The war in Ukraine has commanded the attention of some of our armchair generals who usually commandeer our letters’ pages and the blogosphere. But it is unfortunate that they have ponderous hermeneutical exegeses of the daily effusions from the various sides in the conflict, without stressing the implications for us in Guyana. Take the case of US President Biden sending negotiators to open discussions with Maduro in Venezuela with an eye to removing sanctions placed on Venezuelan oil. This would allow American oil majors to re-enter that country to boost production, which would be shipped to their refineries. Venezuelan heavy crude is needed for power generation, diesel fuel, and home heating oil.
There were reliable reports that Chevron was about to be given a licence to move ahead, and had already started mobilising resources to do so. However, because of blowback in the Hispanic community, which reverberated in Congress, matters have been put on hold. But it demonstrates to us the primacy of national interests in international affairs, as adumbrated by the US’ declared maxim: “There are no permanent enemies or permanent friends, just permanent interests”. And in this case, the permanent interest for the US is the welfare of its citizens, represented by reliable energy.
Analogously, our national interest vis-a-vis Venezuela is the sanctity of our borders, which were settled permanently in 1899 by an International Tribunal that interestingly was convened by the US under its Monroe Doctrine to prevent European powers from intervening arbitrarily in Western Hemispheric matters. The Venezuelans, however, arbitrarily intervened in 1962 by declaring to the UN that the Arbitral Award was null and void, and creating the controversy that hangs over our heads like the proverbial Sword of Damocles. They insist they were bullied by then imperial power Britain, and the land award is illegal. Even though there was a Treaty of Geneva negotiated between them and the departing colonial power Britain in 1966, the Venezuelans invaded our national space on the island of Ankoko, which they occupy to this day.
The rationale of the Russians for their invasion of Ukraine is remarkably similar to Venezuela’s claim. In terms of borders, in a February speech just before invading, Putin declared, “Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia. This process began practically immediately after the 1917 revolution, and moreover, Lenin and his associates did it in the sloppiest way in relation to Russia — by dividing, tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.”
In other words, Russia, like Venezuela, only wants territories that belong to it historically.
The NYTimes article concluded, “Mr Putin published a 5,300-word essay that expounded on many of the themes he highlighted in Monday’s speech, including the idea that nefarious Western nations had somehow corrupted Ukraine, leading it away from its rightful place within a greater Russian sphere through what he called a ‘forced change of identity’.”
Another lesson we should glean from the Ukraine war is the role of leadership. Putin projects himself as a “world-historical figure”, as described by the German philosopher Hegel. Like Julius Caesar and Napoleon, these individuals can impose themselves on history through sheer willpower. But, as Hegel concluded, such men “must necessarily trample on many an innocent flower, crushing much that gets in (their) way.” Putin in Russia and Chavez, Maduro’s mentor, both see themselves as “world-historical figures”, and we in Guyana should beware of Maduro, since he had reduced Hegel’s theory to farce.
But there is an addendum. These figures succeed not through creating fear in their people, but when they have convinced their followers of the “rightness” of their cause. Hence Putin’s 5300-word essay. For Maduro, Venezuela has been teaching schoolchildren since the 1950s their version of why Essequibo is theirs. We must be on guard, since Maduro has been strengthened by Biden’s gambit, which gives him leverage with his Russian friends to possibly obtain additional weaponry that could be deployed against us.