Guyana’s Foreign Secretary has written to the Chief Executive Officers of Facebook and Twitter about pro-Venezuela propaganda pages using maps on the social media platforms, which show a large section of the country as Venezuelan territory.
Guyana’s Department of Public Information reported that Secretary Robert Persaud said that the profiles are using the platforms to spread misinformation about the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award, which settled the land boundary between the then-British colony of Guyana and Venezuela.
Persaud wrote: “I wish to point out that Facebook (and Twitter) posts and the subsequent comments surrounding the particular posts, have the potential to permanently damage relations between states, incite violence against the territory and people of Guyana, and derail the current adjudication of the matter before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).’’
The Foreign Secretary noted that the land boundary between Guyana and Venezuela was settled by a legal process of International Arbitration on October 3, 1899, pursuant to an 1897 Treaty of Washington by which both parties agreed to respect the results of the arbitration as a full, perfect and final settlement of the boundary.
