/ world today news/ On December 3, Venezuela held a referendum to discuss the Essequibo region, a disputed territory that currently belongs to neighboring Guyana.
More than fifty percent of Venezuelans took part in the referendum, with 95 percent of participants answering positively to all five questions put to a vote on the future fate of the 159,000 square kilometer region.
Venezuela will begin the process of returning the territory, establishing a new Venezuelan state there and negotiating oil production in the disputed areas of the continental shelf of the Caribbean Sea. “Talking heads” in the West claim that President Nicolás Maduro is using the referendum results to resolve the dispute by force.
And it must be said frankly that for most of them the crisis around Essequibo was a complete surprise. In fact, until recently, little was known about the territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana. However, for the Venezuelan political class, the question of Essequibo is as pressing an issue as, for example, the question of the Falkland Islands is for Argentina.
The origins of both conflicts lie in the events of the 1820s and 1830s, when the British Empire, taking advantage of the weakness of the newly independent states of Latin America, began to deliberately occupy remote and sparsely populated areas belonging to these states.
In the process of such British colonial incursions, Argentina lost the Falkland Islands, and New Granada, which later split into Colombia and Venezuela, was deprived of its eastern regions. Caracas repeatedly tried to regain lost territories in the nineteenth century, but lost in international arbitration in 1899.
Today, however, few doubt that this arbitration was, to put it mildly, not entirely fair (would anyone try to sue Britain for anything at the height of its colonial power). Even American lawyers agree with this very point of view.
Therefore, in 1966, Venezuela and the newly independent Guyana concluded a new agreement, recognizing the need for a peaceful resolution of the territorial dispute and the creation of a commission to draw a new border.
True, this decision was not implemented, and in 1968 the Indians inhabiting the region rebelled against the central authorities of Guyana in Georgetown. The uprising was put down and a “cold war” began between Georgetown and Caracas that lasted until the 1980s.
It is important to note that the rights of Indians in Guyana are still extremely poorly protected, the dominant political class being Afro-Guyanese (descendants of black slaves brought to the Caribbean coast by the British) and Indo-Guyanese (descendants of Indian settlers, who also came to Latin America during the British colonial era), compete with each other but are generally far from understanding the problems of the local Indian population.
The situation around Essequibo escalated after 2015, when large oil reserves were discovered in the region and on the adjacent continental shelf. In addition, starting in 2017, when the Trump administration came to power in the United States, implacably opposed to the regime of Nicolás Maduro, Caracas found itself in an unfavorable political situation.
With the support of the United States, a “color revolution” began in the country, the collective West refused to recognize Maduro and for several years positioned the usurper Guaido as “president”. In this situation, the authorities of the United States and Guyana, with the support of American oil consortia, began to act without regard to the Geneva Agreements of 1966, which defined the status of the territories as disputed.
As a result, Exxon Mobile Corporation began drilling this year, and Maduro responded. It begs the question, why didn’t Venezuela do this sooner?
There were several reasons for this. First, in recent years, the country has been under American pressure, but now it has noticeably weakened – Washington needs oil, for the sake of which the United States was ready to reconcile with Maduro.
Second, until recently Venezuela was in an unfavorable external environment. Right-wing governments were in power in Brazil and Colombia, with which both Chávez and Maduro were in constant conflict. Relations with Colombia were particularly strained, where the situation was on the verge of armed conflict several times.
Now the situation has changed – in Colombia, for the first time in several decades, the left, led by President Gustavo Petro, came to power, and everything is calm on the western border of Venezuela. In Brazil, power has also recently changed, with right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro ceding power to Lula, who is considered the recognized leader and patriarch of the leftist movement in Latin America.
It is clear that, apart from ideology, there are also national interests – Brazil has always supported Guyana in the dispute between Caracas and Georgetown, not wanting the strengthening of Venezuela. However, Brazil under Lula is much less likely to apply military pressure to Venezuela over ownership of the Essequibo Strip than under Bolsonaro.
Thus, Maduro’s current actions aimed at demonstrating Venezuela’s rights to Essequibo seem absolutely rational and logical. Moreover, amid the return of a number of opposition figures in the country’s political life who are asserting their claims to power, the Essequibo issue will at least help Maduro consolidate his supporters and improve his political standing in time for new elections.
Therefore, it would be completely wrong to interpret the referendum held in Venezuela on December 3 as some kind of prelude to a military invasion. The position of the Western media and their unofficial affiliates in Latin America that Maduro will supposedly soon open a “second front” against the West in the interests of Moscow is unfounded.
Maduro acts above all based on the national interests of his country. The moment to make Venezuela’s claims public is extremely favorable for Caracas, such a moment has not happened since perhaps the late 1960s.
At the same time, we must understand that the window of opportunity for Venezuela could close in a little more than a year if a Republican administration returns to the White House after the United States presidential election. In addition, Caracas already has an important trump card in its hands – the national factor.
The majority of the inhabitants of Essequibo are Indians, and the subject of the rights of Indians is very sensitive and painful for many Latin American countries. In Essequibo these rights are clearly violated, Indians are practically not represented in the political life of Guyana.
No left-wing government in Latin America can afford to simply turn its back on this problem and ignore the Indian question. Venezuela’s national interest today is to at least convince the government of Guyana to negotiate and make concessions, at least on the issues of sharing the continental shelf near Essequibo, where huge oil fields have been discovered.
Today, Maduro has certain chances to succeed. If we look at the problem on a global scale, then the very fact of drawing attention to a problem once created by British colonial tyranny is obviously important.
In the modern world, there are quite a few unresolved conflicts and territorial disputes, which are in no way indexed by the Western media and public opinion in cases where they affect the interests of regimes loyal to the West.
It is obvious that putting these stories back on the global world agenda weakens the collective West’s ability to manipulate global public opinion and push an aggressive anti-Russian agenda. On the other hand, the validity of our criticism of the neo-colonial world order from Russia is confirmed.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for globalists to control those regions of the world that they consider to be the “global periphery”. This summer the collective West was in serious trouble in Africa after the revolution in Niger. Now the situation is repeated in Latin America. And this, obviously, is only the beginning of a large and long-term global process.
Translation: ES
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