evidence: Oct 25, 2015 APNU Column, Features / Columnists "The Venezuelan National Armed Forces seized the 7-km² Ankoko Island in the Cuyuni River in October 1966, Guyana’s independence year, and has remained in illegal occupation ever since. The island is used as a military garrison to harass miners and to engage in occasional acts of provocation against the Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF) border detachment at Eteringbang on the opposite bank of the river."- President David Granger, October 22, 2015. Before President David Granger in his address to Parliament on October 2, 2015, mentioned the seizure of Ankoko Island by Venezuela in October 1966, many Guyanese were unaware that for 49 years Venezuela has illegally occupied Guyana’s territory. The eastern half of Ankoko Island, situated at the confluence of the Cuyuni and Wenamu Rivers, which forms part of the boundary between Guyana and Venezuela, was taken over by the Venezuelan Army in 1966. The Venezuelans constructed a military base an airstrip and a Post Office and brought in civilian settlers. [...] For most of the last four decades, the government of Guyana has been silent on the matter of Ankoko Island. The Arbitral Award of 1899, which settled the boundary between Guyana and Venezuela, stated clearly that the boundary should run "along the midstream of the Acaribisi to the Cuyuni, and thence along the northern bank of the Cuyuni River westward to its junction with the Wenamu to its westernmost source. . . ." At the junction referred is the island of Ankoko with an area of roughly six square miles.