Two days after the referendum on Essequibo, a territory that Venezuela disputes with Guyana, the government of Nicolás Maduro is trying to impose what was decided on Sunday in elections in which there was almost no turnout on the streets but which was described as chavismo were described as a victory with 10.4 million voters, which has once again created a crisis of credibility among the country’s electoral authorities. This Tuesday, Maduro presented on television the new official map of the country with the incorporation of the Essequibo, without the claimed delimitation, during a meeting of the State and Defense Council of the nation, in which he announced a series of measures and upcoming laws to the Complete ownership of the territory and its resources. The president had previously sent a military contingent to Puerto Barima in Delta Amacuro state on Venezuela’s Atlantic border, very close to the borders of the claimed territory.
The story war has begun. Guyana raised a flag a few weeks ago on a small hill in Essequibo. On the day of the referendum, the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications released a video showing some indigenous people lowering the Guyanese flag and raising the Venezuelan flag. Maduro is now countering with everything. A special law announced this Tuesday will create a new province or state in the territory, but a single provisional authority has already been named. It is Major General Alexis Rodríguez Cabello, deputy of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), who will operate from Tumeremo, the municipality located in the south of the country in the center of mining exploitation in the state of Bolívar, just 100 kilometers away and two hours removed. of streets in the town of San Martín de Turumbang, in the claimed area.
“We want the peaceful rescue of Guyana Esequiba. “Let us begin to respond to the people who spoke out on December 3rd!” said the President. “Our Guiana Esequiba was de facto occupied by the British Empire and its heirs and they destroyed the territory,” he added, after recalling the agreements made at the time of Hugo Chávez to create Petrocaribe. Venezuela then offered the Caricom countries discounted oil in return for diplomatic support for its Bolivarian revolution, but in this historic dispute these countries have supported Guyana. “We are a people of peace, unionists, we have proven this since Petrocaribe, which made possible the social and economic stability of the Caribbean, especially Guyana, which then had the highest rates of development and is now in misery,” he added.
The President directed PDVSA to prepare a map of exploration and exploitation of resources and also called on Parliament to draft a law to delimit oil concessions granted to Guyana in the territorial sea, such as the American Exxon Mobile, which over has a maritime platform. in the zone. “We are giving the companies that are exploiting Venezuelan resources there without authorization three months to get their act together.” He also called on the National Assembly to establish environmental protection areas and national parks in the territory.
Previously, a military contingent had been mobilized to Puerto Barima in Delta Amacuro state on Venezuela’s Atlantic border, very close to the borders of the claimed zone claimed by Venezuela and Guyana. This is a legal dispute that dates back to 1777, when the Captain General of Venezuela included on the same map the piece of 160,000 square kilometers that was not occupied either at the time when it was under the Kingdom of Spain or after Venezuela’s independence was what was the case in British Guiana that succeeded in setting limits in the Paris arbitration award in 1899 in a process that was described as rigged. Two centuries later, the head of the Strategic Operations Command of the National Armed Forces, Domingo Hernández Lárez, has shared on his social networks images of Venezuelan soldiers providing medical care to the indigenous communities living in the region. In one of the messages he published, he posted photos of trucks carrying construction materials and the message “Towards the Guayanés Shield to support the comprehensive development of the nation.”
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