caption,
Campaign poster for the referendum on the Essequibo region called by Venezuela. The vote will take place on Sunday (March 12).
Item information
The referendum called by the Nicolás Maduro regime has five questions, but at its core is whether or not the population supports the creation of a Venezuelan state within the region known as Essequibo, an area of just over 159,000 square kilometers (larger than the State of Ceará), which is the subject of a territorial dispute that has lasted more than 100 years and is now administered by Guyana.
Concern about the referendum result stems from its possible practical consequences. The creation of the Venezuelan state could result in Guyana losing just over 70% of its territory.
On Friday (November 30), the International Court of Justice issued a ruling on a request from Guyana that asked the court to prevent the referendum from being held. The court did not comment on the alleged illegality of the referendum, but said in a ruling that Venezuela could not take measures that would “change the situation currently prevailing in the disputed territory.”
Analysts interviewed by BBC News Brasil point out that the outcome is likely to be favorable for the creation of the new Venezuelan state on territories currently under the administration of Guyana and the main question is: to what extent would the Maduro regime be willing to implement the plan to put into action? ?
During a visit to the region in late October, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said the country would not abandon Essequibo.
“No one is allowed to make a single mistake. Essequibo is ours, every square inch,” he said.
Amid this scenario of tension between two South American countries, the Brazilian government mobilized troops and diplomats to prevent the crisis from escalating.
On Wednesday (28/11), just days before the referendum, the Ministry of Defense announced that it was following the case and stepping up measures in the region.
“The Ministry of Defense has been monitoring the situation. Defense measures in the country’s northern border region have been intensified to promote a greater military presence,” the ministry said in a statement to BBC News Brasil.
Experts and two Brazilian diplomatic sources interviewed confidentially say the holding of the referendum worries the Brazilian government because it threatens what they see as a tradition of peaceful resolution of territorial conflicts in South America.
Diplomats say the prospect of a Venezuelan military initiative in the territory is considered slim, but the issue needs to be treated with caution, especially as Venezuela is set to hold presidential elections in 2024 and the issue could be used as a political platform by Maduro Your campaign.
Consultations and troops mobilized
Diplomatic sources interviewed by BBC News Brasil say Brazil’s concern over the issue has been ongoing for several months. On November 9, the Brazilian and Guyanese presidents spoke via video conference and, according to a Brazilian diplomat, the Guyanese president expressed concern about the referendum on Lula (PT).
Two weeks later, on November 22, Lula sent his special adviser for international affairs, Ambassador Celso Amorim, to Caracas. He met with Nicolás Maduro in the Venezuelan capital and, according to the two sources, both spoke at length about the issue.
One of the sources interviewed by BBC News Brasil said that throughout the conversation, Maduro tried to convince Amorim of his government’s true intentions regarding the region. The Brazilian, in turn, expressed concern about the matter and reiterated his position to resolve the dispute peacefully.
Days later, members of the State and Defense ministries began jointly analyzing the crisis in the region.
Based on this analysis, the Ministry of Defense published the notice on Wednesday announcing the intensification of defensive measures at the border. The Essequibo region borders the northern border of Brazil, more precisely the state of Roraima.
According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, 200 soldiers and armored wheeled vehicles were sent to a border crossing in the town of Pacaraima, in Roraima, in the far north of the country. Ammunition would also have been transported.
One of the diplomats interviewed by BBC News Brasil estimates that the crisis worries Itamaraty because a conflict between the two countries would break with the peaceful tradition of territorial disputes in the region and because it would take place in an area extremely close to Brazil.
Essequibo is estimated to be home to 300,000 people and a conflict could have economic and social impacts on surrounding Brazilian areas.
Lula and the Guyanese president were scheduled to meet in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, during their visit to the country for the UN Climate Change Summit (COP 28), but the bilateral meeting ultimately did not take place.
An element that also causes concern for the Brazilian government is uncertainty about the decisionmaking process within the Maduro government.
According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Venezuelan government emissaries said in November that the Caracas government could be “forced to act by the people” depending on the referendum result.
The statements were reportedly made during a meeting of South American defense and foreign ministers in Brasília.
Shortly after the International Court of Justice’s decision in the dispute, Maduro expressed on social media that he did not recognize the body as a tool to resolve the dispute with Guyana and again called on the population to participate in the referendum.
“You must not undermine the right of the Venezuelan community to express itself through voting,” Maduro said.
Some Brazilian diplomats fear that Maduro will use the Essequibo dispute politically to mobilize more votes in next year’s elections.
Lucas Carlos Lima, Professor of International Relations at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), is also considering this possibility.
“Undoubtedly, the decision of the referendum and the talk about the recovery of a territory supposedly lost through illegality is something that moves the national spirit and can be an argument in the elections. We know that appeals to nationalism can be extremely decisive factors in an election. “This may also serve as a test of the popularity of the current government,” he told BBC News Brasil.
In October this year, the Venezuelan government and the opposition signed an agreement setting out rules for the 2024 presidential election, which also includes United Nations and European Union observation missions.
Photo credit: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil
caption,
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro defended holding the referendum despite Guyana’s opposition
Conflict in the neighborhood?
International relations experts interviewed by BBC News Brasil are divided on the possibility that the Essequibo crisis could lead to armed conflict.
“I believe that the political costs of military action by Venezuela are very high. This would mean Venezuela would be violating international law and could provoke different reactions from both the international community and countries in the region,” said Professor Lucas Carlos Lima. “I believe the cost is too high to be feasible,” he added.
For retired professor of international relations at the Federal University of Santa Maria and former Organization of American States (OAS) representative in Haiti, Ricardo Seitenfus, the referendum would put pressure on Maduro, which could lead him to escalate the crisis.
He calls the referendum called by Venezuela a “consultation” because he considers it “illegal” from the point of view of international law, since the territory on which it is to take place does not currently belong to Venezuela.
“Maduro will have a problem after the consultation: what to do with a victory that is expected to be overwhelming? Not knowing the outcome is impossible. Can he increase the pressure at the border? Yes. Invasion, which would amount to a military operation?” It is likely. The day after (next day) is fraught with danger as the United States, the United Kingdom, Colombia and Brazil will respond,” Seitenfus told BBC News Brasil.
Seitenfus compared Maduro to the Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri, who occupied the Falkland Islands in 1982 and was defeated militarily by British troops. The defeat is considered one of the elements that brought about the end of the military dictatorship in Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
“If he doesn’t hold back, Maduro will be the future Leopoldo Galtieri,” he said.
What is Essequibo?
An area of approximately 159,000 square kilometers (equivalent to little more than the state of Ceará), located between Venezuela and Guyana, became known as Essequibo.
The region is rich in minerals such as gold, copper, diamonds and recently huge deposits of oil and other hydrocarbons have been discovered there.
The referendum taking place this Sunday stems from a dispute that began in the 19th century during the independence process of the former Spanish colonies. In 1811, Venezuela became independent and the Essequibo region became part of the country.
However, three years later, the United Kingdom purchased what was then British Guiana through a treaty with the Netherlands. However, the purchase agreement did not precisely define the country’s border line with Venezuela.
In 1840, the United Kingdom commissioned explorer Robert Shomburgk to define this boundary and a line called the Schomburgk Line was opened.
This meant that what was then British Guiana gained a further 80,000 square kilometers compared to the territory originally acquired from the Netherlands.
In 1841, the dispute over the territory officially began with complaints about an undue invasion of the territory by the United Kingdom.
In the decades that followed, the Essequibo controversy became part of the struggle for influence in South America between the rising power of the United States and the then powerful British Empire.
The Americans expanded their interests in the region and used the socalled Monroe Doctrine as an argument, whose slogan was “America for Americans”. In practice, the stance represented an attempt to limit the influence of European powers on the continent.
In 1886, a new version of the Schomburgk Line was drawn, incorporating a new portion of territory in British Guiana.
Nine years later, in 1895, the United States, then an ally of Venezuela, condemned the demarcation of the border and recommended that the case be resolved through international arbitration.
Three years later, in 1899, the Paris Arbitration Award was issued, ruling in favor of the United Kingdom.
However, half a century later, in 1949, a memorandum from an American lawyer involved in defending Venezuela in the Paris arbitration was published.
The document denounced the alleged impartiality of the judges in the case. The publication of this memorandum and other documents in the trial began to be used by Venezuela to request that the Paris ruling be considered “null and void.”
However, in 1966, the country and the United Kingdom signed the Geneva Convention, which recognized Venezuela’s claim and committed to seeking solutions to resolve the dispute.
Recently, Guyana requested that the International Court of Justice based in The Hague, Netherlands, settle the dispute, but the Venezuelan government has repeatedly denied the institution’s legitimacy to decide the future of Essequibo.
Resumption of the dispute
Although the territorial dispute between the two countries has existed for more than a century, tensions began to escalate in 2015 when the North American oil company ExxonMobil announced that it had found huge deposits of oil on the coast of the disputed area.
To date, the American multinational ExxonMobil and its partners have made 46 discoveries that have increased Guyana’s oil reserves to around 11 billion barrels, which is about 0.6% of the world’s total reserves.
The discoveries, considered surprising, turned Guyana, a country of 800,000 people, into one of the fastestgrowing economies in the world. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow by 25% this year. In 2022, the increase in GDP was 57.8%.
Oil exploration off the coast of Essequibo is one of the points that has been the most criticized by the Venezuelan regime in recent years.
For example, the government is questioning the granting of exploration licenses to multinational corporations operating along the coast of the disputed region.
“Guyana is not a victim, it has no ownership rights over the disputed territory, it is a de facto occupier and has repeatedly violated the Geneva Convention and international law by unilaterally granting concessions in the land area and waters up to the demarcation.” he said Venezuelan government.
Guyana’s legal team, which condemned the referendum at the International Court of Justice, calls it an “existential threat” designed to pave the way for Venezuela’s annexation of Essequibo.
caption,
The coast of the Essequibo region has huge oil reserves
Brazil’s role
Diplomats interviewed by BBC News Brasil estimate that the country has sent clear messages to the Venezuelan government about the impracticality of escalating the crisis with Guyana.
Proof of this, in their opinion, would be the demonstration in Brasilia by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira during the meeting in which envoys from Venezuela raised the tone on the referendum.
“Our shared commitment to the integration of South America is to reaffirm our commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes in each of our twelve countries,” said the then Chancellor.
For UFMG’s Lucas Carlos Lima, Brazil is trying to prevent tensions from increasing in the region.
“Brazil has also established part of its borders with Guyana through arbitration and I believe that it does not want this type of peaceful solution to lead to disputes. The diplomatic background suggests that Brazil is interested in restoring stable relations with Venezuela and achieving this.” “The aim is not to let the conflict escalate,” said the professor.
Professor Ricardo Seitenfus believes the country should be more forceful in its statements on the Venezuelan referendum.
“Brazil cannot participate in anything that would undermine the principle of South American peace […] “Brazil must speak out forcefully on this referendum and make it clear that this consultation is null and void, since the only people who can decide the fate of Essequibo are the people of Essequibo and not the people of Venezuela,” concludes Professor.