The Aves Island claim must make Venezuela a contender for the largest
number of maritime boundaries. Heading clockwise from Colombia, it
has treaty lines or equidistance lines with: Colombia, Dominican
Republic, Aruba (Neth.), Netherlands Antilles (Neth.), Puerto Rico
(US), Netherlands Antilles (Neth.)[again], St Kitts and Nevis,
Montserrat (UK), Guadeloupe (Fr.), Dominica, Martinique (Fr.), St
Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana.
15 separate boundary segments, 14 political entities, 12 countries.
(St. Lucia might also have a short boundary segment squeezed between
Martinique and Grenada - on my map it looks like a quadripoint, but
that's vanishingly unlikely.)
> Another reason why the leaders of the Eastern Caribbean States are
concerned
> over the Venezuela move is the fact that the United States, France
and the
> Netherlands have all recognized the Venezuelan declaration of
sovereignty
> over Aves Island.
Yep, the borders with the US, French and Dutch dependencies are all
defined by treaty. None of the others are.
Aves actually blocks a very interesting mishmash of equidistance
lines from the various states of the Lesser Antilles - were it not
for Aves, they'd all converge on a patch of ocean just a tad SW of
Aves, in a marvellous punctoscopic scattershot that could keep us
amused for years.
>"I'm very
> disturbed by the statement of President Chavez," said Antigua &
Barbuda
> Prime Minister Lester Bird. "Recognition of this rock as an island -
which
> is what Venezuela is trying to do - would deprive Eastern Caribbean
States
> of the resources of their seas and hand them to Venezuela. This
would
> effectively deprive these states of their exclusive economic zones."
Interesting, because Antigua and Barbuda is on of the states least
likely to be affected by the Aves claim. Its maritime territory is
squeezed out of existence to the SW by a funnel formed by
equidistance lines with St Kitts and Montserrat, both of which lie
just a little SW of A&B's Redonda Island, and therefore a little
closer to the Aves claim.
Grant