By: Staff Writer
October 31, 2023
President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said that Guyana’s government filed an appeal before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday, requesting that it issue a resolution to suspend the referendum.
This move comes just one month before Venezuela is set to hold a referendum on December 3 to have their say over the disputed Essequibo territory. Electoral authorities recently approved five questions for the December vote, including one on Guyana’s claim to territorial waters and another on whether to create the Guayana Essequibo state, granting inhabitants Venezuelan citizenship.
“Venezuela has never recognized, nor will it recognize the ICJ for the resolution of this issue,” Maduro said late Monday on state TV.
Caracas protested after Georgetown opened up a bidding process for oil exploration in the Essequibo Strip’s territorial waters. An exchange of diplomatic communiques saw the Nicolás Maduro government accuse its Guyanese counterpart of acting as “an employee of ExxonMobil,” in reference to the oil giant’s major involvement in drilling projects in the area.
ExxonMobil is the main oil partner of Guyana with several drilling projects running simultaneously in and around Guyana.
The border issue was largely dormant for decades until the discovery of massive offshore oil reserves in 2015.
The dispute over the Essequibo dates back to 1830, when Venezuela separated from Gran Colombia to become an independent sovereign state. In 1835, the British Empire sent German-born explorer Robert Herman Schomburgk to map Guyana and demark a border with Venezuela. The border drawn by Schomburgk sparked protests from Venezuela, with Caracas claiming Britain was encroaching on the country’s territory. It is this event that ignited the territorial dispute, which has remained unresolved to the satisfaction of both parties to this day. Various attempts at arbitration, including the 1899 Arbitral Award, 1966 Geneva Agreement, 1970 Port of Spain Protocol and 1990 Good Offices agreement, have all failed to resolve the dispute satisfactorily.
Georgetown has further requested that the ICJ uphold the treaty. For its part, Caracas declares the 1899 decision as illegitimate due to the absence of Venezuelan negotiators, points to the 1966 accords as superseding the earlier ones, and has rejected the ICJ’s jurisdiction over the matter.
Regional friends of Guyana, like Brazil, have stepped up and said they would provide protection for Guyana if Venezuela decides to attack or invade the country’s sovereign territory.
CARICOM, for its part, said that they acknowledge that Venezuela’s referendum questions indicates that the country is ready for “war” with Guyana over the disputed territory and insists that the Referendum proposed by Venezuela has no validity, bearing, or standing in international law in relation to this controversy. They also wish that both sides continue on with the ICJ on the controversy in a peaceful manner.