“We inform the people of Venezuela that ‘YES’ won a huge victory, with over 10.5 million voters going to the polls…” With these words, and with their ministers enthusiastically applauding and cheering him on in a popular rally, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the result of the “consultative referendum” he had called on the fate of the province of Essequibo in neighboring Guyana.

The essential question, to which the voters answered in the affirmative, was whether Venezuela would annex the province of Essequibo, which is considered rich in oil deposits, so that the extraction of the “black gold” could begin as soon as possible. Except that international law does not recognize a “referendum at the expense of a third party”, just as it does not recognize a “treaty at the expense of a third party” (the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact aimed at the dismemberment of Poland is usually cited as a relevant example in the international literature).

Imminent invasion of Guyana?

Immediately after the December 3 referendum, the president of Guyana, Irfaan Ali, denounced an “immediate threat to the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence” of his country, to add that Maduro is planning a huge area, which corresponds to the two-thirds of Guyana’s total area. A little later Irfaan Ali visited the border town of Baramita, near the border with Venezuela, in order to encourage the indigenous people of the area.

At the same time Guyana’s vice president (and former president) Barratt Jagdeo makes it clear that his country will defend itself, while warning Venezuelan oil companies not to get involved in the case: “Any attempt to extract oil by state oil companies on our soil will be treated as invasion, as an attempt to review the borders, in violation of the decisions of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. (…) We will defend our territory, we will defend our sovereignty. Our presence in these territories is absolutely legal,” he says.

Eight Latin American countries, in a joint declaration, appeal to “avoid unilateral actions” in the region. “A war is the last thing we need in South America,” warns Brazilian President Lula da Silva.

1899 Boundary Revision

The border between Venezuela and Guyana was determined by an arbitration court decision in 1899. Venezuela disputes the decision, citing the distant past and mainly the era of Spanish colonialism in Latin America, although Guyana had been under the occupation of the Dutch, the French and the British, to declare its independence only in 1966. Maduro maintains that the Essequibo River is the natural border between the two countries, as indicated in another drawing in 1777.

For many years the border dispute was forgotten, but it came back to the fore when in 2015 the energy giant ExxonMobil discovered oil fields in the region. In October, new deposits were even discovered, which some estimate may be larger than those of the United Arab Emirates. Maduro has always tried to invest in oil, to perpetuate his power. On top of that he is gearing up for the 2024 presidential election and seems to be investing in nationalism for obvious reasons.

The balance of power favors him as, according to official figures, Venezuela has 235,000 soldiers, men and women, while Guyana’s armed forces number just 4,150 men. However, the correlations of international diplomacy do not seem to favor Venezuela. A first, clearly deterrent comment from British Foreign Secretary David Cameron after his meeting in Washington with his American counterpart Anthony Blinken: “These borders have been drawn since 1899. I see absolutely no reason for unilateral actions by Venezuela . It’s wrong, it has to stop…”