Following a meeting with several Caricom leaders in Jamaica on Wednesday, US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, will be arriving in Guyana for discussions with President Irfaan Ali. Caricom is a strategic partner of the US, with interests intersecting in migration; trade; transnational crime; relations with Venezuela, Cuba and China.
The Jamaica meeting would address overall Caricom relations with the US, with Barbados’s Mia Mottley representing the regional grouping as its chair and T&T’s new PM, Stuart Young, as its security head. Haiti’s President would also be present to spearhead discussions on the deteriorating security situation in that island.
For us, however, our increasing oil production by the ExxonMobil condominium, which would soon reach one million bpd, is alone significant to warrant Rubio’s visit. ExxonMobil is a significant American corporation, and a week after President Trump’s inauguration and Rubio’s cabinet appointment, a telephone conversation was held with President Ali.
According to the US statement, “The Secretary affirmed the United States’ steadfast support of Guyana’s territorial integrity in the face of Nicolás Maduro and his cronies’ bellicose actions.” Those actions moved from threats and bluster to physical action when, on March 1, a Venezuelan naval ship invaded our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and threatened one of ExxonMobil’s FPSOs.
Following Pres Ali’s announcement that Guyana had “put its international partners on alert”, the Rubio-led US State Dept’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs warned: “Venezuelan naval vessels threatening ExxonMobil’s floating, production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) unit is unacceptable and a clear violation of Guyana’s internationally recognized maritime territory. Further provocation will result in consequences for the Maduro regime.”
At the meeting with Secty Rubio, the nature of these “consequences” must be concretised.
Maduro’s continued bellicosity, even in the face of the Dec 14, 2023 Argyle Agreement, on which Pres Ali expended much political capital, made a mockery of the commitment to “not threaten or use force against one another in any circumstances.” Even though he has recently asked for another face-to-face meeting with Pres Ali, the latter announced that “We are not going to go into any discussion with Venezuela when they are blatantly disregarding the Argyle (declaration).”
Maduro will not cease his depredations, since he clearly considers these “rally round the flag” moves as vital to his political survival in a country he has ruined. The next flashpoint will come on May 25, one day before our Independence Anniversary, when Maduro has scheduled the “election” of a Governor of Essequibo, which he has legislatively “annexed” as Venezuela’s 24th state.
Maduro has explicitly rejected the ICJ’s jurisdiction to pronounce definitively on the Venezuelan-concocted Border Controversy, as per the 1966 Geneva Agreement. So, while we have once again resorted to that body on Maduro’s latest outrageous proposal, we must take other measures to safeguard our national security.
Addressing attendees at the commissioning of the GDF’s hangar at EFCIA, Pres Ali declared: “Even as we repose our confidence in the rule of international law and in the persuasiveness of diplomacy, we are not blind to the realities of the world we live in. A strong nation must have the means to deter and to identify threats; that is why we are investing in our Defence Force: not for war, not for aggression; but for protection, for development, and for national security.”
We have long supported examining our military options; but because of the overwhelming size of the Venezuelan land, air and sea forces, we suggested that while we should maintain our present conventional forces, simply enlarging them to counter Venezuela is not an optimal option. We should go outside the box to cause them to think twice before attacking us. In a phrase, we must reformulate our military doctrine and force structure. Our strategy must be one of denial and cost imposition – with the limited aim of changing Venezuela’s decision-making calculus and thus their strategic behaviour. Our Essequibo jungle terrain favours this denial strategy with irregular forces and cyber equipment; since, unlike Venezuela, our goal is not to occupy their territory.
At the meeting with Secty Rubio, we should raise our previous proposal: that we establish a military base in Essequibo, to which the US SouthCom forces would have access through a defence treaty between our countries. The base would coordinate the special forces that are capable of waging the asymmetrical war against the Venezuelan forces. US SFAB units have already begun training our forces in large-scale combat operations in new domains.
