On May 25, Venezuela will hold elections for nearly 300 seats for deputies in the national assembly and one of those elected would be identified to govern or administer a large swath of land in neighboring Guyana that Venezuela has coveted as its own for decades.
With the clock ticking on the date, and with anxieties rising in Guyana, the Caribbean Community country recently approached the World Court in The Netherlands, asking it to make rulings denouncing plans by Venezuela to elect leaders who will run the Essequibo Region. Venezuela says the Essequibo is an “inalienable part” of the South American nation’s territory. Last week, international judges of the court ordered that “the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela shall refrain from conducting elections, or preparing to conduct elections, in the territory in dispute, which the Co-operative Republic of Guyana currently administers and over which it exercises control.”
But Caracas fired back defiantly, saying that the elections will not only go ahead, but Maduro administration’s plans to secure control over the Essequibo are proceeding apace. Since the late 1940s, Venezuela has been telling the world that an 1890s international boundaries commission had cheated it out of the mineral, oil, and gas-rich country that accounts for two-thirds of Guyana’s territory. It bases its contention on a letter written by a junior member of the then commission that had alleged that a conspiracy had occurred among western colonial powers like Britain to cheat Venezuela out of the area. That member had decreed that his missive should not have been made public until he had passed away in the late 1940s. And once the letter was made public, the seeds of discontent about Venezuela being cheated began to foment, resulting in a series of territorial incursions and threats to invade Guyana in recent years.
The situation has not been any calmer, especially because Guyana, since mid-2015, has found a massive amount of offshore oil and gas. Today, three oilfields deliver around 650,000 barrels of oil daily with plans to ramp up to one million in two years. U.S. supermajor ExxonMobil is the major player in the local sector. So, with the election date creeping up, Guyana approached the court for an order telling Venezuela not to hold an election that has anything to do with Guyana. Caracas says it disagrees wholeheartedly.
“Nothing in international law allows the International Court of Justice to interfere in matters that are the exclusive domain of Venezuelan domestic law, nor to seek to prohibit a sovereign act. The Essequibo “is an inalienable part of the Venezuelan territory and a legacy of our liberators. Its defense is a historical, constitutional, and a moral mandate that unites the entire Bolivarian Homeland. No international pressure, judicial blackmail, or foreign tribunal will make us back down from this conviction,” the administration said in a statement following the court ruling.
To signal its determination and level of seriousness, Venezuela in early March sailed a military vessel right in the middle of producing oil fields in Essequibo, telling personnel that they were operating illegally in a disputed area, even though the fields are located hundreds of miles away nearer the southeast border with Suriname rather than Venezuela. These two do not even share geographic borders.
To get Venezuela off its back and to cease it from scaring away investors by threatening to invade and take the Essequibo, Guyana had back in 2018 approached the Court for a once and for all ruling. Hearings have been held but no verdict is expected for at least another year.
And although it is participating in the trial, Caracas has persistently said it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the tribunal and will elect and appoint leaders to oversee the region in the coming months. Meanwhile, Guyana is leaving all of its cards on the table at the Court, as its military is severely inferior to Venezuela’s. It has had to depend on diplomacy in this battle because American companies like Exxon have vested interests in Guyana. Venezuela has also demanded bilateral talks to settle the dispute. Guyana says this is a waste of time and energy.
“The government of Guyana reiterates its unwavering commitment to the principles of international law, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and to the ICJ Process for a final, peaceful and lawful resolution of the controversy concerning the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award that determined the land boundary between Guyana and Venezuela. The government of Guyana further calls upon the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to comply fully with the ICJ’s orders, which are legally binding, and refrain from any actions that violate Guyana’s territorial integrity or disrupt the peace and security of the Latin American and Caribbean region,” Guyana stated.