Today marks the 57th Anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Agreement and invites its commemoration as a binding international agreement between the Parties. Concluded on the eve of our country's independence between the United Kingdom, Venezuela and British Guiana, it governs the resolution of the controversy which had arisen as a result of Venezuela's baseless and ill-chosen contention that the Arbitral Award of 1899 is 'null and void'. It removed the roadblock to Guyana's independence that Venezuela had, with imperial ambition, sought to effect.