This article was first published on the 20th of March 2020 by Patrick Carpen.
Just around the time when Guyana has received its first payment of 55 million US dollars for its first 1 million barrels of oil, the Venezuelan military has made renewed calls for taking back the Essequibo.
Read Story: Venezuelan Military Renews Demand for the Essequibo.
The Institute for Border Studies in Venezuela (IDEFV) and the Military Institutional Front (FIM) presented a document dated the 15th of March 2020 addressed to “all Venezuelans, without exclusions,” and refers to the “continuous actions and activities that the Cooperative Republic of Guyana continues to carry out in order to ignore the validity of the Geneva Agreement, signed on February 17, 1966 by Great Britain, its colony, British Guiana and the Republic of Venezuela.”
It’s easy to see where this is going. Venezuela is cash strapped. Its citizens are sadly, literally eating out of the trash cans. The IMF recently turned down Maduro’s application for financing to fight Coronavirus. Buckling under the pressure of US Sanctions, the Maduro Regime is desperate for money.
Even though Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, and abundant gold resources, because of sanctions, its currency has no value, and it is unable to do business with most of the Western World.
But the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela still has one trump card – the Venezuela military which is still one of the strongest in the world. Ranked 41 out of 138 in the world, the Venezuelan military has over 14 million available manpower, 36 fighter jets, 86 helicopters, 52 aircraft carriers and 10 attack helicopters.
On the ground it is outfitted with 600 armored vehicles, 390 tanks, 36 rocket projectors and 104 towed artillery. The naval forces boasts 29 patrol vehicles, 4 frigates, 3 corvettes and 2 submarines. On top of that, Venezuela’s surface to air defense system is one of the best in the world – making an attack against Venezuela a daunting task – and what has largely kept US forces out of Venezuelan airspace.
It would be easy to see then, that a war between Guyana and Venezuela would be a walkover for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. And that’s what Maduro is flaunting right now.
On the 17th of February, 2020, Maduro tweeted:
We remember 54 years since the signing of the Geneva Agreement that reaffirms the legitimate right of our Homeland, over Guiana Essequiba. Through our Bolivarian Diplomacy of Peace, we will continue to defend our sovereignty, because: The Sun of Venezuela, is born in the Essequibo! See Source Article.
Although all of Guyana‘s oil resources are not in the disputed territory, a lot of it is, and it is easy to see that Maduro is trying to intimidate the Guyana Government into signing over a percentage of the oil revenue “in order to avoid a military confrontation.”
Indeed, Guyana can’t win a war against Venezuela, but under the watchful eyes of the United States, the Venezuelan military dare not move a muscle in the direction of Guyana.
But here is where things get complicated. Guyana is presently undergoing severe political turmoil, and various international bodies, including the United States Embassy, the Organization for American States and the European Union have accused the incumbent APNU/AFC of seeking the benefits of electoral fraud. The United States has already warned that “de facto regimes do not receive the same treatment as democratically elected governments.”
It is this present volatile political situation that Maduro is capitalizing on. If there is an incursion into Guyana by the Venezuelan military as of the time of this writing (20th of March 2020), then Guyana, with no Head of State and no international support, will be unable to defend itself.
