VenEconomy: Will Venezuela’s Maduro Provoke Major Crisis in a Bid to Regain Popular Support? From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune June 19, 2015
The claims of Venezuela to the Essequibo region of Guyana were settled 116 years ago with the decision of a high-level arbitration panel that (a) confirmed the exclusive rights of Venezuela to navigate the Orinoco River, and (b) assigned most of the land area in question to Great Britain.
More than 60 years later, in 1962, Rómulo Betancourt, then President of Venezuela, contested that Arbitral Award of 1899.
And, in 1966, when Guyana achieved its independence, the conflict went from the small Venezuela against the giant British Empire to the powerful Venezuela against the impoverished former British colony.
That year, Venezuela and Guyana agreed to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, and this way the UN was appointed as a facilitator of the negotiations in 1970.
Since then, different Venezuelan governments have sought to resolve the dispute, without any success.
Since his arrival on power, the late Hugo Chávez abandoned the effort to resolve the dispute partly by pressures from Fidel Castro (an ally of Guyana who had been using the country as a refueling station for his planes during the war in Angola) and, partly, because he didn’t want to offend members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), whose support was crucial in international forums such as the OAS and the UN.
Chávez neither defined the maritime boundaries of Venezuela with Guyana, thus facilitating Guyana the awarding of oil exploration contracts in blocks in the own Guyana region, in disputed areas and in areas that clearly belonged to Venezuela.
Now, with Nicolás Maduro at the helm of power, a new chapter of this legendary dispute has begun, when an exploration platform of ExxonMobil struck oil in one of those blocks: Stabroek.
The first reaction of the Maduro government was accusing ExxonMobil for violating its territory, and not Guyana as the one who awarded the concession.
Months later, on May 27, the Government took a turn in its complacency with Guyana and went to the other extreme: it decreed a "defense zone" that includes most part of the waters in the disputed area, without any access to the Atlantic. With this, it unnecessarily worsened the border dispute.
Guyana did not take long in issuing a well-reasoned statement from the legal point of view that was rejected by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry for its "exaggerated wording and false claims," and accused the new government of Guyana of displaying a dangerous policy of "provocation against the Bolivarian Venezuela of peace," supported by the "imperial power of a U.S.-based company such as ExxonMobil."
The new dispute: the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry requested an early meeting of foreign ministers to address the issue. Guyana resorted to the UN Secretary-General to legally solve this territorial dispute.
With its clumsy and illegal decree, the Venezuelan government served Guyana on a silver platter an excuse to make the UN and international tribunals take action on this matter.
It is inferred from all this that the Maduro administration is seeking to provoke a major crisis that would help it regain popular support – today highly reduced – with a view to the parliamentary elections this year.
For now, the strategy is limited to accuse ExxonMobil for having violated the Venezuelan waters, as evidenced by statements of the Foreign Ministry and claims of Ángel Rodríguez, the head of the Latin American Parliament-Venezuela Chapter and lawmaker for the ruling party PSUV, who argues that the operations of ExxonMobil in Essequibo waters "seek to impose a war agenda in South America, as part of the strategy of the most radical sectors of the U.S. to take control of the huge deposits of crude oil across the continent."
The allegations could soon be against the new government of Guyana and (why not?) a naval and military mobilization toward the eastern border of the country.
If so, it would be confirmed that the Government’s intention is to provoke a crisis and that Venezuelans, including those of the opposition, will close ranks behind their "leader" (Maduro) in the "patriotic defense" of the Venezuelan border.
Perhaps Maduro will lose the support of CARICOM, but would win an election.
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