Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, taking into account the results of the controversial referendum on the border with neighboring Guyana, declared the western part of this country – Essequibo – as the 24th state of Venezuela.
At the parliamentary session on Tuesday, he proposed the adoption of a corresponding bill.
Maduro also ordered Venezuela’s state oil company to immediately begin issuing licenses to extract oil, gas and other minerals in resource-rich Essequibo.
Oil companies working on concessions granted by Guyana must cease operations within three months, the President said.
“Only for the better. With respect for international law, with respect for laws, with respect for good neighborly relations,” Maduro said.
Soon, all educational institutions in Venezuela will receive a new national map, which will also include the state of Guyana-Essequiba, he added.
Venezuela has announced that 95% of voters in a referendum on Sunday supported the country’s territorial claims to the Essequibo region, which is claimed by both Caracas and Guyana.
It’s “a clear and overwhelming victory for ‘yes’ in this consultative referendum,” said Elvis Amoroso, chairman of the National Electoral Council.
About 10.5 million of Venezuela’s 20.7 million eligible voters took part in the consultative referendum, Caracas said.
For decades, Venezuela has claimed the Essequibo region, which is more than two-thirds the size of Guyana and home to 125,000 of the country’s 800,000 citizens.
Guyana, a former British and Dutch colony, insists that the border with Venezuela was determined by an arbitration commission back in 1899. However, Venezuela claims that the natural border is formed by the Essequibo River, located in the east of the disputed territory, and that this border has also been recognized historically.
Territorial disagreements have intensified since 2015, when “ExxonMobil” came across oil deposits in the Essequibo region. The Caracas referendum was announced after Georgetown began auctioning oil fields in August.
Guyana asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to stop the referendum, and the court on Friday called on Caracas to refrain from any actions that could change the current “status quo” in the Essequibo region, but did not mention the referendum.
Guyana fears that the referendum could pave the way for Venezuela to unilaterally and illegally seize the neighboring country’s territory.
2023-12-06 10:13:45
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