By Nastassia Rambarran
Nastassia Rambarran is a Guyanese-Barbadian physician and researcher completing a PhD on queer movements and decolonization.
It’s no secret that within some leftist, socialist and anti-imperialist spheres, Venezuela is currently depicted as a victim of US policy, a modern day David battling the Goliath of multinational extractivism and US imperialism. In a climate where Guyana has encouraged US oil companies and appears beholden to that country in various ways, this perception of Venezuela can easily lead to siding with them on the Guyana-Venezuela border issue. This is reinforced by the narrative that Venezuela is seeking to simply correct one of the myriad misdeeds of British colonialism and championing an anti-colonial position. However, as events unfurl at a rapid pace, these claims and perceptions deserve unpacking. First, as with any examination of colonialism, historical context is important and necessary.
While European colonizers – Spanish, Dutch, French and British – have all wrangled over Essequibo, the land being claimed by Venezuela and that is currently one of three Guyanese counties has always been, and continues to be, home to Indigenous nations. This is important, because as historian Andrew Campbell has pointed out, the Indigenous people there have resisted Spanish incursion into the area since the 1600s, choosing to trade instead with the Dutch. It is this active presence and preference that German surveyor Robert Schomburgk took into consideration in 1840 when drawing the map of the newly united colonies that Britain received from the Dutch. Venezuela’s objection to the inclusion of the area west of the Essequibo river went unheeded by Britain for some time, until 1887 when Venezuela appealed to the US given the latter’s emerging sense of entitlement over affairs in the region. This is ironic given that Venezuela is currently lambasting Guyana for appealing to American support when they did the exact thing a century ago. For the now (in) famous 1899 Tribunal, Venezuela chose two US judges, four US lawyers and zero Venezuelans to represent their interest. The results of the Tribunal established the current borders, and were eventually accepted by all parties as “full, perfect and final,” remaining a settled matter for another forty years.
In 1949, a posthumous memorandum by one of the American jurists involved in settling the dispute alleged that the result of the tribunal was influenced by deals made with Russia. No concrete evidence to support this allegation has ever been found. But it would provide the convenient pretext for Venezuela to reopen a sealed matter. Noted scholar on the border issue, Ishmael Odeen, identified two factors that motivated this reopening: the discovery of oil and minerals in the region abutting the Essequibo; and Guyana’s approaching independence. With the former, it stood to reason that similar large deposits of oil and minerals would be in the Essequibo, therefore nullifying the 1899 Award presented an opportunity for expanding Venezuelan wealth.
This angle was bolstered by American interests in the reclamation and the fact that American companies were the ones leading the oil and mineral extractions in Venezuela. With regard to the latter factor, it is now common knowledge that the US and UK opposed the Marxist PPP leading Guyana to independence. The US encouraged Venezuela to press their renewed claim as well as foment disturbances, with declassified documents showing Venezuela was ready to support a coup to overthrow the PPP. This was all pursued in the hope of frightening Guyanese into choosing a government – but decidedly not the PPP – that could win US and UK support against any Venezuelan aggression. It is noteworthy that both of these factors involved Venezuelan collusion with American interests.
When Venezuela formally presented their renewed contention to the UN in 1962, one of their points was that there was no Venezuelan representation on the 1899 Tribunal, conveniently forgetting that they were the ones who opted for an entirely American delegation. Against the objection of Cheddi Jagan, the ruling coalition PNC government attended a conference in Geneva days before independence to discuss the issue and signed the Geneva Agreement between Britain, British Guiana and Venezuela.
The Agreement was a temporary one signaling the need for a more permanent solution. It ultimately failed to deliver this, but stands as a prominent milestone in the border matter. Article I of the Agreement stated that “a Mixed Commission shall be established with the task of seeking satisfactory solutions for the practical settlement of the controversy between Venezuela and the United Kingdom which has arisen as the result of the Venezuelan contention that the Arbitral Award of 1899 about the frontier between British Guiana and Venezuela is null and void.” The meaning of this sentence is patently obvious, but somehow Venezuela has managed over time to distort it into the false claim that by signing the Geneva Agreement, Guyana agreed that the 1899 Award was null.
Subsequently, there have been several unsuccessful efforts by various bodies to mediate or solve the border issue, with both countries using it as a political football in their national arenas at various points in time. Interestingly, Venezuela has insisted on returning to the over 50 year old Geneva Agreement (which was intended to be a temporary instrument), as a starting point for negotiation, and has resisted placing the matter before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In the period between the Geneva Agreement and now, Venezuela’s close relationship with the US has collapsed, with the US imposing sanctions (which have only been eased in the last few months).
The booming petrostate has suffered from extreme mismanagement, partially leading to severe economic and humanitarian crises, and the political leadership has been characterized as a dictatorship. Guyana, on the other hand, having endured a dictatorship, severe economic hardships and significant emigration, has emerged into recently improved financial prospects, boosted by the 2015 discovery of oil. This is the current landscape upon which Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ramped up action, recently holding a referendum that did not involve the people currently living in Essequibo, and declaring his intention to move ahead with annexing the region. This ramping up coincides with Guyana’s initiation of oil extraction headed by US multinational company Exxon Mobil. Exxon has longstanding disputes with the leadership of Venezuela, including seeking billions of dollars in compensation when the country privatized their oil sector.
Turning now to claims that Venezuela is ‘righting’ the colonial boundaries imposed by Britain. This deliberately leaves the other part unsaid, which is that in fighting against the British colonial boundary, they are actually fighting for the Spanish one. Whether “ownership” was determined by the equally disagreeable measures that gave it to Spain through a decree made in Europe or to the Dutch (and then British) through settler colonialism, one can agree this should negate any anti-colonial stance. The argument for one colonial boundary over the other being repurposed as anti-colonial resistance makes a mockery of said resistance.
And it becomes especially egregious when considering that this whitewashing ignores the will of the Indigenous stewards of the land, who have aligned with Guyana in both historical and contemporary times. For instance the South Rupununi District Council, which represents twenty-one mostly Wapichan communities, issued a press statement on December 2nd noting that Venezuela “historically has no connection with these lands, their motivation to annex these lands is fueled by the fact that these lands are rich in mineral resources.” That Venezuelan President Maduro’s immediate reaction to the referendum was that he would grant operating licenses for mineral and oil exploration in the region and his ultimatum that other companies should leave within 3 months, makes it abundantly clear that this is indeed about land exploitation and further extractivism.
It is necessary to point out that annexation would not simply involve moving a border, but that even without any military conflict, it would entail forceful displacement (for those who refuse Venezuelan citizenship), unlawful land seizure, disregard for Indigenous community autonomy, and the discarding of cultural alliances and preferences. The controversy also ignores longstanding border porosity that has facilitated movement and connections between both countries, to create reductive and divisive binaries and antagonism. One of these divisions draws from the colonial playbook which questions whether Black, brown and Indigenous persons (who form the majority of Guyana, compared to the large number of European descendants in Venezuela) are capable of leading their own country and possess any agency. It has manifested in online and in-person exchanges as antiblack racial slurs and dismissing of Guyanese by virtue of their enslaved and indentured ancestry. Here it bears noting that antiblackness is a global phenomenon, and that Guyana certainly experiences its own share of antiblackness and interethnic conflict, as well as bigotries towards Venezuelans.
It is possible that the early indoctrination of Venezuelans through propaganda in the education system contributes to this narrative, as much as it has contributed to nationalistic rallying around the border issue even when headed by a largely unpopular President.
World events and state actions are not static. Just because Venezuela has been seen as a symbol of anti-American imperialism in recent years, does not mean that under the leadership of Nicolas Maduro the country is not now stretching its own expansionist legs, by announcing its intentions to annex a region of a sovereign state and over the objections of the inhabitants of said region. None of this is intended to paint the Guyanese government as blameless, virtuous, or innocent of internal oppressions and mistreatment of both citizenry and environment. But whataboutism cannot be used to distract from the bullying by a larger country, formerly one of the wealthiest on the continent, of one of the formerly poorest countries on the same continent.
Further, this injustice cannot be allowed to be misrepresented as an anti-imperialist and decolonizing project. The supreme paradox is that Venezuela’s actions not only further President Maduro’s expansionist ambitions, but they also indirectly extend American imperialism. This is because with way less resources, military power and number of people, Guyana has appealed to the US for support, extending its already significant presence and influence in the region. Persons who criticize Guyana’s choices without recognizing how these events have been set into motion are being willfully and dangerously ignorant of history and the potential consequences.
