All indications are that Venezuela
is set to use its military might to annex a huge chunk of Guyana’s sovereign oil-rich
offshore territorial waters. With the Guyana Defence Force no match for
Venezuela's arsenal of fighter jets, tanks, vessels and troops, the only
strategic option available is to immediately seek the protection of the United
States, with an urgent request for U.S. military aircraft carriers to be
deployed off Guyana’s Atlantic coast.
President Barack Obama has
already officially listed Venezuela as a threat to the national security of the
United States and consequently sanctioned seven of the Spanish-speaking nation’s
officials for human rights abuses. There can be no denying that any threat to
America’s national security from Venezuela is also a threat to Guyana’s as well, given the fact that U.S. companies will be spearheading Guyana’s evolving oil
industry.
In early May 2015, U.S. oil giant
ExxonMobil announced the discovery of significant deposits of oil in the
Stabroek Block offshore Guyana. With a population of under a million, the new
oil industry could propel Guyana from a little-known Third World 83,000
square-miles nation, into economic supremacy.
Venezuela, which has an illegal
claim to a major part of Guyana’s territory, is upset over its neighbour’s recent historic discovery of “elephant oil wells” offshore, which
the Guyana government has said are comparable to those of West Africa. With the
discovery of oil in Guyana in such mind-boggling quantities, President Nicholas
Maduro of Venezuela is finding it difficult to concede that the geo-political
landscape in the Caribbean is about to change forever.
In his desperation to stifle
Guyana's development and maintain the balance of power, President Maduro has
taken the road of psycho-politics by way of a decree extending its territorial
claim to include most of Guyana's territorial waters, effectively land locking
the country.
Venezuelan military jets
Raphael Trotman, Guyana’s
Minister of Governance, defied Venezuela’s threats of aggression in a
parliamentary speech this week, warning Maduro not to underestimate Guyana’s
desire to defend itself. Minister Trotman must not only be commended, but
should communicate Guyana’s official position through diplomatic channels to
whip up international opposition against all acts of aggression towards Guyana
by the Venezuelans.
Of note too, is the fact that the
opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/Civic) should be in parliament
so that Guyana can speak with a united voice on this subject of national
defence. Even if the PPP/C has a problem with the election results, it should
realize that boycotting parliament, in protest of losing a free and fear
election, at a time when the country is facing an imminent invasion from a more
powerful neighbour, only makes Guyana appear weaker in the eyes of the Venezuelans.
Ironically, any aggression by
Venezuela could destabilize the already fragile economic climate in the
Spanish-speaking nation which has seen its fair share of discontent and domesttic unrest because of shortages of basic necessities. Perhaps the hand-picked successor to
late leftist President Hugo Chavez feels that annexation of sovereign territory
is a quick fix to his country’s economic woos.
Quoting verbatim from The
Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s leading newspapers: “In the
serene private clubs of Caracas, there is no milk, and the hiss of the
cappuccino machine has fallen silent. In the slums, the lights go out every few
days, or the water stops running. In the grocery stores, both state-run shops
and expensive delicatessens, customers barter information: I saw soap here,
that store has rice today. The oil engineers have immigrated to Calgary, the
soap opera stars fled to Mexico and Colombia. And in the beauty parlours of
this nation obsessed with elaborate grooming, women both rich and poor have cut
back to just one blow-dry or manicure each week.” (With oil
economy running on fumes, Venezuela on the edge of the apocalypse: The Globe
and Mail, Toronto, February 12, 2014)
Ever since Guyana's new
government assumed power on May 11, 2015, led by retired Brigadier, President
David Granger, Guyana has told Venezuela in no uncertain terms that it will use
all the national, regional and international resources available to it to
protect its territorial integrity.
A Guyana Defence Force helicopter
Back in the late the 1980s when
former president of Guyana Desmond Hoyte implemented his Economic Recovery
Program (ERP), backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government
was restricted from military spending and was forced to focus on economic
development. Consequently, the Guyana Defence Force suffered severely from a lack
of funding to purchase modern aircraft and vessels. With this in mind, it is imperative
that Guyana uses the projected profits from its recently discovered oil to retool
the Coast Guard and the Guyana Defence Force Air Corps to effectively challenge
any offensive from Venezuela.
The May 2015 decree by President
Maduro to extend Venezuela's original territorial claim to a major portion of
Guyana's territory, to include the English-speaking nation's vital offshore waters, is a
blatant attempt at ensuring that Guyana remains underdeveloped for another 40
years and dependent on Venezuelan oil. 
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