After weeks of rising tensions and military movements that have alarmed all of South America, Presidents of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and Guyana Irfaan Ali have finally agreed to meet to discuss the Venezuelans’ territorial claims to the Guyanese territory of Essequibo. The hosting of the meeting, to which Brazilian President Lula da Silva was invited, is the first relief in the region since, on the 3rd, Venezuelans approved in a referendum the President’s intention to annex Essequibo to Venezuela, corresponding to 70% of Guyana’s total area, and that in response the US conducted joint military maneuvers with Guyana, of which they are allies.
A meeting between Maduro and Irfaan was scheduled for next Thursday, December 14, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a small archipelago in the Caribbean. The announcement of the meeting was made by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves after his call this Saturday with the two presidents to reach an agreement.
Gonsalves said both Maduro and Irfaan requested that Brazilian President Lula da Silva attend the meeting as an observer and, if necessary, as a moderator. Maduro and Irfaan have already confirmed the meeting, but the President of the Brazilian Republic has not yet confirmed Lula’s presence at the meeting until this Sunday. Venezuela’s claim to the Essequibo territory, rich in oil, gold, diamonds, copper and nickel, among other riches, has been going on for two centuries, and the Venezuelans have repeatedly lost the claim in various international courts. But Nicolas Maduro, already campaigning for re-election in next year’s presidential elections and trying to use the nationalism of Venezuelans to gain popularity, suddenly took a series of serious unilateral measures, signing decrees that turn the territory of neighboring Guyana into a new state of Venezuela, indirectly threatening to start a war over the actual capture of Essequibo, and even ordered changes to the maps of Venezuela, which for several days now show as Venezuelan territory an area that actually belongs to Guyana.
Author: Domingos Grilo Serrinha This correspondent in Brazil
Source: CM Jornal
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