Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados at the Barbados Labour Party’s annual conference last weekend called on Guyana and Venezuela to ensure there was a peaceful end to the land controversy between them. If that was not enough, what she went on to say should have left the senior officials in Takuba Lodge spluttering in their morning coffee. She was reported as exhorting the two countries to make certain that the Caribbean remained a zone of peace. “I hope that the rhetoric and the noise between Venezuela and Guyana does not turn our Caribbean into anything that is not a zone of peace because it matters to us that this Caribbean remains a zone of peace,” Barbados Today quoted her as saying.
This was all, of course, a reference to the consultative referendum on Essequibo which the government in Caracas intends to hold on December 3rd, and one of whose clauses effectively asks the Venezuelan populace to approve the annexation of what amounts to three-fifths of Guyana’s land space. Naturally this country has not remained silent about this outrage, and has been trying to marshal diplomatic support from a variety of quarters. It has to be wondered, however, how Ms Mottley can talk herself into the conclusion that the blame for what she calls the “noise” between the two nations and the threat to Caribbean peace it represents is equally shared. Is she so out of touch that she has not noticed the matter is before the ICJ, and that this notwithstanding, Venezuela is still amassing troops on its side of the border and is making threats via the agency of the referendum. Guyana has not claimed any part of Venezuela, neither has it made any threats against that nation.
Caricom has issued a statement in support of Guyana, and Ms Mottley did acknowledge this. However, she was very careful about how she phrased it, saying she was aware that the Caricom Secretariat had commented on developments between the two countries, raising the possibility of an interpretation suggesting it was not a decision of the Caricom Heads. This was somewhat reinforced by what she went on to say next, since she told her audience that Barbados had a perspective on the matter. That perspective related to concern over uncertainty about future gas prices in the light of the wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas. “[W]e sit here today not knowing what our future will be like in a few weeks’ time … and it is for us to craft our future responsibly …” she said.
The Prime Minister referred to Venezuela as “a good sister country to us,” a view no doubt influenced by the signing of a number of agreements in the areas of aviation, agriculture, energy and education a few months ago. As mentioned earlier, the critical issue is oil and gas, and in return for assistance in that sector she appears prepared to dissemble. Barbados it must be thought, is probably be the target of lobbying by, if not pressure from, Venezuela on the controversy. And if that applies to Barbados, it will also apply to other Caricom territories.
An editorial in the Trinidad Guardian on October 25th had a more sophisticated view, more especially since Prime Minister Keith Rowley had steered his government much closer to Venezuela than had always been the case previously. In the 1970s the late Dr Eric Williams, for example, had warned of Venezuela’s neo-colonial designs in the Caribbean, and was unequivocally in support of Guyana where the controversy was concerned. It was he, for example, who allowed Guyana’s debts in relation to Trinidadian oil supplies to mount until he died in 1981, possibly because he did not want Guyana to buckle to her western neighbour in circumstances where the economy was in such a poor state. Certainly it was not because of any friendship with Forbes Burnham; the two leaders did not like each other very much.
At the moment Trinidad is hoping to exploit the vast gas resources in the Dragon Field, which it shares with Venezuela, and owing to the Barbados agreement between the Venezuelan government and the opposition followed by the six months lifting of US sanctions, this has helped T&T with an extension of the licence there.
However, the Guardian continued, “in the context of the geopolitical climate, the development between the two South American neighbours poses a major threat to our hopes of developing the field.” This, said the writer, was because of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and the war in Ukraine, as well as the situation in the South China Sea as well as Taiwan. As a close ally of Russia and China, territorial aggression by Venezuela would increase the probability of the US restoring sanctions. The conclusion is that T&T should therefore intervene not just for nationalistic reasons. “Providence may very well have forged T&T and Venezuela’s close ties, positioning Dr Rowley as an ideal candidate for talks with Maduro on Guyana’s behalf”, said the Guardian, because “a loss for Guyana, after all, may well be a loss for T&T and Caricom as well.”
The position of the other Caricom members is less clear, although some things can be inferred. The Dominica News pointed quite correctly to the concessionary PetroCaribe arrangements for several of the islands, and their “cosy” relations with Venezuela. It might be added to this that Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and Grenadines, all belong to Alba, founded by the late Hugo Chávez in concert with Cuba in 2004 with a view to consolidating regional economic integration based on social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid. It is associated with socialist and social democratic governments.
The various island members did not all join at the same time, and although questions were raised in Caricom that accession conflicted with the Treaty of Chaguaramas, there was never any showdown about it. Alba members declared support for Nicolás Maduro in 2017, when he was under pressure from protests to step down.
That aside, in 2006 Venezuela to all intents and purposes bullied and bribed Dominica into surrendering its sovereignty over Bird Island, which lies within its Exclusive Economic Zone. In return, the Caracas government agreed to invest approximately US$29 million in improving Dominica’s infrastructure, as well as provide petroleum-based products at the lowest possible cost. Well clearly Essequibo is not Bird Island, and one would have thought that even the Venezuelans don’t believe that the whole of it would be conceded. In addition the government in Caracas has always given the impression that it doesn’t think the ICJ would overturn the 1899 Award, and so if it is to get something, that would have to be by bilateral talks or some other diplomatic route. Invasion, other than of a section of Guyana, might not secure them what they want. Dominica News reported the US Counter Terrorism Group, for example, as saying in an article that Caricom countries might push for a diplomatic solution rather than a more aggressive confrontation.
That the Venezuelan government is speaking to Caricom Heads is no secret. Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez was reported as saying that President Maduro had been in contact with the different leaders of the Region reiterating his call for dialogue in the form of meetings with the President of Guyana.
At another point she was quoted as saying that President Ali would have to sit down to negotiate with Venezuela “whether he wants it or not.”
The line to the Caricom Heads (and others) is that Venezuela is insisting on “Bolivarian peace diplomacy”, and that Guyana has to resume ‘legal’ behaviour and sit down in accordance with the Geneva Agreement of 1966 to negotiate a solution. The Venezuelans are deliberately misreading Geneva, because Guyana’s actions all along have been totally in accordance with it. Seemingly quite unembarrassed by his ignorance, no less a person than President Maduro has also referred to a military deployment in Essequibo, by which “the Government of Guyana has taken the path of warmongering escalation, of provocation.” Never mind that the military build-up is on Venezuela’s side, not Guyana’s. But still it is being alleged that President Ali’s response is the “drums of war” at the behest of “his master, ExxonMobil”.
And in an official statement from Foreign Minister Yván Gil, Guyana is once again urged to take seriously “direct negotiations that allow for a practical and mutually acceptable agreement between the parties, which resolves the territorial dispute as agreed with the United Kingdom of Great Britain, just before the birth of Guyana as an independent nation.” And just how does Venezuela intend to get Guyana to accept bilateral negotiations, which are obviously designed to force us into territorial cession, never mind, as everyone knows, that the matter is currently before the ICJ?
The answer seems to lie in creating incidents if not confusion along the border which will generate calls in the Region for peace. There may be different approaches, such as driving out the Sindicatos who then take up residence on the Guyana side of the Cuyuni. This might give Venezuela an excuse ostensibly to send in troops after them; or dispatching armed gang members into Region One, under cover of migrancy. Three Venezuelans were found with firearms in Arakaka recently. Caracas’ main interest has always tended to be in this area, something which has become more pronounced with the oil finds in our maritime zone.
If the worst came to the worst, Mr Maduro’s government might find some fake reason for sending in soldiers to some portion of the border, although not, one might have thought, during the grace period for the sanctions. And of course, there is always the possibility of false flag operations.
There is too the tactic of generating anxiety in Georgetown by making public military developments real or otherwise on Venezuela’s side of the frontier. One example reported in the Venezuelan press was the building of an airstrip in Bolívar state which was intended “as a logistical support point for the integral development of the Essequibo.” Since no one could say when it would be finished, it may not have any immediate purpose, other than to make Guyanese nervous. But whatever the case, the politicians on both sides and the military need to put their minds to all the possibilities so they can develop an effective defence strategy, in the larger sense of that term..
And as for Caricom, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to go on an intensive campaign to counter the disinformation from Caracas, starting with what the Geneva Agreement actually says and who it is who is mustering troops, etc. And that should be extended to other countries, including Latin members of the OAS.
And in the meantime, the words of Mel Brooks’ satirical song from To Be Or Not To Be come to mind – in adapted form, naturally. Mia Mottley says that all she wants is peace, and Nicolás Maduro says that all he wants is ‘piece’. Will someone explain to the Prime Minister of Barbados that the two things are incompatible?
