By Tamanisha John
Tamanisha J. John is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at York University.
A “letter to the editor” dated 1971 in Sunday Graphic discussing then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham’s alignment with a US imperialist axis warned that “the real security of Guyana lies not in lining up with imperialism, however disguised. But firstly, in solving the internal political problem; and secondly, in pursuing anti-imperialist domestic and foreign policies.” Today more than ever – while the drums of nationalism beat loudly on South America’s Caribbean coast, we must heed that warning. Guyanese, while rightly concerned about Venezuela’s actions in the past month, should be wary of becoming pawns in a geopolitical dispute that puts oil and corporate interests above Guyana, while lavishly awarding those poised to benefit from regional conflict.
On December 3rd, 2023, a referendum was held in Venezuela regarding Guyana’s Essequibo region in which 95% of the over 10 million Venezuelans who voted, agreed that Essequibo should become a state incorporated into Venezuela. Guyanese were rightly taken aback by such a blatant proposal to annex over half of Guyana’s territory. The ludicrous suggestion that the Essequibo should be “incorporated” into Venezuela, and that Indigenous and other Guyanese living in Essequibo would have no say in the annexation wholly determined in Venezuela by Venezuelans, were rightly criticized both within Guyana and internationally. Since then, many of those analyzing the political and security situation between Guyana and Venezuela have labelled these tensions as the closest the two states have ever gotten towards war.
The use of the term “war” in these analyses is a misnomer, somewhat similar to saying “Israel-Palestine war,” given that we are talking about two states with drastically differing levels of capacity and which are also conceived ideologically in different terms by imperialist powers willing to intervene – especially after the Cold War. Since 1962, Venezuela has made claims to Guyana’s Essequibo, rejecting the Arbitral Award it both signed in 1899 and reaffirmed in 1905 and 1932. Nonetheless, from 1962 on, Venezuela and Guyana have never come close to “war,” given that Venezuela’s population size is almost twenty times more than that of Guyana’s and both states, to varying degrees, committed themselves to diplomacy given ideological leanings and/or differing alliances. Today, if Guyana and Venezuela are close to “war,” it is not because there has been any significant change in capacity – Venezuela has a population close to 30 million people and Guyana has a population of less than 1 million people. In real terms, this means that Guyana is – not just historically, but in the present – incapable of handling any “war” with Venezuela.
So how could the two countries have been “close to war” as some analysts claimed? First, it should be directly stated that any assertions that tensions between Guyana and Venezuela would have risen to the level of “war” are false. Not only given the history of tensions between the two states, but also given what the crisis over the past month has been about. As I have argued elsewhere, the crisis which unfolded between Guyana and Venezuela is a crisis of how states become integrated into preferred regimes of Western security, extractivism, and financial governance. It is not the case that Venezuela would have used force against Guyana, precisely given the fact that it was security concerns – regarding what the Venezuelan government sees as a captured Guyanese government by Exxon Mobil and US defense interests – that increased the tensions Venezuela saw itself as having with Guyana. Venezuela’s referendum and its claims to Essequibo over the past month, emerged from clear threats to its own security based on the long US imperialist push for regime change in the country. However, Venezuela’s assertions over the past month on the Essequibo, including statements made about foreign companies poised to operate within it to leave within three months time, also made what Venezuela feared in the first instance all the more likely: western intervention.
Thus, it was the likelihood of western intervention, and not “war” between Guyana and Venezuela, that was the real feared possibility over the past month. Western intervention, with Guyana used as proxy given calls for “help” to deter Venezuela, would have been disastrous for the region. Those who were cheerleading or who anticipated US intervention in this “conflict,” by way of US boots on the ground or the establishment of a US military base in Guyana, were either wholly unaware of how deleterious such an outcome would be for Guyana or were poised to benefit from a situation of calamity that would place the region in unnecessary turmoil. The added economic component of the kinds of debt that Guyana would have to take on to “confront” Venezuela does not even factor in yet to how deleterious such an outcome of “war” or intervention would have been. If some Guyanese say that the oil industry is captured now and the business dealings are unfair, a “war” would both necessitate, and facilitate, the wholesaling of the Guyanese economy for generations to come. Flirting with the suggestion of western intervention – even as a deterrent against Venezuela – is dangerous and makes Guyana further consent to external involvement in its political, economic, and security affairs.
The Venezuelan government proclaimed that its flagrant denial of Guyana’s sovereignty in the present is because Guyana is a captured state by Exxon Mobil. To make this claim, Venezuela would have to believe the Guyanese people are not taking any stand against Exxon – a position that the record would fail to show. Guyanese people have also challenged their own government over its relationship with Exxon – and it should be emphasised that no protest or grievance organised by Guyanese and directed at Exxon and the Government of Guyana has called for interference or intervention by Venezuela; far from it. This is a fact that the Venezuelan government conveniently ignored up until December 14th, when during the dialogue meeting, Nicolás Maduro allegedly used reports and news clippings of Guyanese protests to further the assertion of Guyana’s government being captured. Here it is important to stress that it is Guyanese who must be poised to solve Guyana’s internal problems – not the US, not Exxon, and not Venezuela. Now more than ever, it is up to Guyanese to urge the government to be more responsible in its corporate and state dealings, to reject both dependency and chauvinism that rear their ugly heads in these dealings with external corporations and the state.
Entertaining baseless claims – like the necessity of US boots on the ground or that the Essequibo belongs to Venezuela and will be forcefully taken – paves the way for narrow expressions of nationalism that make the appearance of conflict all the more likely. This was the situation facing both Guyana and Venezuela prior to both states agreeing to dialogue. On December 14th, the President of Guyana, Irfaan Ali, and the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, agreed to meet for a dialogue facilitated by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) Prime Minister, Ralph Gonsalves, and aided by regional members from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) also sent representatives. Ahead of the meeting, it was made clear that Guyana’s territorial integrity was not up for discussion. The meeting was to be diplomatic in nature, stressing the need for mutual respect and the region’s standing as a “zone of peace.” The meeting on December 14th was a diplomatic success, with its conclusion leading to the creation of The Joint Declaration of Argyle for Dialogue and Peace wherein both Guyana and Venezuela agreed that they would neither directly nor indirectly threaten or use force against one another under any circumstances.
Neither state compromised its position during the dialogue; Guyana reaffirmed the United Nations (UN) avenue for dispute settlement at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) per the Geneva Agreement and Venezuela shared its rejection of the ICJ process. Both states reaffirmed peace as a principle within the region, which was a firm denouncement of the “war” and intervention rhetoric that proliferated over the past month. It appears that peace was achieved given the commitment by states in the region stressing a commitment to maintaining the region as a “zone of peace” that adheres to principles of non-intervention. A principle that should also be remembered by CARICOM and CELAC members who champion — or remain silent — when it comes to armed intervention in Haiti. Intervention and occupation, even when the stated end goal is “peace,” is anything but.
It is not just that #EssequiboIsWeOwn or that #GuyanaIsWeOwn too — it is that we all belong to a region that shares, and bears, all the markings of both our collective anti-imperialist struggles and histories of disastrous interventions. This past month has shown that even the threat of intervention creates disastrous possibilities – including the narrow nationalisms that grew stronger in both Guyana and Venezuela. Ultimately, the nationalist rhetoric that has grown over the past month makes fighting for change internally in both countries a lot harder. This was witnessed after the Venezuelan referendum where those not in favour of annexing the Essequibo were criticized by Venezuelan media and/or fined and jailed by the Venezuelan government. Meanwhile in Guyana, public criticism of the relationship between the Guyanese government and Exxon were described by a senior government official as having provided fodder to Venezuela’s claim. Prior to the December 14th meeting, the reprimanding of activists and journalists critiquing Guyana’s relationship with Exxon in Guyana was already happening, and given the current climate, this may only become worse.
While we breathe a sigh of relief that the tense situation between Guyana and Venezuela has calmed, and the threat of intervention has subsided – we must not lose sight of the benefits of reflective criticism. Acknowledging corporate and extractive politics in Guyana for instance, does not legitimate dependency on the West or Venezuelan chauvinism. The recognition of problems internal to Guyana, like foreign capture of the oil industry, should push struggle in the country forward in a progressive direction so that Guyanese can take control of their own futures and destinies.
