Venezuela
Guyana views the Nicolás Maduro government’s poll on Essequibo as a step towards annexation
Associated Press in Caracas
Venezuelans are voting in a referendum ostensibly to decide the future of a large swath of neighboring Guyana that their government claims ownership of, arguing the territory was stolen when a north-south border was drawn more than a century ago became.
Guyana sees the referendum as a step toward annexation and the poll is unsettling its residents. It asks Venezuelans whether they support the creation of a state in the disputed territory called Essequibo, granting citizenship to current and future residents of the territory and rejecting the jurisdiction of the United Nations Supreme Court in resolving disagreements between the two South American countries.
The International Court of Justice on Friday ordered that Venezuela not take any action that would affect Guyana’s control over Essequibo, but the judges did not explicitly ban officials from holding Sunday’s five-question referendum.
Guyana had asked the court to order Venezuela to stop parts of the vote.
The legal and practical implications of the referendum remain unclear. But in comments justifying Friday’s ruling, International Court of Justice President Joan E. Donoghue said statements from the Venezuelan government suggested it was “taking steps to establish control over and administer the disputed territory.”
“In addition, Venezuelan military officials announced that Venezuela is taking concrete measures to build an airstrip that will serve as a ‘logistical base for the holistic development of the Essequibo,'” it added.
The 61,600-square-mile (159,500-square-kilometer) territory makes up two-thirds of Guyana and also borders Brazil, whose defense ministry said in a statement earlier this week that it had “intensified its defense measures” and increased its military presence in the region as a result of the dispute .
Essequibo is larger than Greece and rich in minerals. It also provides access to an area of the Atlantic where oil was discovered in commercial quantities in 2015, which attracted the attention of the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The Venezuelan government promoted the referendum for weeks, portraying participation as an act of patriotism and often mixing it with a show of support for Maduro. His government held a mock referendum last month but did not release participation numbers or results.
“Despotic” Maduro is accused of risking conflict between Venezuela and Guyana over an oil-rich region
Venezuela has always considered Essequibo its own country since the region was within its borders during the Spanish colonial period, and it has long disputed the border, which was established by international arbitrators in 1899 when Guyana was still a British colony.
This limit was set by referees from Great Britain, Russia and the USA. The US represented Venezuela on the panel in part because the Venezuelan government had severed diplomatic relations with Britain.
Venezuelan officials claim the Americans and Europeans conspired to defraud their country of the land and argue that a 1966 agreement to resolve the dispute effectively nullified the original arbitration process.
Guyana, the only English-speaking country in South America, maintains that the original agreement was legal and binding and asked the International Court of Justice to rule as such in 2018, but a decision is still years away.
On Sunday, voters must answer whether they “agree by all means and in accordance with the law to reject the 1899 border” and whether they support the 1966 agreement “as the only valid legal instrument” to find a solution .
Maduro and his allies are urging voters to answer “yes” to all five questions in the referendum.
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