Georgetown (Guyana)
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) arrives this Wednesday (28) in Georgetown, capital of Guyana, where he will meet with the country's President Irfaan Ali amid the frozen dispute over the Essequibo region as Territory recognized in the international community as part of Guyana and claimed by Venezuela.
Lula attends as a guest the Heads of Government Meeting of Caricom (Caribbean Community), which brings together 15 countries and 5 territories in the region. The PT member is expected to speak during the group's plenary session this Wednesday and take part in meetings on the sidelines of the event.
Lula will then travel to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to attend the CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) summit, where he will meet Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. However, the meeting has not yet been confirmed.
The trip through the Caribbean and the talks with the two parties involved in the territorial dispute were scheduled to take place just over a month after the meeting of the foreign ministers of both countries in Brasília, mediated by Minister Mauro Vieira (Foreign Affairs) in January.
On this occasion, the meeting between representatives from Georgetown and Caracas in the Brazilian capital lasted seven hours. In the end, the joint statement to the press said that the meeting was a “good start”, but that there were no direct statements on Essequibo and no announcement of concrete measures.
The crisis between the two countries has been fueled again by the Maduro regime since the discovery of huge oil deposits off the coast of the Guyana region in 2015.
ExxonMobil leads the consortium with the American Hess and the Chinese CNOOC, which has discovered 11 billion barrels of oil and now produces around 645,000 barrels per day. President Ali told an energy sector conference this month that the winners of a new auction for new wells will be announced at the end of March.
Although there is no official confirmation, Portal news agency says a meeting between Lula and Maduro is expected on the sidelines of the Celac summit, to ask for guarantees that Caracas will not further inflame the debate and use force to resolve the dispute and include Essequibo in its map. He has already done this in speeches. After a referendum in Venezuela in December approved the region's incorporation as a state, Maduro released the nation's new map with Essequibo in Venezuelan territory.
However, his rhetorical escalation reached its climax. Thereafter, in addition to the foreign ministers' meeting in Brasília in December, the Venezuelan met with the Guyanese in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the two greeted each other. Back in February, Maduro said he had “great respect” for Ali.
According to the Brazilian government's assessment, the meeting in the Caribbean archipelago eased tensions in fact, there were no new rhetorical escalations or contrary actions from Caracas. But nothing in Guyana clouds the idea that Maduro's intentions could come true at any moment.
From the Brazilian border town of Lethem to the capital on the coast, posters, stickers and Tshirts declaring “Esequibo is part of Guyana” highlight the status of Georgetown and a significant portion of Guyana. “We will do whatever is necessary to ensure Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Ali said in December.
The local government is hosting the Caricom meeting at a time of unprecedented strength for the country. According to the IMF (International Monetary Fund), Guyana was the country that grew the most in 2022: 62%. Estimates for 2023 are around 30% and are expected to remain at similar levels over the next four years.
During his visit to Georgetown, Lula also plans to meet with Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, as well as a trilateral meeting with Guyana and Suriname to discuss issues related to the region's economic integration Brazil does not have a direct air connection to Georgetown and the only road that connects Boa Vista to the capital of Guyana are difficult to access as there are stretches without asphalt and little infrastructure.
Planalto and Itamaraty advisers reiterated the political importance of the visit. Caricom represents 7% of the UN and 40% of the OAS (Organization of American States) and tends to vote together in international forums so good relations with nations and the community as a whole are important.
New embassies opened in Caribbean countries during Lula's first term, but were closed during Jair Bolsonaro's administration. The idea is that some of them will reopen, for example St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Ministers Simone Tebet (Planning), Renan Filho (Transport), Ports and Airports (Silvio Costa Filho) and Waldez Goes (Integration and Regional Development) will be in the PT member's delegation.
The group shows what focus the Brazilian government should place on the meeting. On the agenda are proposals to develop an integration axis between northern Brazil and Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
The dispute between Guyana and Venezuela dates back to the beginning of the 19th century, when Venezuela gained its independence from Spain. In the subsequent division of the region, a treaty between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in 1814 awarded land belonging to Amsterdam on the left bank of the Essequibo River.
In 1831 it included twothirds of the new British Guiana, neighboring French Guiana, which remains the territory of Paris, and Dutch Guiana, which became independent Suriname in 1975.
Venezuelans did not agree with the split and an international commission was formed in Paris to settle the matter. In 1899, a report transferred final ownership of the area to the British. This lasted until the late 1940s, when the Caracas campaign resumed, now with accusations that the agreement was fraudulent and influenced by London.
New negotiations took place and in 1966 the Geneva Agreement was signed between London and Caracas. However, according to him, there was little consensus: Venezuela reiterated its rejection of the 1899 report and, without doing so, the United Kingdom agreed to discuss the border question until there was a “satisfactory decision”.
However, a few months later, Guyana became independent. Negotiations failed within the expected four years, a new protocol was signed and the matter was frozen for twelve years until Venezuela decided not to ratify the protocol in 1982 and took the case to the UN.
In 1982, Venezuela finally decided not to ratify the protocol and the matter was eventually taken to the UN. Years of more or less friendly discussions followed until Chavismo emerged in Caracas in the 2000s and matters took a more peaceful turn.
With the oil discoveries on the Essequibo coast, Maduro began to return to the issue and threaten Guyana. The United Nations then appointed the International Court of Justice as the forum for the case, which ruled in December that Venezuela should not take any action to “change the situation in Essequibo.”