Venezuela remembers today, 25 years later, the electoral victory of Hugo Chávez that changed its history and that of Latin America. The journey to hell then began for a country that returned to the polls on Sunday to launch Nicolás Maduro’s war games, which include the annexation by law of Guyana Esequiba, a territory in dispute with the neighboring country.
“Guyana must know that it fixes this by good means or we fix it,” the people’s president threatened on Tuesday surrounded by all the powers of the revolution and the military. His first measurements are summarized in a new map of Venezuela, which includes the 159,000 kilometers (156 times the extension of Margarita Island, which also represent two thirds of the Guyanese territory) of the one baptized as Guayana Esequiba.
Its military base and administrative capital, which will grant identity cards to the inhabitants of Essequibo, will be in Tumeremo, 90 kilometers from the border. Major General Alexis Rodríguez Cabello, cousin of the number two of the revolution, Diosdado Cabello, has been placed in charge of the military deployment as the sole authority.
The impact in Guyana of Caracas’ unilateral measures has not been long in coming. Irfaan Ali, Guyanese president, has appeared on public television to ask the population for calm and announce that his troops are on maximum alert. “We are facing an imminent threat, Venezuela has declared itself a country outside the law. We are preparing to defend what is ours,” argued the president, who vehemently assured that he has the military support of the United States and the backing of the 15 countries of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
Faced with such an escalation, the Brazilian government has decided to strengthen the presence of its troops on the triple border with Venezuela and Guyana by sending 600 soldiers, despite President Lula da Silva’s calls for peace.
Irfaan Ali also contacted the United Nations, which will take the conflict to its Permanent Council. In the last few hours, the Kremlin has made public that it expects the imminent visit of Nicolás Maduro to Moscow.
In this game of diplomatic give and take, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has responded to the drums of war coming from Georgetown with a condemnation against Guyana, a close ally of Chávez and Maduro for two decades, “by giving the green light to the presence of the Command South (American) in Guyana Essequiba”.
In crazy Venezuela, there are even more bold ones than Maduro. One of them is the collaborationist oppositionist Antonio Ecarri, the presidential candidate supported by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has demanded that the Bolivarian boss “put on his pants” to order maritime patrols around Guyana’s oil platforms, as well as planes flying over them. Sukhois Russians.
The battery of measures ordered by Maduro includes a three-month ultimatum against oil companies working in Guyana and Venezuela, among which are the American company Chevron, the main beneficiary of Washington’s reduction of energy sanctions, and the Spanish company Repsol.
Chávez’s son also wants Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to grant operating licenses to explore and produce black gold and gas in the annexed territory.
“Which PDVSA did they put an end to? If it can barely produce oil in the country, if it doesn’t even produce fuel. Now it wants to give licenses to other transnationals. Is that what it’s about? Maduro is playing at war,” he vehemently criticized. , from exile, the former vice president and former oil czar Rafael Ramírez.