It has been said: “What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” While one may doubt the veracity of that statement for all things, it is unquestioned that on Venezuela’s controversy over our Essequibo border, all their leaders since 1962 – when they made their opening gambit at the United Nations – have not deviated from their outrageous claim.
Their manoeuvres since our recent acceptance of bids for some remaining oil blocks in the Atlantic are more of the “same ole same ole”. When President Irfaan Ali responded, by pointing out that Venezuela’s move was an “affront to the rule of international law”, Maduro parried via X (formerly Twitter) that Pres Ali was guilty of “hypocrisy and false victimization.” He was “turning Guyana into a branch of ExxonMobil” and allowing the United States to turn it “into a military base against Bolivar’s Venezuela”.
On September 23, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, Yvan Gil Pinto addressed the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly and once again, 61 years later, took up Maduro’s cudgels and issued what has to be a most bellicose threat against Guyana. He announced that the “Venezuelan National Assembly has unanimously decided to call our people to vote in a consultative referendum to ratify the defence of our sovereign territory against the aggressions of the American empire, which wants to lead us to a war for natural resources”.
The referendum was set for December 3 of this year. There is nothing new under the sun, simply new iterations. In 1962 during the Cold War, the US was creating options that it could use to prevent what it considered to be a Moscow-leaning PPP from taking office and now the shoe is on the other foot with Venezuela accusing the US of having designs on its resources. Economics has simply replaced ideology as the incentive.
While some assert that Maduro has an eye on elections that are due next year and for which he has agreed to several Opposition demands to ensure there is greater transparency in the electoral arrangements, this is quite irrelevant for Guyana. Article 7 of the Venezuelan Constitution declares, “The national territory is that which belonged to the Captaincy General of Venezuela before the political transformation initiated in 1810, with the modifications resulting from treaties validly concluded by the Republic.”
Venezuela, of course, does not consider the 1899 Arbitral Award that demarcated our boundary with them as “valid”. All Venezuelans have been inculcated with this position as an article of faith and it is immaterial whether Venezuela’s elections are free and fair or not. A referendum will give whichever government emerges next year, the mandate to become more aggressive on their claims to our Essequibo.
Against this background, we have to also take into consideration that the World Court will be announcing its judgement on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award that had settled the border between us conclusively and which had been accepted by Venezuela. Even though Venezuela has fought a long rearguard action to prevent the controversy from being settled judicially, it has been unsuccessful in persuading the court that their jurisdiction is not in accordance with the terms of the Geneva Agreement, which it signed in 1966. It is clear Venezuela knows the judgement will be in our favour since the matter is very clear and in accordance with international law.
The heightened presence of Venezuelan troops at the border which followed Maduro’s and his Foreign Minister’s bellicosity is not coincidental and certainly not merely to deal with “illegal gold mining”. At best, that might be the occasion for the troops’ presence but not the cause.
The war in Gaza should remind us that when one nation believes it has overwhelming military forces versus its enemy, it can become emboldened towards impetuous moves. Venezuela invaded us in 1966 and seized our half of Ankoko island: we must prevent it from seizing even another blade of grass.