Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly Deputy Luis Ed­uar­do Martínez made a clar­i­on call for peace and warned that in­cit­ing armed con­fronta­tion against Guyana would be a great tragedy.

The bor­der con­flict, ad­ju­di­cat­ed in Guyana’s favour by the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice, teeters to­ward es­ca­la­tion as Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro claimed Es­se­qui­bo, ap­point­ing a gov­er­nor and is­su­ing a new map.

Re­spond­ing to the cri­sis via an in­sti­tu­tion­al re­lease re­port­ed by Venezuela’s news site tane­tanae.com on De­cem­ber 5, Martínez em­pha­sized the cat­a­stroph­ic na­ture of in­cit­ing armed con­fronta­tion with Guyana.

“Gal­vanis­ing the dis­pute with Guyana would be an un­for­giv­able clum­si­ness. In­cit­ing armed con­fronta­tion against a neigh­bour sup­port­ed to­day by a long list of coun­tries and pow­er­ful in­ter­ests is tru­ly ig­no­rant of the art of war and would lead us to a much greater tragedy than the one we al­ready suf­fer,” Martínez warned.

He quot­ed Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi as he un­der­scored the im­por­tance of pre­serv­ing peace, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the con­text of Venezuela. 

“I have stat­ed time and time again when it comes to Venezuela, that noth­ing is more im­por­tant than pre­serv­ing peace,” he said.

Martínez ar­tic­u­lat­ed the piv­otal sig­nif­i­cance of two up­com­ing events—the pur­suit of Es­se­qui­bo’s vin­di­ca­tion and the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions—de­mand­ing a com­mit­ment to peace. 

“The Venezue­lan peo­ple have killed them­selves time and time again in our na­tion­al his­to­ry. There are dozens of wars—the first the glo­ri­ous one for in­de­pen­dence, rev­o­lu­tions, in­sur­gen­cies, up­ris­ings, that have dev­as­tat­ed our land and hun­dreds of thou­sands of those who have fall­en along with the ru­in of so many again and again,” he point­ed out.

High­light­ing the im­pend­ing pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, Martínez con­demned any at­tempts to re­move the rul­ing par­ty through non-elec­toral means, con­sid­er­ing it an in­ex­cus­able mis­take. He de­nounced the mul­ti­fac­eted chal­lenges fac­ing Venezuela—a com­bi­na­tion of in­ter­nal strife, failed ide­olo­gies, ex­ter­nal sanc­tions, and so­cio-po­lit­i­cal tur­moil—that have con­tributed to the na­tion’s col­lec­tive dis­tress.

Martínez not­ed that re­cov­er­ing the Es­se­qui­bo and forg­ing a dif­fer­ent Venezuela, “the best coun­try in the world that we can be, is pos­si­ble and oblig­a­tory in peace.”

Martínez end­ed the re­lease by say­ing: “May mad­ness and rad­i­cal­ism not sep­a­rate us from the path that to­geth­er we can walk in peace.”

On Tues­day night, Pres­i­dent Maduró an­nounced the ap­point­ment of a gov­er­nor for Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion, Ma­jor Gen­er­al Alex­is Ro­dríguez Ca­bel­lo.

Maduró al­so is­sued a new map of Venezuela in­cor­po­rat­ing the Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion of Guyana.

In a Face­book post trans­lat­ed in­to Eng­lish Maduro de­clared, “I or­dered to im­me­di­ate­ly pub­lish and take all schools, lyceums, mu­nic­i­pal coun­cils, pub­lic es­tab­lish­ments, uni­ver­si­ties and in all homes of the coun­try the new map of Venezuela with our Guayana Es­e­qui­ba. This is our be­lieved map!”

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Guyanese Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali is­sued a state­ment say­ing Guyana has en­gaged Cari­com, the OAS, the Com­mon­wealth and oth­er bi­lat­er­al part­ners in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, Brazil, the Unit­ed King­dom and France. 

He said: “The Guyana De­fence Force is on full alert and has en­gaged its mil­i­tary coun­ter­parts in­clud­ing the US South­ern Com­mand. By de­fy­ing the Court, Venezuela has re­ject­ed in­ter­na­tion­al law, the rule of law gen­er­al­ly, fun­da­men­tal jus­tice and moral­i­ty, and the preser­va­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.”