Dear Editor,
I posit that one can get a sense of the real motive behind the Venezuelan bullying from its history. Throughout the years Venezuela has demonstrated that it has no regard for treaties it signs as a result of arbitration. The permanence of the settlement depends on the Venezuelan calculus of its relative military strength and its perception of its economic losses through the award. Venezuela contested the award between itself and Colombia. After an arbitration of the Venezuelan-Colombian border in 1898, Venezuela claimed that it had been resolved mostly in Colombia’s favour because of collusion involving the Spanish Queen Maria Cristina.
After another treaty with Colombia was ratified in the Venezuelan Congress allegations were made that Colombia was using the treaty to encroach on Venezuela’s sovereignty.
The national anthem of Venezuela contains the following words “Gloria al bravo pueblo” (Glory to the brave people). Now this is how brave the Venezuelans are. Their latest maps show that they have thought better of showing a piece of Colombia as part of Venezuela and their chances of converting their wishful thinking into substance as far as that country is concerned I suspect that the relative strength of the Colombian military must have something to do with it. Of course, they do not dare to even think of a contest with Brazil. However, about two generations of Venezuelans have gone to bed seeing the Essequibo region stitched onto their map with the title “Zona en Reclamación” (Reclamation zone).
Venezuela became independent in 1830 with only 880,000 people, about 100, 000 more than Guyana has now. So she has had 185 years of independence. Guyana has not had 50. What has Venezuela done with those years? Venezuela has been profligate and has squandered her oil wealth by remaining prisoner to the oil economy. In recent times in particular, diversification has been dramatically reduced, so that 96% of her export income comes from oil. You can imagine what that means now the oil price has dropped.
Compare Colombia and Brazil, each of which manufactures anything you can think about – in the case of Brazil even fighter jets. After 185 years of independence, Venezuela is now where Guyana was before the ERP was launched in 1989 – currency with a wishful official rate, long queues for little on sale such as toilet paper – Venezuelans accompanied by their Guyanese tour guides have been spotted purchasing electronic goods in our stores lately.
What we have is this bravo pueblo preferring to turn its back on an enemy in its own class and create one out of a neighbour whose development it blocked from birth and whom it has from time to time used to indulge its national conceit and its propensity to take its frustrations out on its neighbours.
So much for the motivation and bravery. How do you take such a belligerent stand and call a neighbour “sister” at the same time? First you wait until all the witnesses have died and then challenge the 1899 award. Then to cast aspersions as regards your real motive for the claim you wait until oil is found in waters you have no right to by international law or any other for that matter, and then you claim the whole caboodle.
It is tempting to blame the Venezuelan President, but he was responding to the urgings from the bravo pueblo in the opposition who want Guyanese patrimony to demonstrate to the world how rich and powerful they are.
What can we do? A good start has been made by the demonstrators. But we need to go further. We need to let the world know how cowardly this bravo pueblo really is. We need to build on the work of Joel Benjamin who moved around educating our people on what the spurious claim was about. We need some jerseys with slogans like, ‘A Venezuelan claim is one that is already settled!’ and ‘Abajo cadenas Abajo los cobardes!’ (“Abajo Cadenas” is a line from their national anthem.) Each one should be superimposed on a map of Venezuela.
We should not be deceived by the inclusion of Colombian and Surinamese waters in the latest edition of the spurious claim. That is a smokescreen to hide their real target and they will drop it when convenient. The cobardes really have us Guyanese in their sights.
With regard to our military resources, we should not fail to count the children of the Guyanese diaspora who are in civvies now after being trained by the best – The US army, navy and air force, and the British. President Granger is well positioned to be making backup plans involving this component.
We should also learn from Cuba. Professor Piero Gleijeses in his book Visions of Freedom reports that when asked what he would have done if the US had invaded Cuba in retaliation for the help it was providing to the African freedom fighters, Mr Castro’s response was that “we would have retreated to the interior of the country and lobbied the world against the US.” When faced with this kind of bravo pueblo, this is the only proper response – ultimate preparation.
There are those who are still pushing for a continuation of the pusillanimous policy and posture that saw us patting Venezuela’s head over the last half century while it taught its children that our land belongs to it and smiled its crocodile smile.
The good thing about Venezuela’s timing is that our stars are aligned. It has made an enemy of the US at the same time the USA is in a rapprochement with Cuba. So that Guyana need not fear that our being forced to keep on good terms with Uncle Sam will cost us a relationship with that Caribbean island that has been a real friend to Guyana through all governments, and with whom the Guyana government under Forbes Burnham collaborated to send Cuban troops to Africa at the risk of offending the US. (We may even have sent our soldiers – Remember the Caribbean Contact report of the soldier who came home in an urn?) The British have come out on our side. It seems like Caracas has defined our foreign policy for us.
Guyanese need to realize, however, that no matter who is on our side we need to have some skin in the game. The dictum that a nation has no permanent friends, only permanent interests is a two-edged sword. We need to realize that there is no better way to get help than to be prepared to go all the way with whatever we have to stand up to this bravo pueblo, this new shameless Don Quixote that wishes to find glory by fighting the Guyanese windmill.
Finally, our preparation need not be as costly as it might appear. One writer already suggested investment in drones. Don’t forget that these days the programmers and hackers are on the frontline of any war. So much so that no nation is ever sure how their equipment is going to perform against the enemy. All are vulnerable.
The right person is in charge and I suspect that he has already begun to put the necessary steps in place.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick W A Collins