When we opened the door to the office of the National Security Advisor to the President of Guyana, we did not imagine we would overhear such a confidential discussion. Coincidence, or skillful staging? At the beginning of February, Captain Gerry Gouveia is with a representative of Ocea, a French shipowner, to negotiate the purchase of a patrol boat equipped with automatic rifles. Officially, the ship is intended to fight illegal fishing, but it could also be used to monitor a maritime area rich in hydrocarbons located 200 kilometers from the coast of Essequibo, a Guyanese region over which Venezuela claims sovereignty. Between the two neighboring countries, tension has risen a notch since Caracas organized, on December 3, 2023, a referendum on the annexation of this disputed territory – approved by 95% of Venezuelans –, before deploying fighter planes and military frigates near the border.
Price, deadline, reduced rate loan granted by the French State… all the details are discussed in front of the journalist from World. “The patrol boat contract is on track to be signed,” promises the advisor while dismissing the Ocea representative. In the presidential palace in Georgetown, Mr. Gouveia’s office is wallpapered with photos of sparkling waterfalls, emerald-colored forests and sunsets with a soft jazz melody in the background…
It is well known: there is nothing like an arms contract to bring nations together. Guyana, which in January increased its annual defense budget by 83%, has already ordered an American patrol ship and, in mid-March, two Indian Dornier troop transport planes. Other contracts could follow for coastal surveillance equipment, including drones. The Guyanese army, however, has few illusions: with its 5,000 men, it will be no match for the 120,0000 Venezuelan soldiers. “It is not force as such that interests us, specifies Mr. Gouveia, we instead invest in detection systems to ensure our security. »
An old territorial dispute
The discovery of oil off the coast of Guyana in 2015 reignited the embers of an old conflict that emerged in the mid-19th century.e century. At that time, the young Venezuelan state protested against the drawing of the border of British Guiana, carried out by the explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk on behalf of the United Kingdom. An arbitration agreement was reached in Paris in 1899, but it was called into question by Venezuela when Guyana gained independence in 1966. “The only way to resolve the territorial dispute is in court, for Venezuela to provide all the evidence and plead its case before the judges who will decide”, insists Mr. Gouveia. In 2018, Georgetown went to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to settle the dispute, but Caracas refutes the judges’ jurisdiction in the case.
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