Dear Editor,
When last, on 22nd March, 2024, I publicly commented on Venezuela’s claim to the Essequibo region of Guyana in a letter to the media, I concluded by pointing out that Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, “has obviously become a desperate man, cannot be relied upon to honour his word nor his signature on any agreement and that Guyana must now be prepared to address the consequences of any action which Maduro may decide to take”. I was, of course, right. Maduro’s government has now pronounced, on 3rd April, 2024, a new “Organic Law for the Defense of Guayana Esequiba”, clearly aimed at annexing the Essequibo County of our country.
In fact, beginning with the 1899 Arbitral Award, including the demarcation in 1905 of the boundary shown on all the official maps of Guyana and Venezuela until the 1960s, followed by the Geneva Agreement in 1966, which empowered the United Nations Secretary-General to choose the means of the settlement of the controversy over the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award, and then the Declaration of Argyle on 14th December, 2023, committing Venezuela to not threaten nor use force against Guyana and to refrain from escalating any conflict or disagreement with Guyana arising from the controversy. Venezuela, under Maduro’s rule, has violated every agreement to which he has penned his signature.
Immediately following a request by President Irfaan Ali to the United Nations Security Council to facilitate a meeting to address the matter of Venezuela’s promulgation of the Organic Law as a direct threat to Guyana’s sovereignty, Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Permanent Representative of Guyana to the United Nations, addressed the meeting on the 9th April, 2024. The Ambassador pointed out that “without prompt action by the Council, our next report is very likely, and tragically, to be that Guyana’s territory has been invaded by Venezuela”. She called upon the Council “to denounce Venezuela’s illegal and reprehensible action”.
The Security Council issued a Statement, on 15th April, 2024, which did not denounce Venezuela, but chose, instead, to call upon both Venezuela and Guyana to “exercise maximum restraint”, reminding them of their obligations to comply with the Order of Provisional Measures issued by the International Court of Justice on 1st December, 2023. This, in spite of the fact that Venezuela is the only aggressor in the matter. Nevertheless, the Council has now directed Venezuela to comply with the rulings of the ICJ and goes on to remind Venezuela of the Argyle Declaration to keep the peace and, further, to respect the Geneva Agreement.
Nicolas Maduro is a dictator. He rules Venezuela, not by the choice of Venezuelans, but by the enforcement of military power to keep him in office. Maduro has rejected the authority of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), thereby rejecting Venezuela’s recognition of the UN Charter and the decisions of the United Nations Security Council itself. It is Maduro’s clear, unvarnished, undisguised intention to re-elect himself and his regime in the forthcoming July Venezuela election, by denying and/or imprisoning the democratic opposition from contesting in a free and fair elections, regardless of the promise to conduct free and fair elections previously signed by Venezuela in Barbados.
The Maduro regime commands the third largest military force in all of South America and the Caribbean, after Brazil and Colombia. It is at Maduro’s disposal to enforce a historically illegitimate and illegally unfounded claim to take possession of two-thirds of our country. Maduro believes that this will give him the right of access to our oil and gas, gold, diamonds and other mineral resources in the Essequibo and its offshore waters. Maduro, in the meantime, has driven his own country’s economy into the ground, resulting in millions of his own people fleeing to other countries, including our own. In defence of this naked aggression against our country, Maduro has falsely accused Guyana of harbouring secret US military bases, an accusation which is entirely untrue.
The Venezuelan dictator has also extended his aggression to the point of threatening the operations of the US and Chinese oil and gas companies which are licenced by Guyana to operate offshore our country in compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Maduro’s madness is not merely a threat to Guyana. It is a threat to the maintenance of peace and security in all of South America and the Caribbean and with the wider implications of drawing in to such a conflict, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Russia and China, all of which have direct investments and interests in both Guyana and Venezuela.
We know, indeed the world knows, that, in spite of the kind of foolishness advanced by former Chief-of-Staff, Rear Admiral Dr. Gary Best, Guyana cannot defend itself against a Venezuelan military, thousands of times more powerful than Guyana’s. A military equipped with fighter jets, attack helicopters, tanks and warships. We must, therefore, rely on the truth, on diplomacy, on our allies in democracy, the USA, the UK, Canada, France and, closer to home, Brazil and our CARICOM partners to come to our protection from Maduro’s threat to declare war against Guyana.
Sincerely,
Kit Nascimento
