Venezuela unveils strategy to seize two-thirds of Guyana’s territory

Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro refuses to back down from his country’s dangerous mission to deny Guyana the right to exist as a sovereign state, by illegally claiming two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, and Atlantic sea, as its own. It matters not how the chips fall, but Maduro’s madness must be stopped by all means necessary.

Maduro and his long line of predecessors’ illegal claim,  although settled by adjudication in 1899 by a United Nations Tribunal, in favour of Guyana, would leave hundreds of thousands of Guyanese, stateless, homeless, dispossessed, displaced and trapped forever in a strange Spanish-speaking enclave, forever cut off from their family and friends, as has happened on the Korean peninsula.

President Nicholas Maduro

President Maduro is apparently now suffering a psychotic meltdown by accusing little Guyana of orchestrating a sophisticated covert international conspiracy with Western governments, to create political instability within Venezuela.

It is not surprising that President of Guyana David Granger and Charge d'Affaires of the United States Embassy in Guyana, Bryan Hunt, both moved swiftly to dismiss President Maduro’s outrageous claims that the two countries were colluding to destabilize Venezuela.

All Guyanese in the diaspora must add their voice to the condemnation of Venezuela by reviving the ‘Not a Blade of Grass’ campaign. In my opinion, instead of worrying about a 2 am. drinking curfew, people should spend more time worrying about an annexation of Essequibo and its Atlantic waters. Those who disagree with this view should begin learning Spanish from now.

Breaking news out of Caracas over the weekend, indicates that Venezuela’s annexation of Essequibo, an area of about 150,000 square kilometers, is imminent in the light of Guyana’s recent discovery of significant oil deposits by ExxonMobil off-shore its Atlantic Coast. This find resulted in President Maduro issuing two decrees giving his military authority to operate in Guyana’s waters.

On Friday, Venezuela’s dangerous war games with Guyana came to a head with Caracas-based media outfit, El Universal quoting Retired colonel Pompeyo Torrealba Rivero, Advisor to President Nicholas Nicolás Maduro on Essequibo, as saying the government of Venezuela proposes to:

1. Issue identity cards to the 200,000 estimated inhabitants of the Essequibo
2. Launch a diplomatic strategy to recover the territory of the Essequibo.
3. Teach the matter of the Essequibo as a subject in universities and elementary and high schools.
4. Initiate an awareness campaign to make the population of Guyana understand that the territory belongs to Venezuela.
5. Set up a presidential or diplomatic initiative addressing the matter of the Essequibo.
6. Contact the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, to urge him to advocate Venezuela's right over the territory of the Essequibo.

President David Granger

Maduro seems bent on committing criminal economic sabotage against Guyana by threatening and actually using military force against foreign investors in Guyana’s Essequibo region. Two cases in point are President Maduro’s October 2013 military eviction of U.S. seismic oil exploration vessel, RV Teknik Perdana, from Guyana’s territorial waters and the proposed Dallas-based Beal Aerospace rocket launch site in Essequibo. After intense pressure from Venezuela, Beal cancelled the US$100M investment in 2000.

Despite diplomatic rhetoric and assurances to Guyana, Maduro has long lost his credibility as evidenced by his actions which counter everything that comes out of his mouth regarding his baseless territorial claim to two-thirds of Guyana, and now a huge chunk of its territorial sea, land-locking the English-Speaking nation of 750,000 people.

In fact, Venezuela has ramped up its aggression against Guyana by recalling its ambassador to Georgetown; refusing to renew a rice-for-oil deal with Guyana, thus undermining the critical rice industry; reducing the personnel at the Venezuelan embassy in Georgetown to a mere skeleton staff; directing its foreign minister to review all diplomatic relations with Guyana; and giving its military generals authority to conduct military exercises and manoeuvres in Guyana's territorial waters.

Venezuela is claiming the red part of the map of Guyana.

The road ahead will not be easy as Venezuela will use all the diplomatic and other resources available to it to take the Essequibo region, but Guyana must also continue to build a fortified global alliance not only by diplomatic rhetoric by friendly countries, but by signing official communiques of support.

Guyana currently enjoys the support of CARICOM, the Commonwealth group of nations and the United Kingdom. The United States has said that it is interested in a peaceful resolution and supports Guyana’s desire to have the border controversy settled judicially at the international level once and for all.