Venezuelans voted by a wide margin Sunday to approve the takeover of an oil-rich region in neighboring Guyana \u2013 the latest escalation in a long-running territorial dispute between the two countries, fueled by the recent discovery of vast offshore energy resources. <\/p>\n
The area in question, the densely forested Essequibo region, amounts to about two-thirds of Guyana\u2019s national territory and is roughly the size of Florida. <\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s largely symbolic referendum asked voters if they agreed with creating a Venezuelan state in the Essequibo region, providing its population with Venezuelan citizenship and \u201cincorporating that state into the map of Venezuelan territory.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a news conference announcing preliminary results from the first tranche of counted votes, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council said voters chose \u201cyes\u201d more than 95% of the time on each of five questions on the ballot. <\/p>\n
It is unclear what steps Venezuela\u2019s government would take to enforce its claim, however. <\/p>\n
Venezuela has long claimed the land, which it argues was within its borders during the Spanish colonial period. It dismisses an 1899 ruling by international arbitrators that set the current boundaries when Guyana was still a British colony, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has cast the referendum in anti-imperialist sentiment on social media. <\/p>\n
Guyana has called the move a step towards annexation and an \u201cexistential threat.\u201d <\/p>\n
Last week, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali visited troops in Essequibo and dramatically hoisted a Guyanese flag on a mountain overlooking the border with Venezuela. <\/p>\n
The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague,\u00a0ruled before the vote that \u201cVenezuela shall refrain from taking any action which would modify the situation that currently prevails in the territory in dispute.\u201d It plans to hold a trial in the spring on the issue, following years of review and decades of failed negotiations. Venezuela does not recognize the court\u2019s jurisdiction on the issue, however. <\/p>\n
The vote\u2019s result was widely expected within Venezuela, although its practical implications are likely to be minimal, analysts say, with the creation of a Venezuelan state within the Essequibo a remote possibility. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear what steps the Venezuelan government would take to follow through on the result, and any attempt to assert a claim would certainly be met with international resistance. <\/p>\n
Still, the\u00a0escalating rhetoric\u00a0has prompted troop movements in the region and saber-rattling in both countries, drawing comparisons\u00a0from Guyanese leaders\u00a0to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0Many residents in the predominantly indigenous region\u00a0are reportedly\u00a0on edge. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe longstanding row over the border between Guyana and Venezuela has risen to a level of unprecedented tension in the relations between our countries,\u201d Guyanese Foreign Minister Robert Persaud\u00a0wrote Wednesday\u00a0in Americas Quarterly. <\/p>\n
Even without implementing the referendum, which would require further constitutional steps and the likely use of force, Maduro may stand to gain politically from the vote amid a challenging re-election campaign. <\/p>\n
In October, the Venezuelan opposition showed rare momentum after rallying around Maria Corina Machado, a center-right former legislator who has attacked Maduro for overseeing soaring inflation and food shortages, in the country\u2019s first primary in 11 years. <\/p>\n
\u201cAn authoritarian government facing a difficult political situation is always tempted to look around for a patriotic issue so it can wrap itself in the flag and rally support, and I think that\u2019s a large part of what Maduro is doing,\u201d said Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst with the International Crisis Group. <\/p>\n\n
Venezuelans voted by a wide margin Sunday to approve the takeover of an oil-rich region in neighboring Guyana \u2013 the latest escalation in a long-running territorial dispute between the two countries, fueled by the recent discovery of vast offshore energy resources. The area in question, the densely forested Essequibo region, amounts to about two-thirds of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}