Venezuela and Guyana agree not to resort to arms to settle Essequibo dispute

The presidents of Venezuela and Guyana met Thursday in St. Vincent and the Grenadines where they agreed not to issue threats or use force in their dispute over the Essequibo, a region that is rich in oil and minerals and which is governed by Guyana. No substantive resolution was reached, however. Nicolás Maduro has laid claim to the territory while the Guyanese leader, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, is adamant there is no scenario in which the demands of Caracas will be met, resulting in a stalemate. The two presidents met after a fortnight of enormous tension, in which the international community feared that the dispute may escalate into an armed conflict.

The meeting was held in the presence of members of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), representatives of the Brazilian government and United Nations observers. Part of Essequibo belonged to Venezuela in the 19th century but Guyana, which was then a British colony, extended its limits in search of gold and bauxite mines until it controlled the entire territory. Venezuela took its case to the international institutions without success: the Paris arbitration award of 1899 favored the United Kingdom, but numerous Venezuelan historians maintain that this ruling was rigged because Britain turned to an explorer, Robert Schomburgk, to define the border. The adventurer drew a line that claimed nearly 31,000 additional square miles. Venezuela protested and a new version of the Schomburgk line was published which — far from paying attention to Caracas’ claim — expanded the territory even further. A century and a quarter later, the Chavista government has taken up the cause and appears willing to pursue it until the end.

In the 11-point joint declaration, Guyana expresses its full confidence in the proceedings of the U.N. International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is handling the border dispute. Venezuela, on the other hand, does not recognize its jurisdiction in this matter. Both governments have committed preventing an escalation of the conflict and avoiding incidents on the border that could be considered an attack. Should such a incident occur, the parties who sat at the table Thursday will mediate. A joint commission of foreign ministers and technicians has been appointed to together on a solution. In three months, the parties are scheduled to meet again in Brazil.

Maduro, however, appeared in little mood to give ground. “We arrived in St. Vicent and the Grenadines with the mandate of the people of Venezuela to advance through dialogue and the word of peace, defending the rights of the people and our homeland. We are seeking effective, satisfactory, and practical solutions as mandated by the Geneva Agreement,” he said on social media. The ICJ did not prohibit the referendum on Essequibo organized by Maduro three weeks ago — hence Maduro referring to “the mandate of the people” — but it warned him not to change the status quo of the border. China, the United States, and Brazil have also called on Maduro not to make any rash decisions.

In the meantime, Maduro presented a new map of the country on national television that includes Essequibo, an vast jungle territory roughly the size of Florida. Venezuelan nationalism celebrated this coup. Moreover, the government has enacted a law declaring Essequibo a region of Venezuela and has offered its 125,000 inhabitants citizenship. The residents of Essequibo, however, could not be more culturally distant from Venezuela: they are English-speaking and have hardly any contact with other countries in the region. Guyana itself is largely focused on internal issues. Historically one of the poorest countries in the region, Guyana now aspires to become one of the wealthiest due to the enormous oil deposits found in its waters by the U.S. company ExxonMobil. Some of these deposits were discovered off the coasts of Essequibo, which has exacerbated a feeling of deception among Venezuelans.

Ali, the only Muslim president in the West, represents the PPP, an Indo-Guyanese majority social democratic party that has been in power since 2020. He too has been adamant about his position: “Guyana is not the aggressor, Guyana is not seeking war, but Guyana reserves the right to work with all our partners to ensure the defence of our country,” he said. Ali added that the meeting was held to ask Venezuela to de-escalate the situation and respect its territory — Essequibo accounts for over two-thirds of Guyana’s land mass — in accordance with international law. Emulating Maduro, he presented piece of leather on which was drawn the complete map of Guyana, including Essequibo.

The 1966 Geneva Agreement decided that the two countries would exhaust all avenues of dialogue in the U.N. instances to resolve their differences. That did not yield results and, in 2018, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres decided to pass the case to the ICJ at Guyana’s request. Maduro is seeking a return to what was agreed in Geneva to rethink the lawsuit from scratch, to produce arguments in favor of the Venezuelan flag flying over Essequibo. Guyana, for its part, is committed to the ICJ process.

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