It was not by accident that, three days before his scheduled January 10th inauguration, Maduro announced he was scheduling the election of the governor of Essequibo. His referendum of Dec 2, 2023 had approved the “annexation” of the Essequibo, and on 21 March 2024, his National Assembly had unanimously created the state of “Guayana Esequiba”, to be run by a Maduro-appointed authority until the election of its governor.
Knowing his inauguration would precipitate internal and external protests because of its illegitimacy, he again hoped to raise patriotic emotions over the Essequibo in the citizenry and the critical military forces, targeted by the Opposition.
The January 9th Opposition protests were not as successful as expected; perhaps influenced by the Essequibo dog whistle, but primarily because of Maduro’s mobilisation of the “organs of integral direction” (ODIS). This structure centralises political power, the Armed Forces, the Bolivarian National Militia, police forces and community groups ostensibly to “maintain order”, but ostensively to subdue the population and stifle any expression of dissent. Maduro also organized counter-protests, and was duly sworn-in by his ally, National Assembly leader Jorge Rodríguez.
Edmundo González, stand-in Opposition Leader for the charismatic Maria Machado, who had been banned from running in last July 28 elections, has been declared “president-elect” by the US in view of their voting machines’ tally sheets showing he had won the elections. Machado’s Electoral Council never released theirs, as had been done in previous elections.Gonzalez had been received by President Biden, and had promised to show up in Venezuela to be inaugurated, but this never happened.
Machado did lead some protests inside Venezuela, and was briefly detained after one.
Directly after Maduro’s inauguration, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reiterated US support for Gonzalez, and announced an upping of the bounty on the heads of Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, from US$15M to US$25M, on drug trafficking charges. They offered a US$15 million reward for Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, and imposed sanctions on “eight Maduro-aligned individuals… including members of the security forces and political figures”, bringing the number of these up to 187 persons.
Similar actions were yesterday taken by Canada, the EU, and the UK as were taken in 2019 for Juan Guaido, which were then of no avail. Most notably, however, the Biden Administration left untouched the license allowing Chevron to extract and ship Venezuelan heavy crude to the US, which would have been the only action to have had a materially adverse impact on the Maduro administration.
With Trump’s inauguration set for January 20, with the fierce anti-Maduro figure of Marco Rubio leading the State Department thereafter, and with Rep Mike Waltz as his National Security Advisor, it is hard to imagine Washington taking a soft stance towards Maduro.
Waltz had sponsored the ironically-named bipartisan BOLIVAR Act: Banning Operations and Leases with Illegitimate Venezuelan Authoritarian Regime,
approved by the house and now before the Senate. Trump had signalled his position when he announced his support for Machado and “President-elect” Gonzales as the protests unfolded in Venezuela.
However, Trump is himself apparently facing pressure from oil execs to maintain Biden’s policy of granting concessions to Maduro via licences to secure oil imports from Venezuela. This would be the litmus test of even matching his failed 2019 pro-Guaido strategy.
There is also the question of Venezuelan migrants, whom Trump is committed to returning to Venezuela, and for which he would need a quid pro quo from Maduro. All of this now brings us to what should be our response to a third-term Maduro.
The day after Maduro’s announcement regarding a governor for Essequibo, the Guyana Government expressed “grave concern over Venezuela once again violating the Argyle Agreement and the Dec 1, 2023 order of the ICJ.” This is water on a duck’s back. We must recognise the realities of the situation: it is quite unlikely that even Trump would move beyond sanctions at best, as he focuses on China, the Middle East, Russia, Greenland, Canada, and Mexico.
Our Essequibo would remain a low-hanging fruit for Maduro, and even for any possible successor from the Venezuelan Opposition. Our only recourse is to continue strategically augmenting our physical and manpower capabilities. While we may not be able to defeat Venezuela’s far larger military on our own, at a minimum, we can make them think twice by waging the type of asymmetric warfare we have seen deployed with success in other theatres. We have recommended establishing a military base in northern Essequibo. Brazil protects our southern, Rupununi, flank.
