Venezuela promised to take over part of Guyana. Why now?

Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro this month ordered schools and government offices to use a redrawn map of the country, which includes a brand-new state – carved out of neighboring Guyana’s territory. The national oil company plans to hand out exploration licenses there, and the military is creating a division to administer the territory.

Guyana – and international courts – aren’t on board.

Venezuela and Guyana are at odds over the Essequibo, a sparsely populated patch of land that is covered by rainforests, flat-topped mountains, and sweeping savannas. It has belonged to Guyana since a 19th-century court ruling that never made Venezuela happy, but recently discovered oil reserves have reignited President Maduro’s interest in claiming control.

As concerns grow that Venezuela’s authoritarian government could attack its small neighbor over the intensifying land dispute, Presidents Maduro and Irfaan Ali of Guyana will meet in the Caribbean island of St. Vincent tomorrow to try to defuse tensions.

Despite sometimes violent conflicts erupting inside Latin American countries, cross-border attacks are a rarity here. “If a conflict of force emerges, the implications would be horrendous to contemplate,” said St. Vincent and the Grenadine’s Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who organized tomorrow’s meeting.

Mr. Maduro held a referendum vote on the Essequibo earlier this month, but observers say the dispute is about more than territorial expansion. Venezuela, which already has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is preparing to hold its first internationally-monitored presidential election in 11 years, and Mr. Maduro faces the real prospect of losing to the opposition. 

The leader’s popularity has plummeted amid a protracted economic crisis, which has been worsened by U.S. sanctions on the nation’s oil exports. Some sanctions were eased recently under a deal in which Venezuela’s government promised to reinstate opposition candidates previously barred from participating in elections. 

“The real reason this has blown up now is because Maduro needs an issue that will unite Venezuelans around his government,” says Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst for the International Crisis Group. “The opposition now has a very popular candidate … and Maduro needs to find a way to avoid losing power.”

While Mr. Maduro’s moves around the Essequibo have been “symbolic” so far, Mr. Gunson says the situation could escalate if Mr. Maduro continues to struggle domestically – possibly using the dispute as an excuse to delay or suspend the anticipated presidential vote.

Unhappy since 1899

The Essequibo is roughly the size of Florida, with about 125,000 residents who are mostly members of Indigenous tribes. It makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, is rich in rivers and gold deposits, and has become crucial for the economy since 2015, when vast oil reserves were found off its shores.

In 1899, when Guyana was a British colony, most of the territory was granted to the United Kingdom by an arbitration court in Paris.

Venezuela, which was then recovering from a series of debilitating civil wars, grudgingly accepted the ruling. Over the past 50 years Venezuela has challenged Guyana’s control over the Essequibo through diplomatic channels, occasionally using its navy to harass Guyanese fishing boats off the region’s shores. 

But Venezuela ramped up its claims on Dec. 3 with a referendum on the Essequibo’s future. 

Venezuelan voters were asked five questions, including whether they reject the 1899 court ruling, if they agree with the plan to turn the territory into a Venezuelan state, if the current residents should be granted Venezuelan citizenship, and if they agree with the Maduro administration’s decision to handle the dispute without the International Court of Justice’s involvement. The court had previously invited both countries to present their arguments at its headquarters in The Hague. 

The referendum was overwhelmingly approved – according to Venezuelan election officials, who say 10.4 million people participated. Officials have not shared data from voting centers.

Local media outlets showed empty polling stations and voting centers stayed open for an additional two hours in an effort to get more people to the polls. 

In the town of San Antonio del Táchira, near Venezuela’s border with Colombia, fruit vendor William González says he stayed home on referendum day, like most of his neighbors.

“They are trying to pave the way for an invasion, which regular citizens will ultimately have to pay” for, Mr. González says. “The matter should be settled in a court.”

Juan Manuel Trak, a Venezuelan sociologist who specializes in electoral processes, says that like recent elections in Venezuela – including the 2018 presidential vote – the referendum lacked independent or international observers. 

“There is no way to audit the results, so we may never really know what happened,” he says. 

Military threat?

The referendum provided Mr. Maduro with a way to “justify” his next steps, says Mr. Gunson.

Guyana is preparing for the worst.

The small English-speaking nation is seeking closer military cooperation with the U.S., which already began conducting air patrols over the Essequibo region this month.

President Ali has described Venezuela’s recent actions such as the referendum and public plans to create an Essequibo state as a “direct threat” to Guyana. 

With just 3,000 troops and four patrol boats known as “barracudas” to protect its coast, Guyana’s military is no match for Venezuela’s, which has 120,000 regular troops in addition to high-tech equipment and a submarine, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank.

But geography may be in Guyana’s favor. The lack of roads between Venezuela and the Essequibo would make it difficult for Venezuela to move many troops into Guyana, says Christopher Hernandez-Roy, deputy director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Not to mention, Venezuela’s troops may not be as mighty as they look on paper. Mr. Hernandez-Roy points to an attempt two years ago by Venezuela to remove a Colombian rebel group from its territory. The Venezuelans were routed and suffered heavy casualties.

“This is not the kind of army that is prepared to invade another country,” Mr. Hernandez-Roy says. “The military has endemic corruption, and lacks a central command structure.”

There’s also the risk of angering left-wing presidents in nearby Colombia and Brazil, who currently have a favorable relationship with Venezuela, but would not approve of an invasion, says Brian Fonseca, a professor of national security at Florida International University.

The threat of escalation could depend on how desperate Mr. Maduro becomes in the face of internal challenges to his presidency. 

“When dictators are in hard spots, they sometimes do crazy things,” Mr. Hernandez-Roy says. “The international community needs to make sure that it sends a message to Maduro that any kind of armed action is unacceptable.”