Dear Editor,
On Tuesday December 5, 2023 Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro directed the country’s state-owned companies to “immediately” begin to explore and exploit the oil, gas and mines in Guyana’s Essequibo territory that Venezuela claims as its own. Such an announcement followed swiftly on the heels of a week-end referendum, where the President got the victory he sought on whether to claim sovereignty over the territory. Maduro said he would “immediately” proceed “to grant operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in the entire area of Essequibo.” He also ordered the creation of local subsidiaries of Venezuelan public companies, including oil giant PDVSA and mining conglomerate Corporación Venezolana de Guayana.
Military officials in the country announced that Venezuela is taking concrete measures to build an airstrip that would serve as a logistical support point for the integral development of the Essequibo. The Hague, the United Nations highest court ordered Venezuela to take no action that would change Guyana’s control over Essequibo, although they did not particularly ban officials from conducting the five question referendum. Guyana had beseeched the court to order Venezuela to halt parts of the vote.
The territorial dispute dates back to 1899, and an arbitration award by an international tribunal that drew the border between the two nations in favour of Guyana, which was then a British colony. The country has always considered Essequibo as its own because the region was within its boundaries during the Spanish colonial period, and it has long disputed the border decided by international arbitrators in 1899 when Guyana was still a British colony. Over the years Venezuela’s commitment to pursue the territorial claim has fluctuated.
In 2015 when ExxonMobil announced it had found oil in commercial quantities off the Essequibo coast, its interest piqued again. The deep-water discovery is expected to boost Exxon’s production by a whopping 750,000 barrels per day by 2025 and quickly transform Guyana into a major oil power. On December 18, 2020, The Hague ruled that it would intervene to settle the decade-old border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela. Venezuela refused to participate in legal arguments on the issue, arguing that the World Court did not have jurisdiction, and could not hear the case in the absence of involvement of the United Kingdom, Guyana’s colonial master at the time of the original border decision.
On the other hand, Guyana argued that Britain ceased to have any involvement in the case once the country gained its independence in 1966, and that Venezuela was using this argument as a delay tactic. The International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top court, ordered Venezuela not to take any action to change the status quo until the panel can rule on the competing claim of the two countries, which could take years. Followers of world politics are aware that Maduro and his henchmen have driven Venezuela to financial and mental ruin, in so much that the remaining residents are displaying elements of amnesia and mental barrenness. The President falsified earlier balloting, hoping to hold on to office next year, and using the issue with Guyana as a redemptive stronghold, a clear effort to rally further pre-election support.
Guyana has to do all in its power to foil Maduro’s contrived exploitation of our well -deserved oil. Maduro has a date with the U.S State Department, where recently Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was unequivocal in his statement that conditions not met would result in previously-lifted sanctions being snapped back into place. In October 2023, the United States lifted some sanctions on oil and gold exports, after the Maduro government and the Venezuelan opposition, known as the Unitary Platform, signed an agreement in Barbados setting out a road map to free and fair elections next year. It is plain for all to see that the autocrat Maduro is on a roll to gain control, using the dispute as a cover up for his failings. Regardless of rank, Guyanese should unite and ensure the country gets its due and Venezuela gets not a ha’penny of our oil revenue.
Sincerely,
Y. Sam
