WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, UCADI FA #180 - El Essequibo disputed (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 A new conflict seems to be appearing on the world scene: this time the

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and part of the remnants of what was
the British Empire, made up of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, are
involved. Over a part of the latter territory of 159,542 km2, called
Guayana Esequiba, better known as El Essequibo, Venezuela claims
sovereignty, defining the Cooperative Republic of Guyana as an
artificial construction resulting from the colonial domination of Latin
America. Behind the rekindling of the conflict there are immense mineral
and environmental resources, offshore oil and gas, and Exxon Mobil's
exploration off the coast of El Essequibo. The territorial dispute comes
from afar: according to Venezuela, Guayana Esequiba has been part of
Venezuelan territory since its formation as Capitanía General del Reino
de España in 1777 and maintained it when it was born as a Republic,
gaining independence in 1811.
It should be noted that the colonization of Guynea began at the end of
the 16th century, when the Dutch settled on the banks of the Essequibo,
consolidating their presence from 1621 thanks to the Dutch West India
Company. During the Napoleonic wars the Dutch possessions were occupied
by the English and definitively assigned by the Congress of Vienna to
Great Britain, which in 1831 united them with its possessions in that
area, developing the cultivation of sugar cane, large coastal
plantations, employing slaves black. After the abolition of slavery and
the abandonment of the plantations by the blacks, the English imported
Indian labor; within a century the population of Indian origin became
the majority.

As a consequence of migrations from various parts of the world, the
population is now composite: alongside the Indians (43.5%) there are
blacks (30.2%), mixed-race people (16.7%), Amerindians (9.2 %) who live
along the rivers within the country, the Portuguese descended from the
Madeiras recruited in the nineteenth century, the Chinese and other
Europeans. Ethnic heterogeneity is reflected in the variety of
religions, where Hindus are in the majority (28.8%), alongside numerous
Protestants (18.7%), Catholics (8.1%), and Muslims (7.3%). ). About 90%
of the population lives, concentrated in the coastal strip, between the
estuaries of the Essequibo and Courantyne rivers. The country has the
highest share of rural population in South America, and in 2008 only 28%
of its inhabitants lived in urban areas. By far the most important city
is Georgetown, followed, at a distance, by Linden and New Amsterdam.
Only in 1899 was Venezuela able to oppose the Arbitration Award, which
had established the territory's affiliation to the British
administration, arguing that this solution had been adopted fraudulently
and thanks to the complicity between the British delegates and the
Russian Judge Fyodor Martens. Since then a controversy began, partially
resolved on the occasion of the independence granted to Guyana in 1966,
when before independence an agreement was signed in Geneva on 17
February 1966 by Venezuela and the United Kingdom, together with British
Guiana, which established that Essequibo would be administered from
Guyana; the question of sovereignty, disputed by Venezuela, would have
been resolved by a new Treaty to be stipulated within 4 years, but never
signed. The Geneva Agreement established the current borders between the
Cooperative Republic of Guyana and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The Government of Guyana considers that of Geneva «A binding
international agreement between the Parties», completely exhaustive of
the problem, while Venezuela contests its validity to the point that on
November 22, 2022, the Executive Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy
Rodríguez, presented to the International Court of Justice, based in The
Hague, indicated as the competent court by the UN; in formulating
preliminary objections to the request of the Cooperative Republic of
Guyana, the Venezuelans claim rights to the Guyana Esequiba because «The
Paris arbitration award of 1899 is illegal, because Venezuela was not
present when it was concluded and Guyana did not exist as a subject of
international law. Therefore the award is null and void." However, the
Venezuelan side is leaning towards an amicable solution. The Georgetown
government claims the validity of the Geneva Agreement and, led by the
People's Progressive Party/Civic (which joins the International Meeting
of Communist and Workers' Parties), opposes the "socialist" government
of Caracas.

Venezuela considers Guyana little more than a British colonial invention
and states «Guiana knows well that although until 1966 it did not even
dream of being born as an independent state; Venezuela, however, has
indisputable historical and legal titles that demonstrate that Guayana
Esequiba belongs to it. The sole objective of the British Empire was to
strip Venezuela of its territory, steal and plunder its resources.
Georgetown has unilaterally attempted to escape the Geneva Agreement,
with a legal interpretation created and financed by multinational oil
companies. We urge Guyana to take its international responsibilities
seriously."
Historically, the true masters of those territories would be the
indigenous peoples who inhabited them (and inhabit them) before the
arrival of the Spanish, British, Dutch and French invaders and that
certainly no one would talk about Guayana Esequiba - El Essequibo - if
it were not full of mineral and forestry resources and above all there
were no promising ones
gas and oil fields. Furthermore, the strategic position of the country
and the conflict between Venezuela and the United States have already
aroused the interests of the latter, who, faced with the possibility of
the crisis exploding, have sent two military missions to study the
possibility of setting up their own bases in the country, thus opening a
new front with Venezuela, notoriously with solid relations with Russia
and which is preparing to enter the Brics, strengthened by the fact of
belonging to the international cartel of producing countries that set
the price of oil and gas.

G.L.

https://www.ucadi.org/2023/12/20/el-essequibo-conteso/
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