual summit in Barbados in July, Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries reaffirmed the “long-standing, deep and wide-ranging friendship between Caricom and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”.

Last weekend, Granger said the message he would be taking to the United Nations remains unchanged, as it relates to Guyana’s position on Venezuela.

“My message will be that Guyana settled this territorial matter 116 years ago and right now the Venezuelan claim is affecting our development in a serious way. It is scaring away investors and it is creating an atmosphere of tension and suspicion,” Granger said.

But Granger has reiterated that Guyana is no longer interested in the sterile good officer process. Instead, the country will be seeking to resolve this matter permanently through juridical means.

“We will be going to court [to] settle this matter. It is affecting our development… 50 years is too long.”

Last week, President Maduro announced that talks with Guyana, regarding the appointment of a new ambassador, have been suspended indefinitely.

Granger met yesterday with Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, the chief of staff, police commissioner and ministers of state for public security and legal affairs and later told reporters “the situation is getting worse, not better, although Venezuela is embroiled in a major controversy with Colombia”.