The latest foot has dropped in Nicolas Maduro’s inexorable campaign to annex Essequibo. Elections will be held today to “elect” a Governor and 10 regional legislators to govern the newly-created twenty-eighth state of ‘Guayana Essequiba’; plus eight Deputies to the National Assembly who will supposedly represent Essequiba. There are some who still view the moves by Maduro that started immediately after he inherited his office when his mentor Hugo Chavez died in 2013, as simply a “rally round the flag” tactic, to cling to power as conditions in Venezuela continue in its economic and social death spiral. For instance, while reiterating the unequivocal support of her country for us against Maduro’s aggression, the US Ambassador recently offered a rather sanguine perspective on Maduro’s intentions when she said, “Maduro rhetoric is inflammatory and unacceptable, but at the end of the day, it is just bluster aimed at shoring up domestic support.”
In October 2013 – long before Exxon struck oil, Maduro had ordered the Venezuelan navy seize and detain a US oil exploration ship. He had won the 2013 elections by a whisker and was caught by the logic of his artifice to continue along an escalating path of aggressive action against us. In 2015 he risked the wrath of the US when he threatened Exxon and unfurled his campaign to annex Essequibo. To the question of why would he not only bait the US but also powerful neighbours like Brazil and Columbia that would not brook opening up the Pandora Box of settled borders, I proposed Maduro was “gambling for resurrection”. Here, leaders who see defeat staring them in the face of competition or conflict, take high-risk actions that would be considered “irrational” in normal circumstance because the high costs of defeat “objectively” outweigh the low probability of victory.
So we saw Maduro reject the ICJ’s jurisdiction when we took the border controversy in 2018 to that organ of the UN as per the Geneva Agreement. Way back in December 2023 I argued (“Maduro gambling for resurrection”) that Maduro was following the very well-known “diversionary theory of war”. As explained succinctly by one scholar: “…unpopular leaders generate foreign policy crises to both divert the public’s attention away from the discontent with their rule and bolster their political fortunes through a rally around the flag effect… Because people tend to react to territorial issues intensely, the embattled leader could attempt to manipulate and exploit this proclivity by launching specifically a territorial conflict.”
On Dec 29, following the Argyle Agreement which was just a feint, Maduro denounced Britain as a “decadent, rotten, ex-empire”, and warned them “not to mess” with Venezuelans who are “warriors” after that country had sent a Patrol Boat off Georgetown. As I wrote in Jan 2024 (Maduro preparing or war) he then launched a military exercise that deployed 5682 soldiers; 3 ocean patrol vessels; 7 missile boats; 12 Sukhoi fighter jets and Amphibious vehicles in manoeuvres to counter the HMS Trent’s 30 sailors. The operation’s enormity signalled that Maduro’s sabre rattling was not an idiosyncratic twitch but his exploitation of historical forces that shape Venezuela’s national psyche and more so its military’s.
Later that same month (“Venezuela’s grey zone war”) I pointed out that Maduro’s Argyle promise to not “threaten or use force” was disingenuous. He was engaged in a “hybrid war” – the use of a range of different methods to attack us as precursor to the traditional “absolute, kinetic wars”, which would eventually come after he wore us down. He was using political, diplomatic, economic, and financial initiatives and the spreading of propaganda, criminality, infiltration by fifth columnists, or attacking important computer systems. The hybrid war was being conducted in what are called “grey zones” – where all instruments of national power are leveraged to achieve the aggressor’s aims.
I reiterated that Maduro’s 2023 appointment of a Governor Guyana Essequiba following his “legitimizing” referendum with the “authority” to award or deny licences continued the normalization of Essequibo as Venezuela’s, so that the final physical occupation – as with Russia in Eastern Ukraine – becomes a fait accompli. After the elections today, any attack will also be accepted by Venezuela’s “all weather friend” China. Didn’t the latter also “settle” a British-drawn border by invading India and defeating their army in 1962 to retain the 38,000 sq km Aksai Chin?
Guyana must prepare for a Venezuelan armed incursion sooner or later – the escalation is inevitable because of its logic.
