…the UN Cavalry?
While one’s gotta be circumspect in the world of diplomacy, your Eyewitness is under no such obligation – and has no compunction in telling it as it is!! So, with Venezuela’s Mad Maduro moving from talking fat to threats, and then bootstrapping “authority” from a rigged “referendum” to announcing the annexation of our Essequibo – in the face of the ICJ’s remonstrance – it’s time we call a spade a spade. Old people say, “When blind man tell you he gon pelt you, ‘e done gat brick in ‘e haan”!!
We saw the brick fly when he “ordered” all the companies we’ve given licences to drill for oil off our Atlantic Coast to pull up their subsea cables and vamoose with their multi-billion FPSOs!! And in case you’ve been hearing there are no oil wells off the Essequibo Coast, those folks missed Mad Maduro’s “decree” that all waters off the entire Guyana Coast belong to Venezuela – due to the angle in which he generously drew his line from the mouth of the Essequibo!! And then came the other bricks – ordering his nationalized oil company PDVSA to issue licences for drilling to other companies!!
Now, while some may still not be convinced that Maduro’s crossed the line drawn by the ICJ: to NOT change the “status quo”, the ICJ forgot that Mad Maduro’s suffering from the national Venezuelan hallucination that the “status quo” means they own Essequibo!! In case anybody forgot, they claim the 1899 Arbitral Award that made a “full and final” settlement on the border issue – and one in which they placed their “John Hancock”! – is null and void!! And that’s why the madman said the ICJ’s statement on the referendum was a “victory” for Venezuela!
Now, we know that yesterday – as your Eyewitness was pecking out this piece – the UN Security Council (UNSSC) met at our Govt’s request to authorize some actions against Venezuela’s moves that certainly violate their caution. The year we’re fortuitously a non-permanently member – but with a vote!! Surely, the ICJ wasn’t only contemplating Venezuelan F-16 strafing Mabaruma as “changing the status quo”!! The UNSC Articles 24 and 25 of the UN Charter permit it to use collective force against a threat to international peace and security. And what Venezuela’s doing is certainly “a threat to international peace and security” – as attested by dozens of countries in and out of our hemisphere.
But any of the five permanent members of the UNSC can veto a UNSC resolution, and we know that both China and Russia – for their own reasons – will veto the use of force. Russia has annexed Crimea, and is presently annexing eastern Ukraine – while China has promised to take over Taiwan!!
There’s no cavalry coming from the UNSC.
…US Cavalry
After spending years of his callow youth looking at the Cavalry coming to the rescue of those frontier settlers, when it comes to survival, he ain’t too finicky about why and from where the help’s coming!! Any port in a storm – and Mad Maduro’s stirring up a storm!! In our case, his Venezuelan forces outnumber ours humungously in each of the theatres of war – land, air and sea. We know our brave GDF soldiers’ gonna put us a strong defence – but we gotta play the odds.
So, who can we turn to?? Your Eyewitness always thought that was a no-brainer!! The Yanks, of course!! Mad Maduro evidently didn’t appreciate what expelling Exxon from Venezuela cost them the last time!! Did he ever think how a former head of Exxon – Tillerson – could become the USA’s Secretary of State?? As the present Exxon president reminded, Guyana’s not on its own!! Meaning, they got their own friends in high US places!
Then, of course, there’re those 300 billion barrels the US gotta protect!!
