Alvin Hilliman's tanned skin is gilded by the sun. He has dreadlocks and a thick gold watch on his left wrist. He spends dead hours in the sun at a friend's store that sells beer and liquor. The patriotic fervor aroused in Essequibo by Venezuela's claim to this mineral- and oil-rich jungle region, now part of Guyana, has not affected him in the least. He is not impressed by the flags or the large signs in the middle of the street that say: “Essequibo is part of Guyana.” At 50, he says, no government has given him anything, not even a pack of rice. When he's not at his friend's shop, he works hard here from eight in the morning to eight at night for a handful of dollars to build a building that doesn't save him from misery. He never met his father; his mother recently died. He feels alone in this world full of traps. “If they fight and Venezuela wins, I will go with Venezuela. If not, with the opposite. This country belongs to blacks and whites, to everyone. I don't care who wins. I don’t care about any president, fuck everyone,” he complains.
Around the corner where Hilliman sits and watches life goes by is the old police station of Charity, a town with a river port north of the Essequibo and barely 1,500 residents. Nobody seems to have painted the building since British colonial times. A patrol arrives with a gallows-looking man in the background. Maybe an arrested thief? No, it's about a friend who the police took as a taxi. Portraits of the president, prime minister and police chief from across the country hang on the walls. Officer R. Ramnarine has the perfectly pressed uniform, polished shoes and the shave a barber dreams of. That lunchtime he's fixing the hinge of a door at the police station, but he doesn't want anyone to think he's confused.
“I will defend my country if Venezuela dares to invade us,” says R. Ramnarine with a screwdriver in his hand, and there is no reason not to take him seriously.
Nicolás Maduro's government held a referendum last week asking Venezuelans whether they wanted the annexation of Essequibo, a region of 160,000 square kilometers – almost twice the size of Portugal or five times the size of Belgium – which is now a small one Land belongs to Guyana, with a population of 800,000. As expected, more than 95% voted “yes.” Maduro asserts that this gave him a widespread mandate to occupy these areas. The Venezuelan threat comes after an ExxonMobil-led consortium made a series of offshore oil discoveries and Guyana's President Irfaan Ali pushed for greater hydrocarbon exploration in areas that Venezuela claims.
Guyana, a poor country, realized overnight that wealth was within its grasp. This year will end with a 25% increase in GDP. The capital, Georgetown, is teeming with employees of major oil companies, which has led to market distortions. The cheapest hotel stay costs 200 dollars (185 euros), taxis don't run for less than 30 dollars and the restaurant menu is in no way inferior in price to the Americans. Trucks loaded with sand crowd the country's small roads because now there is always something to be lifted somewhere. Guyana can be said to be a work in progress. But they want to take away all their wealth, Guyanese think. Ali, the only Muslim president in the West, has already declared that they will not succumb to Maduro's tricks and will defend their country by all means. Ali went to the border with Venezuela one night in military fatigues, climbed a rock and raised a Guyana flag in the style of the film Flags of our Fathers.
However, an attempt at occupation seems a long way off. The United States, Brazil and China have agreed that the status quo at this border must continue unless international courts decide otherwise. Venezuela doesn't seem to notice and has passed a law to convert Essequibo into one of its states and grant citizenship to the 125,000 residents of this region where illegal gold mining and indiscriminate deforestation are rampant. “I don’t want to be Venezuelan or crazy,” replies Adrian, a 30-year-old hairdresser from Charity who spent the morning with his arms folded. “I am a super Guyanese. I've never left here. I have an uncle [el distrito neoyorquino de] Queens,” he continues. Sita Singh, the clothing saleswoman a few shops away, is scared: “I'm scared. They want to come and harm this country. If you think about it, it's absurd. No, I don't want to be Venezuelan. Forcibly?”.
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We have to go back to the 19th century to find the roots of this dispute. The area passed from one colony to another, from the Spanish to the Dutch and from the Dutch to the British, who took it over in 1831. At that time, its area increased fivefold after part of the Essequibo was swallowed up by settlements around the gold mines. Venezuelan historians suspect the British used misleading maps. Given the controversy at the time, London asked explorer Robert Schomburgk to define the boundary. The adventurer drew a line that claimed almost 80,000 additional square kilometers. Venezuela protested and a new version of the Schomburgk Line was published, which paid no attention to the Venezuelans but expanded the territory even further. In 1899, an arbitration award in Paris gave a favorable ruling for the United Kingdom, officially placing the territory under British rule. Venezuela felt deceived at the time and the conflict continues to this day. Maduro's politicians have accused the British, who defended Guyana, of continuing to practice piracy at this point.
Most of the Essequibo region consists of impenetrable jungle. There are tours where tourists are set loose in the middle of nowhere with a machete, compass and canteen. The view is lost on the plain. Its residents travel in boats that cross raging rivers and on one-way streets. On the sides are shoe repair stalls, colonial-style houses, abandoned cemeteries, Methodist churches and Exxon advertisements. Guyanese flags fly everywhere, a sign of this new patriotic fervor. Bollywood songs are playing on the taxi radio. 44% of the population comes from India, 30% from Africa and the rest is made up of Chinese, indigenous people and other minorities. The official language is English – almost a dialect full of slang – although many speak Hindi and Urdu. The party of Indian-origin politicians and the Afro-Guyanese party alternate in power, a sign of good democratic health, although that does not mean they are immune from corruption.
Those most affected by the tensions between the two countries are Venezuelans living in Guyana, an absolute novelty for a country whose residents are used to being scattered all over the world. It is estimated that there are around 25,000 – a significant number in a country with such a small population. In September, police arrested 70 people who landed at the Essequibo border in boats full of equipment and fighting cocks. Venezuelans have earned a reputation here as hustlers, as people who know how to do everything. This has not been enough to prevent racism, which is very numerous and very strong. Ferney has been selling fruit in Georgetown for a year. He came from the Venezuelan state of Carabobo. He’s no fool: “If you ask me now, I’ll say I’m Cuban. “This shit makes me tired.”
The annexation of Essequibo unites the opposition and the government in Venezuela, but there are those who believe that Chavismo has once again resorted to one of its other strategies to stay in power, where it has been for more than 20 years. Maduro must hold a presidential election in 2024 because he has agreed with the United States in return for easing sanctions on oil and gold, which are crucial to Caracas' economic survival. However, the opposition has a very strong candidate, María Corina Machado, who scores well above Maduro in all polls. If tensions with Guyana increase, Maduro could declare internal unrest and postpone elections indefinitely.
In Charity, life begins around the small harbor where boats full of exotic goods and passengers arrive. Michael Persiud, 53, worked in the Netherlands 20 years ago. He remembers having to explain to everyone where the hell Guyana was. One day he had enough and decided to go to his fishmonger's stall with a card in his pocket. When a customer questioned him, he would walk out with them and point his finger at this Atlantic-washed Latin American country that borders Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname. “And now that we have discovered oil, we are fashionable, everyone wants to join in,” complains Persiud, who has suddenly understood the advantages of anonymity.
There are huge rice fields in the area. Hugo Chávez, Maduro's mentor, put aside the territorial controversy and created a program to exchange Venezuelan oil products for Guyanese rice. This triggered an economic boom in Charity, whose residents were able to afford one or two luxuries. However, Chávez died and the alliance dissolved during the Maduro government as Venezuela's oil production collapsed. Charity was becoming scarce again; the gold mine had been a mirage. “We could be brothers and do something good for both countries, but the fight is killing us. Nobody wanted to invest much here because they felt that things could change at any time. We should forget about it and look for what's best for both of us,” reflects Ron, 51, a taxi driver who dodges goats, tractors and stray dogs that madly attack the wheels of his Japanese-made car. Taken over by the British, Guyanese, who gained independence in 1966, drive on the right side.
Elizabeth Sam wears black glasses and a peaked hat, which gives her a very distinguished look. It is loaded with shopping bags. Long ago, when Chávez was still alive, she worked as a domestic worker in Caracas for five years. He knows how to say: “Hello, thank you, how are you, how are you, you are very nice, you are very beautiful.” Coquetry does not allow him to reveal his age. He believes these could be good times in Essequibo, that the oil boom will lift many out of poverty – the local government hopes to raise average income from $14,000 to $30,000 in a few years – but the Venezuelan threat looms over him : “They would come here and what. Would they kill us? For the love of God.”
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