Venezuela is planning to annex twothirds of neighboring Guyana in a case of a bully picking a fight with a much smaller neighbor.

Venezuela comprises 353, 841 square miles; Guyana, 83,000 square miles. Venezuela has 28,838,499; people Guyana, 805,000 people – 230,000 of whom live in the area which Venezuela wants to seize.

Also, Venezuela has 120,000 soldiers, 600 armored vehicles, 200 battle tanks, 100 combat-capable aircraft and dozens of helicopters; Guyana has between 4,000 and 5,000 troops. Even if, as some analysts say, economic and other problems have reduced Venezuela’s military capability to onethird of what it would normally be, that would still leave an overwhelming force against Guyana.

Both countries have large oil deposits but Venezuela’s reserves have been estimated at 304 billion barrels – the highest in the world; Guyana has about 11 billion barrels, located in the disputed area. Some analysts have suggested that Venezuela wants Guyana’s oil, discovered in 2015 but that does not factor in its own badly mismanaged petroleum sector which has plunged the country into a devastating economic downturn. Venezuela does not need Guyana’s oil.

The main reason for the claim is most likely a domestic one. President Nicolás Maduro, an autocrat, is facing stiff opposition in his bid for re-election next year and is using the border claim to appeal to patriotism to gain votes. In using Guyana as a scapegoat, he is betraying the legacy of the liberator Simón Bolívar after whom the country is officially named: the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

At the center of the dispute is Maduro’s insistence that Guyana’s western region of Essequibo belongs to Venezuela as part of its territory after independence from Spain in 1811. Guyana – where this writer was born -counters that Essequibo became part of its territory in 1814 when Britain took over as its colonial power under a treaty with the Netherlands. The treaty, however, did not specify the western boundary of what would become British Guiana, according to a Washington Post report. Britain hired Germanborn explorer Robert Schomburgk to define that border and he settled on Essequibo.

Venezuela, in 1841, challenged what became known as the Schomburgk Line and invoked the new Monroe Doctrine, named after President James Monroe, who, in a speech to Congress in 1823, told European nations not to meddle in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela appealed to the U.S for help. Fifty-four years later, President Grover Cleveland asked Congress to approve a border commission to determine, in essence, the fate of Essequibo. Cleveland proclaimed that it would “be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power” any British appropriation of Venezuelan territory which would be seen as “willful aggression upon its rights and interests.”

That dispute led to the establishment of an arbitration tribunal in 1899 comprising two members named by Venezuela (which picked two Americans), two named by Britain (which selected British lawyers) and a fifth chosen by those four (who tapped a Russian diplomat.) The tribunal ruled that most of Essequibo belonged to the British colony. In 1949, a letter was discovered that suggested that the Russian tribunal member had colluded with the British in making the award. Venezuela used it to challenge the validity of the tribunal’s ruling.

At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. began fearing that British Guiana would gain independence under a communist government – a reference to the proCuba, pro-Soviet Union stance of the then premier, Cheddi Jagan. Secretary of State Dean Rusk urged President John F. Kennedy to “encourage Venezuela and possibly Brazil to pursue their territorial claims.”

Ironically, such meddling was unnecessary. The U.S. colluded with Britain to block a possible Jagan government in what would become independent Guyana, including fomenting bloody racial violence between citizens of African and Indian descent. A new electoral system prevented Jagan from winning a parliamentary majority and the premiership went to his former ally Forbes Burnham.

Guyana gained independence in 1966 and agreed with Venezuela to establish a joint border commission to resolve the dispute but no agreement was reached. Guyana went on a decades-long courtship of world leaders, with Burnham steadfastly supporting the Non-Aligned Movement of small nations seeking to escape superpower hegemony. He could seek solidarity from them if Venezuela decided to invade.

Also, some observers believe that Burnham allowed Jim Jones to build his People’s Temple – Jonestown – with more than 1,000 American followers in the disputed territory on the assumption that the U.S. would act if its citizens were endangered or harmed by Venezuelan aggression. The cult perished in a mass murder/suicide in 1978 that had nothing to do with the border.

In 2018, Guyana turned for help to the United Nations, whose secretary general, António Guterres, subsequently referred the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a UN arm whose rulings are binding. Venezuela rejected their jurisdiction. In a statement, the ICJ explained that Guyana is asking it to uphold the 1899 award as binding, along with a 1905 agreement between both countries; that Guyana has full sovereignty over Essequibo; that Venezuela withdraw and cease occupation of the eastern half of Ankoko island – which Venezuela annexed five months after Guyana’s independence.

Guyana is also asking the ICJ to order Venezuela to refrain from threatening or using force against any person or company licensed by Guyana to conduct economic or commercial activity in Guyanese territory – including Essequibo, a reference to Venezuelan military action against fishing vessels and an unspoken threat to its oil operations.

The ICJ has not ruled on the case as yet but Maduro did not wait. In September, he persuaded the pro-Maduro National Assembly to approve a referendum on annexing Essequibo. The court issued a temporary ruling demanding that both countries “shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve.” The ICJ noted that Guyana is currently administering and exercising control over Essequibo and “the Court considers that, pending the final decision in the case, Venezuela must refrain from taking any action which would modify that situation.” Maduro proceeded anyhow with the referendum.

The voting, held early this month, posed a series of questions to Venezuelans, with yes or no answers: whether they supported the claim over Essequibo; whether they agreed that the 1899 arbitration ruling was invalid; whether to reject the jurisdiction of the ICJ:, whether they opposed Guyana’s exploitation of the oil reserves in Essequibo; and whether they agreed to renaming the region Guayana Esequiba and incorporating it into the Venezuelan map and granting its residents Venezuelan citizenship and identity cards.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced that 10.55 million people or 97.8 percent approved all the questions, giving Maduro what The Miami Herald called “blank check powers to invade Guyana.” However, the referendum and its results have been widely discredited. The Herald noted that the votes supposedly cast amounted to an unheard-of 61 percent turnout of the 20.69 million registered voters. Ruben Chirinos, whose polling firm Meganalisis monitored the referendum, put it at less than 22 percent. Maduro followed up by formally designating Essequibo a new Venezuelan state and setting up state-run companies to exploit its mineral and oil reserves. He also created a special military unit for the region, to be stationed at the border.

As to the U.S., it is now fully supportive of Guyana, particularly in light of hostile relations with Maduro. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken gave that assurance in a phone call to Guyana’s President Irfan Ali earlier this month, a statement from Blinken’s office said. The U.S. is also conducting military flights over Guyana’s airspace in cooperation with the Guyana Defence Force.

It is the least that the U.S. can do to atone for its role in this whole sorry affair.