Venezuela to Meet With Guyana to Discuss Essequibo on December 14

Op-Ed

Brazil's President,  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and ExxonMobil have been also invited to the meeting to be held Thursday starting at 10 AM in the tiny Caribbean nation of in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The meeting will come a week after Friday, December 8, when Venezuela's President Maduro signed 6 executive orders cementing his annexation of the Essequibo region, which currently makes up some 2/3 of Guyana's territory and is the richest part of the country with oil, gold, diamonds and other minerals and precious gems. Most of the region is jungle with a population of some 100,000 inhabitants spread out over 159,500 square kilometers (61,600 sq mi). Most of its oil is offshore. 

The Essequibo region previously belonged to Venezuela but was taken in a rigged international tribunal by Britain in 1899 and made part of its colonial British Guiana. Attempts by Venezuela to get the territory back had not been successful and the issue was with the UN's International Court of Justice for many years without any progress. Guyana has pledged to accept whatever decision the ICJ makes, if it ever makes one. 

Venezuela held a questionable public referendum on December 3rd on the issue of Essequibo and the issue should have then gone to its Legislature for further consideration, but five days later the territory was effectively annexed by presidential decree and oil companies with rigs in the region were given 90 days to leave. Guyana has vowed to defend the territory and the U.S. has been holding military exercises with Guyana's feeble forces.

ExxonMobil has substantial leases to the oil in the region and is unlikely to abandon its rigs and the immense profits they provide, especially to someone like Nicolás Maduro. 

At this stage it will be difficult for Maduro to back down and reverse the annexation and it is not yet known what he hopes to accomplish by discussing his actions with Guyana, ExxonMobil and Brazil. He may just be stalling for time or trying to demonstrate that he is open to some sort of diplomatic solution. He could ask for payment from Guyana to retain the territory with a percentage of future oil revenues. Guyana and ExxonMobil could afford to pay Maduro a few billion dollars to resolve the issue, but, if Maduro rescinds the annexation it would make him look weak to his supporters. 

Guyana is in a very precarious position. Its claim on the land is not very solid and without the territory and the revenue it provides, the country may not be viable without substantial aid from other nations. The U.S. and Britain are committed to waging war against Venezuela on Guyana's behalf and would like an excuse to remove Maduro from power, but the people of Guyana certainly don't want to be involved in a war. Most of the population lives in the coastal city of Georgetown, which could be hard to defend from attack. 

Venezuela has some advanced weapons but its military is corrupt, poorly staffed and unprepared to wage any type of significant war. It would have to depend upon the military might of China or Russia to defend itself against the U.S. and UK. 

Many suspect that Maduro would not make such moves unless he had the backing of China or Russia. Both would benefit from the U.S. being entangled in a war with Venezuela and would likely ensure that Maduro could hold out long enough to distract the U.S. from Taiwan and Ukraine while they settle those issues. If that is the case, there has been no reported major movements of troops or weapons to signal such support. However, there has been a substantial increase in the number of Russian tourists visiting Venezuela and some of them could be military personnel pretending to be tourists. Then there is the fact that oil transfers from Venezuela to China have been managed by China's leading aerospace company, which makes the ship-killing hypersonic missiles designed specifically to destroy American naval ships. Those missiles may already be in Venezuela. 

No doubt the U.S. Southern Command has various plans ready to implement to remove Maduro from power, but with U.S. troop levels down, aging and defective hardware, and special forces being reduced, its capabilities may not be what they once were.

Trillions will be reporting on the meeting of December 14.