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Guyana’s Minister of State Joseph Harmon has revealed that the Venezuelan military has commenced scaling down its military forces present at the border that it shares with Guyana, at the Cuyuni River.

Harmon made the disclosure on Saturday evening whilst defending the stratagem employed by the APNU+AFC administration.

The Government had received some degree of criticism on its handling of Venezuela’s occupation of Guyana’s territory from the opposition, and some members of civil society.

But according to Harmon, the Governemnt’s response was adequate given that Venezuela’s show of force is now subsiding.

“The way we were responding to Venezuela is appropriate…as of yesterday, the reports we have, is that Venezuela has started to remove. They started scaling back – the gun boat that was in the Cuyuni is now removed and the armament they had there is now moved towards inland Venezuela,” said Harmon.

The Minister of State noted that the response from Government was also due to the analyses taken from the reports received and it was not lacking in any form or manner.

“We have been analyzing the situation all along…we are analyzing the situation on a daily basis because we have reports on a daily basis…The way the government responds is a matter of how we assess the threat…our real line of defence is a strong diplomatic initiative…the army is there to define aggression. We never said the army will go to war with Venezuela,” Harmon reported.

Guyana’s President David Granger is set to meet with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro on Sunday in a meeting facilitated by the United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon.

On Guyana’s Independence Day – May 26, 2015, Maduro issued a decree claiming 2/3 of Guyana’s territory igniting controversy from a dispute that was settled since 1899 by an Arbrital Award.
Guyana is now pushing for a judicial settlement.