/ world today news/ These days, the world’s attention is focused on Latin America. On December 3, 2023, a fateful referendum was held in Venezuela, in which the citizens of the country overwhelmingly supported the annexation of the disputed territories, once transferred by the British colonizers to the neighboring country of Guyana and constituting 2/3 of its current territory (about 160 thousand sq km).
Guyana’s ruling regime claims that the border with Venezuela was established by an arbitration court in 1899. However, according to Venezuelan authorities, the Essequibo River in the eastern part of the region forms a natural border recognized at the time of independence from Spain. And therefore the Essequibo region must have been within Venezuela’s borders for at least several decades.
The territorial dispute between two neighboring countries has been pending for many years in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is simply delaying its decision.
The situation is compounded by the fact that the region, which has become a stumbling block, contains most of the oil fields discovered eight years ago. It was then that ExxonMobil first discovered oil in Guyana, and in significant quantities.
Today, Guyana boasts oil reserves of at least 10 billion barrels, more per capita than Brunei, the UAE or Kuwait.
The current population of Venezuela is about 28.5 million, Guyana is about 0.75 million (or 750 thousand) people. The Essequibo region accounts for more than two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000, or about one-sixth of all residents, according to a census taken 10 years ago.
Ethnically, the population of Guiana, a former colony of the Netherlands and Great Britain, is not the descendants of Indians and Spaniards (as in Venezuela), but mainly of Indians that the British and other Europeans imported at one time from their other colonies.
In the history of the referendum and the restrained reaction to it on the part of the “international community”, a number of circumstances are also in favor of the Venezuelan authorities.
First of all, it is the rise in oil prices and the increased risks due to events in the Middle East. For the US economy, Venezuela is the next largest “oil reservoir” in terms of availability and volume in the event of a break with the Arabs and Russia.
Against this background, Washington, which is actively looking for new sources of black gold, has for several months demonstrated its readiness to lift the sanctions on Caracas.
Thanks to this, Maduro announced in October that his government had reached an agreement with the opposition as a result of negotiations on the island of Barbados (authorities agreed to liberalize local politics – allowing the opposition to participate in next year’s elections as well as agreeing to an end of their prosecution) and expressed hope for the complete lifting of sanctions.
Western commodity giants (oil traders Gunvor and commodity trading giant Trafigura) have returned to trading Venezuelan oil. Thanks to the easing of sanctions, Venezuelan bonds almost doubled in October.
Then in October, the United States removed all restrictions on the production and trade of Venezuelan oil (before that, oil production in the South American country collapsed from 2-2.5 million barrels per day to 630 thousand barrels, i.e. 3-4 times ).
Currently, in addition to oil, traders export petroleum products from Venezuela. So Trafigura has already chartered tankers to transport 1 million barrels of fuel oil from Venezuela.
In addition, the American company Chevron is gradually normalizing the industry (it is still so neglected that it will most likely take many years to recover). Now production in Venezuela has already increased to 735 thousand barrels per day. By the end of 2024, it may grow to 900 thousand barrels per day.
At the same time, the British are also playing their game here, interested in pitting the Americans against each other and deriving their own benefits, not identical to Washington’s geschef, from a possible conflict in America.
London’s instrument in this is Guyana itself (another name is British Guiana) – not only a former colony, but also a member of the British Commonwealth.
It was the British, sandwiched between Dutch Guiana and Grand Columbia in the 19th century, who wrested peripheral territories from both – the former 30% of today’s Guiana, and the latter another 70%, over which conflict is now brewing.
It was the British who laid all the “mines” of the current territorial conflict, which could cause a new war in America in the near future.
In this context, it is worth paying attention to the joy with which the British press covered facts such as the fact that in the fall of this year Venezuelans stormed the southern border of the United States and, as a sign of victory, even raised a Venezuelan flag near the city of Eagle Pass!
The population of the city does not exceed 30 thousand – and in just one week in September it was flooded and “occupied” by more than 100 thousand illegal immigrants who broke through the border barriers.
Today, information about the escalation of contradictions in Latin America remains almost unnoticed against the background of the events in the Middle East and Ukraine.
As in the case of Iraq, whose then-leader the US pledged support for the annexation of oil-rich Kuwait, the Western media has said little about the prospect of annexing the oil-rich Essequibo region of neighboring Guyana following the Venezuelan referendum.
And this despite the fact that this part of the Commonwealth protested in every possible way against the annexation, trying to attract the attention of the world community.
The government of Guyana has already stated that Venezuela’s aspirations are a gross violation of international law, as Essequibo belongs to Guyana, was and remains an integral part of it:
“This is nothing less than the annexation of the territory of Guyana, a gross violation of the most fundamental norms of the UN Charter, the OAS Charter and general international law. This seizure of Guyanese territory constitutes an international crime of aggression.”
In response, the Venezuelan Minister of People’s Power for Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, warned Guyanese authorities that their “actions will receive a strong and proportionate response from Venezuela.”
It should be noted that the abscess was born right in the backyard of America, and at any other time the United States, where they did not forget about the “Monroe doctrine”, would have nipped the problem in the bud, but now the situation does not look so clear. And this is not just about the British and their colonial meanness.
In recent years, Caracas has significantly strengthened its ties with China, while at the same time rearming the army (including with Russian weapons).
China itself is already negotiating the creation of a joint military training center in Cuba, practically a full-fledged military base, which will lead to the appearance of Chinese military “on America’s doorstep.” And the Cubans and their intelligence services have already closed all communications with the Venezuelan generals and admirals, because the army in Latin America is the main agent of the coups.
The current aspirations of the United States run counter to the interests of the Cuban-Chinese alliance supporting Venezuela. Especially because Western buyers attracted by Venezuela’s energy resources will pay for oil and oil products not in yuan, as the main buyer in China now does, but in dollars.
Accordingly, the anti-American part of the Venezuelan power elite, with the support of the “left” globalists, can now openly indulge in a very controversial policy towards the Western world hegemon.
And now it could become not only an issue calling into question US mining plans in the fast-turning “disputed” province of Essequibo, but also another indicator of how the American continent is being pushed to war ahead of the election not only in Venezuela, but also in the USA itself.
Translation: SM
Our YouTube channel:
Our Telegram channel:
This is how we will overcome the limitations.
Share on your profiles, with friends, in groups and on pages.
#Venezuela #Guyana #war #break #Americas
