Hot on the heels of protests from Guyana that Venezuela is attempting to claim international waters for itself, the Colombian government has issued a statement rejecting a Venezuelan decree claiming waters off the coast of Colombia.
In an official complaint issued by the Colombian Foreign Ministry by hand to Caracas, Colombia warned Venezuela to “avoid unilateral measures and avow itself of common sense regarding issues as delicate as sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction”.
Last month, Venezuela passed Decree 1787, which described international waters as “Operating Zones of Integral Maritime and Insular Defense”. Caracas claims the “operating zones,” which intrude upon Colombian and Guyanese waters, are necessary for national security.
The move echoes China’s self-proclaimed “Air Defense Identification Zones” issued over Japanese waters in 2013. In much the same way that those Japanese waters are technically part of the East China Sea, so too are Colombia’s threatened waters in the Gulf of Venezuela.
The Gulf of Venezuela remains disputed, however, and Colombia is not claiming those waters for itself. Instead, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry noted that the maritime territories are still disputed, and thus neither Venezuela nor Colombia could declare them part of their nation at the expense of the other.
While noting that the waters are disputed, Decree 1787 proceeds to declare them Venezuelan anyway, despite the complex history of borders in the region.
According to the decree, the Venezuelan state “recognizes the existence of maritime areas whose border delimitations are pending,” and which “require that the Venezuelan state tend to them until definitive borders are marked amicably.”
Breitbart News reports that what the Colombian Ministry of the Interior has warned Venezuela may be a belligerent action, is being called “an outright invasion” by conservatives in the legislature.
Senator Jimmy Chamorro, an opposition member in the legislature, described the decree as “arbitrary, irresponsible, and completely populist.”
Former president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe said that the “invasive decree in Colombia’s waters is being used as a smokescreen for Venezuela’s crisis.”
Senator Uribe added that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was “attempting to stoke anti-Colombian sentiment in an election season to disorient Colombians and Venezuelans.”
Experts contend that Venezuela’s economy is close to collapse. Observers estimate the national inflation rate as the highest in the world, well into the triple digits. Basic items like toilet paper, soap and vegetable oil are subject to rationing and price controls, making them near impossible for the average Venezuelan to access without resorting to the black market.
Amid the economic turmoil, Maduro continues to crack down on members of the opposition, the most prominent of whom recently staged a widely-publicized hunger strike in jail.
Venezuela’s socialist Chavista government had nevertheless triggered territorial disputes with Colombia even before Venezuela’s economy went into free fall under Maduro.
During Uribe’s presidential tenure, late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez broke ties with Colombia after Uribe accused him of providing Marxist FARC terrorists safe haven in Venezuelan territory.
Venezuela is also facing opposition on the new territorial decree from Guyana, which declared Venezuela a “regional threat” following the decree, which absorbs Guyanese waters into Venezuela.
Unlike the Colombian claims, which that nation acknowledges are disputed, Venezuela had acknowledged the waters off Guyana to be Guyanese territory as far back as 1899 in an international court decision.
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