Socialist dictator of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro threatened on Wednesday to take “all necessary measures” to stop American oil company ExxonMobil’s operations in the Essequibo region, historically contested by Venezuela and Guyana.
The Essequibo is a 61,600-square-mile region rich in oil and other natural resources currently administered by Guyana that represents roughly two-thirds of Guyana’s entire territory. Neighbors Venezuela and Guyana maintain an over 120-year-old territorial dispute over the contested region that is yet to reach a final, conclusive ruling at international organizations.
Maduro issued the threats during his participation at an official socialist event that coincided with the 12th anniversary of the death of late dictator Hugo Chávez, who died from an undisclosed type of cancer on March 5, 2013.
Maduro, who succeeded Chávez and has ruled Venezuela since his death, accused the “sellout government” of neighboring Guyana of engaging in the “illegal task of using a territorial sea pending international delimitation for oil exploitation activities.”
“It is absolutely illegal and Venezuela rejects it, denounces it, and we will take all actions to stop the illegal action of ExxonMobil and the sellout government of Guyana,” Maduro said.
The unresolved territorial dispute remained relatively dormant until the past decade after Guyana began signing offshore oil drill contracts with ExxonMobil in the Essequibo region. The oil contracts drew the ire of Maduro, who responded with hostile demands that reignited the territorial dispute — going as far as to announce its “annexation.” In 2018, Guyana denounced Venezuelan Navy ships illegally entering Guyanese waters with the intent of forcing an ExxonMobil ship to stop oil research activities in the area.
On Saturday, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali denounced a Venezuelan Navy vessel’s intrusion into Guyanese waters that day. According to Ali, the Venezuelan vessel approached an ExxonMobil-managed offshore oil block. The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs also denounced the incursion on its social media accounts.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López rejected Ali’s accusations in an official statement issued hours later, claiming that the Venezuelan vessel was in “waters pending delimitation” in an exercise of its “constitutional functions to guarantee national sovereignty and security in aquatic spaces.”
According to Padrino López, a man actively wanted by U.S. authorities on drug trafficking charges, the incursion was part of a broader joint Venezuelan military operation in which the Venezuelan Navy was able to “confirm through satellite images” the presence of 28 foreign drilling ships in the Essequibo waters which, “under the consent of the government of Guyana, flagrantly violate international law, carry out activities of exploitation and commercialization of hydrocarbons that lie in the subsoil.”
The Venezuelan defense minister asserted that Guyana has “no legal basis or legitimacy to unilaterally dispose of an area where it can exercise neither sovereignty nor jurisdiction,” and further claimed that Venezuela is a country “under attack by proxies of U.S. imperialism such as ExxonMobil.”
Venezuela, long before the arrival of the ruling socialist Maduro regime, has historically argued the Essequibo region is part of its borders since the nation gained its independence from Spain in 1811. In 1899, an arbitration process in Paris established the current borders between the two countries and granted control of the contested territory to Guyana, at the time known as British Guiana.
Venezuela has historically contested the 1899 Paris arbitration process as fraudulent and eventually denounced it at the United Nations, leading to an agreement signed in Geneva in 1966 between Venezuela and the United Kingdom weeks before Guyana became an independent nation. The agreement gave control of the Essequibo to Guyana until a permanent solution to the dispute was found. No such permanent solution has ever been reached in the subsequent decades.
Guyana has historically insisted that the 1899 Paris arbitration was final while Venezuela — even before the arrival of the socialist regime — has historically insisted that the 1966 Geneva agreement should be the legal framework to find a solution to the dispute.
It is largely believed that late dictator Hugo Chávez “stopped pursuing” Venezuela’s territorial dispute claim roughly 20 years ago at the request of late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at a time when Chávez was consolidating his socialist regime’s influence in the region. Chávez heavily relied on Venezuela’s oil industry – through so-called “cooperation” programs such as Petrocaribe, which granted Caribbean nations with cheap Venezuelan oil at highly preferable prices, decades-long payment plans, and extremely low interest rates – to expand his regional influence.
Following a request made by Guyana in 2018, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in 2023 that it has jurisdiction over the dispute but that a final ruling is “years away” from being issued. Maduro, who has accused Guyanese President Ali of being “controlled” by ExxonMobil, has repeatedly insisted that neither he nor his socialist regime will recognize any ICJ ruling on the matter.
In December 2023, Maduro held a fraudulent referendum asking Venezuelans “what to do” about the Essequibo dispute. Weeks later, and in accordance with the “results” of the sham electoral event, the Maduro regime announced actions towards the “annexation” of the contested region, including the creation of a new “Guayana Esequiba” state that will allegedly occupy the entirety of the Essequibo, as well as the creation of its purported regional administrative institution.
Additionally, the Maduro regime’s plans call for the issuing of Venezuelan identity documents to the Essequibo’s mostly indigenous inhabitants, as well as issuing oil, gas, and mining licenses.
Although Maduro is yet to enact his “annexation” plans at press time, satellite imagery reviewed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in February 2024 suggests that Venezuela has expanded its military bases and personnel in the border areas with Guyana.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Read the full article here