Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro says that Guyana and US oil gi­ant Exxon­Mo­bil will now have to sit down and talk with them as he moves ahead in his claim to the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

Exxon­Mo­bil has had phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess in Guyana–since 2015 they have made 46 oil dis­cov­er­ies with four this year.

Exxon­Mo­bil op­er­ates the Stabroek Block, which is in the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion. Exxon­Mo­bil holds a 45 per cent in­ter­est, while Hess Guyana Ex­plo­ration Ltd holds 30 per cent in­ter­est, and CNOOC Pe­tro­le­um Guyana Lim­it­ed holds 25 per cent in­ter­est.

In a post on so­cial me­dia site X yes­ter­day at 10 am, Maduro said, “Guyana and Exxon Mo­bil will have to sit down and talk with us, the Gov­ern­ment of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela. From the heart and soul, we want peace and un­der­stand­ing. By all means, every­thing! Let the world lis­ten to it, with the Gene­va Agree­ment, Every­thing!”

Yes­ter­day, Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali told the Sun­day Guardian, “We are com­mit­ted to peace in this re­gion. The ICJ will de­ter­mine fi­nal­ly the con­tro­ver­sy in the Guyana/Venezuela bor­ders. We are un­com­pro­mis­ing on this and the re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law. We have made it clear we are un­op­posed to con­ver­sa­tions and meet­ings as a re­spon­si­ble peo­ple and coun­try.”

In the past week, Maduro or­dered the na­tion­al oil com­pa­ny PDVSA to be­gin ex­plor­ing the re­gion for oil. He al­so ap­point­ed a deputy of the Unit­ed So­cial­ist Par­ty of Venezuela, Maj Gen Alex­is Ro­dríguez Ca­bel­lo, as the head of a spe­cial mil­i­tary unit over­see­ing the new state, Guayana Es­e­qui­ba.

The events fol­lowed a ref­er­en­dum on De­cem­ber 3, which saw Venezue­lans vote to re­ject the Ar­bi­tral Award of 1899, which fixed the bound­ary be­tween British Guiana and Venezuela, and to for­mal­ly an­nex the Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion by in­cor­po­rat­ing it in­to Venezuela as a new Venezue­lan state, to give Venezue­lan cit­i­zen­ship and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty cards to the Guyanese pop­u­la­tion, and to de­vel­op the ter­ri­to­ry as part of Venezuela.

For its part, Guyana has sought di­a­logue with in­ter­na­tion­al al­lies and Cari­com.

Guyana has ar­gued that all of these ac­tions are vi­o­la­tions of the most fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law, en­shrined in the Unit­ed Na­tions and OAS char­ters. On No­vem­ber 14 and 15, the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in The Hague held hear­ings on Guyana’s Re­quest for Pro­vi­sion­al Mea­sures, by which Guyana sought an Or­der from the Court to pre­vent Venezuela from tak­ing any ac­tion to vi­o­late Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty in the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

Guyana sought the Court’s pro­tec­tion in re­sponse to Venezuela’s sched­ul­ing of a ref­er­en­dum that threat­ens grave, ir­repara­ble and in­cal­cu­la­ble harm to our coun­try.

“All of them threat­en Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty, ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty and po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence,” Ali had said in a state­ment at the time. “But what Venezuela has planned for De­cem­ber 3 is no or­di­nary con­sul­ta­tion. What Venezuela seeks by way of this so-called ref­er­en­dum is a li­cense not on­ly to break the law but to crum­ble it to bits–a li­cense to vi­o­late and de­stroy Guyana’s fun­da­men­tal rights as a sov­er­eign State,” Ali had said.

On De­cem­ber 1, the ICJ or­dered that Venezuela re­frain from tak­ing any ac­tion which would mod­i­fy the sit­u­a­tion which ex­ists with the re­gion be­ing in the hands of Guyana.

In a state­ment late yes­ter­day, it was re­vealed that Maduro held a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Luiz In­á­cio Lu­la da Sil­va and Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gon­salves.

Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tions, a pro­pos­al was re­ceived to hold a high-lev­el meet­ing with Guyana, which will be an­nounced in the com­ing days

The dis­cus­sion took place ahead of Ali’s call for to­day’s re­flec­tion and prayer in the wake of the deaths of five Guyanese De­fence Force ser­vice­men whose he­li­copter went down near the Guyana/Venezuela bor­der on Wednes­day.

Ali called on re­li­gious bod­ies to join in ho­n­our of the mem­o­ry of fall­en ser­vice­men Brig (Rtd) Gary Beat­on, Col Michael Sha­houd, Lt Cols Michael Charles and Shaun Wel­come and Staff Sgt Ja­son Khan.