On Sunday, May 25, Venezuelans across the South American nation will vote in municipal elections for regional governors and deputies, and in doing so, will also be asked to elect a governor and administrators for a large swath of land in neighboring Guyana that, for decades, Venezuela has claimed as its own — a controversial move.
In the late 1890s, an international boundaries commission demarcated border lines between the two nations, but a Venezuelan junior commission member contended, in a memoir released after his death in the late 1940s, that his nation had been cheated out of the western Essequibo region that has been in Guyana’s control since the demarcation. Guyanese officials say the commissioner offered no evidence of cheating other than declaring that malfeasance was afoot during the land surveying.
Once the document became public, Venezuela began to agitate for the area, which represents about two-thirds of Guyana’s land space, claiming the mineral- and oil-rich region belongs to it. By 1966, just months after independence from Britain, Venezuelan troops began to occupy Guyana’s portion of Ankoko border island, raising tensions between the two. Over the decades, Venezuela has threatened to invade the Caribbean Community (Caricom) nation to take the Essequibo region by force. In December 2023, for example, Venezuelans were asked to participate in a takeover referendum vote for the area, and this week are being requested to elect a governor and eight deputies to administer the county.
Reacting to these developments in its neighbor to the east, authorities in Guyana have launched a full-scale public awareness campaign aimed at countering the saber-rattling in Venezuela and assure locals that the country is ready to respond. Army Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Omar Khan has even threatened to arrest and jail any Guyanese who participates in the vote. Similar treatment will be meted out to anyone of the 100,000 Venezuelans living in Guyana.
“I would tell you, as part of my visit along the border, I made an announcement that should any Guyanese participate in such an election, there will be implications for that person. This is almost like a passive coup, because you are voting in a foreign government to have our territory. That would be a serious offence; any Guyanese participating in such an election will be arrested and there will be implications. Secondly, any Venezuelans living in Guyana who participate in such elections will be arrested and deported,” Khan said at a related press conference.
Over the weekend, Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud suggested in a social media posting that “given that we have close to 100,000 persons of direct or indirect Venezuelan ancestry currently in Guyana, shouldn’t this reality give all Guyanese a cause to be alert? People’s vigilance is equivalent to people’s power and defense.”
Security Minister Robeson Benn has also contributed to the awareness campaign, especially because Venezuela has threatened to hold part of the vote on Guyana’s soil even though no logistical preparations have been seen on the ground. “Any person, Guyanese or otherwise, if it’s a Guyanese who is appointed to be governor and be in place, we will charge that person for treason and lock them up,” Benn said. “Each and every one of them, they’re gonna be charged for treason, and anybody who is supporting them will also be charged.”
For his part, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said after the 2023 vote that “we have taken the first steps of a new historic stage in the struggle for what belongs to us, to recover what the liberators left us.” More recently, he also suggested the Essequibo region 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.”
Tired of the threats and reluctance of investors to do business in the area, Guyana had, back in 2018, taken the case to the World Court in the Netherlands for a once-and-for-all settlement, but no ruling is expected at least before next year. The court has warned Venezuela several times to act responsibly and await its verdict. Caracas has countered by saying that it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court.
Guyana has, meanwhile, placed its small military on alert as the vote nears.