This Sunday (3), in a referendum in which oppositionists indicated a large abstention, the Venezuelan population approved that Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship take measures to annex more than 160 thousand square kilometers of territory in neighboring Guyana west of the Essequibo River, which correspond to approximately 70% of Guyanese territory and over which Caracas has claimed sovereignty since the 19th century.
The five questions in the consultation had more than 90% approval and indicate a conflicting path: among the points endorsed are rejecting an 1899 Paris arbitration ruling that granted sovereignty over the region to the British Empire, of which Guyana was still a colony. ; recognize only the 1966 Geneva Agreement, which determined control of the area by the Guyanese, but admitted Venezuela’s challenge, as acceptable jurisprudence on the subject; reject arbitration by the International Court of Justice (ICJ); and transform the area into the Venezuelan state of Guiana Essequiba.
Although many have the impression that South America is a region without military disputes, the subcontinent is the scene of internal conflicts (such as the clashes between the Colombian State and left-wing guerrillas, still ongoing) and has seen extremely violent wars between countries , such as those in Chaco and Paraguay. The most recent conflict between states in the region was the Cenepa War, fought between 1995 by Peru and Ecuador.
Twenty-eight years later, the shadow of international war is once again projected over South America. Experts warn that, although there is little prospect of victory for the Venezuelan dictatorship, an invasion could be Maduro’s next step.
Reserve major and risk analyst Nelson Ricardo Fernandes Silva pointed out the great disproportionality of military force between Venezuela and Guyana.
“Venezuela today has relatively well-equipped armed forces, if we consider the South American theater, it has Russian equipment, a series of things… taking into account that there is a historical claim that it [Maduro] presented, he has the support of the population, he needs to draw attention to other corners, to divert inflation and other issues, he gets a popular outcry on the topic and the possibility of getting his hands on an area rich in oil”, said Silva, that highlighted the interests of another actor.
“It would be fantastic for Russia to have another source of disruption for the United States, France and other countries. I think it is very possible that there will be stronger friction in the region. Everything is heading in that direction”, stated the analyst.
For Igor Macedo de Lucena, economist and member of the British think tank Chatham House, Maduro’s intention with the dispute, revived after the American company ExxonMobil discovered large oil reserves in the Guyanese territorial sea in 2015, is clearly to take the focus away from problems internal affairs and create a kind of national unity around an issue, on the eve of elections that, if fought cleanly, should remove Chavismo from power after more than 24 years.
“They say there is nothing better than an external conflict to erase an internal problem,” said Lucena.
“The question is whether Maduro would have the courage and capacity to do this [iniciar uma guerra], knowing that the United Kingdom will not accept that a Commonwealth country is attacked, nor that the United States will allow its companies that are investing billions in the region to be affected. But, in the same way, no one expected a territorial advance by Russia over Ukraine,” said the analyst.
Similarities with Putin
Lucena pointed out that some of Maduro’s measures are similar to those that his partner Vladimir Putin adopted in the two invasions of Ukraine: the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the widespread war that began in February 2022.
One of them is the deployment of troops on the border with Guyana, which Maduro says officially have only the objective of combating illegal mining – in the same way, Moscow denied until the last moment last year that the military deployed near the border with Ukraine were a threat to the neighboring country.
Another point is “an accelerated plan to fully serve the current and future population” of Guyana Essequiba, which would include granting citizenship to the 125,000 people who live there, most of them indigenous communities.
“Putin openly gave passports to anyone who entered a Russian administration in Crimea and [os cidadãos] Russians came out of there. Mature can say that there [no Essequibo] there is a large population of neo-Venezuelans and he goes there to defend them from an attack by the Guyanese government, all kinds of ideas to distort public opinion and make an attack ‘legitimate’, when in fact this threat does not exist. It’s the whole plot of an invasion, the question is whether he’s going to buy into a military fight that he has no chance of winning,” said Lucena.
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