- Essequibo, a part of Guyana, is to become Venezuelan according to Venezuela’s will.
- In a referendum, the majority approved the request of the authoritarian President Maduro.
- However, what happens next remains unclear.
According to the authoritarian government of President Nicolás Maduro, the people of Venezuela confirmed their country’s claim to the resource-rich Essequibo region in the neighboring country of Guyana in a referendum.
Maduro celebrates the vote result
Almost 96 percent of those who voted said yes to the question of whether a new Venezuelan federal state called Guayana Esequiba should be created and the population there should be granted Venezuelan citizenship. This was announced by the electoral authority CNE. Voter turnout was therefore around 51 percent.
Legend:
Maduro celebrates the vote result in front of supporters.
Keystone/Matias Delacroix
Maduro celebrated the result as a victory for Venezuela in front of hundreds of supporters in Plaza Bolívar in the capital Caracas. However, it is unclear what the government will do next.
ICJ bans Venezuela annexation
The UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Venezuela on Friday to “refrain from any action that would change the current situation in the disputed area.”
For its part, Guyana’s government described the referendum as a threat to the country’s security and peace. The nation will defend every square inch of territory, Prime Minister Mark Phillips said. The approximately 160,000 square kilometer Essequibo area makes up around two thirds of Guyana’s territory.
Border demarcation has been controversial for decades
The current boundaries of the area were established in 1899 by an arbitration award from a tribunal in Paris, initiated by the USA and Great Britain.
Venezuela, for its part, relies on an agreement with the United Kingdom from 1966. This was signed a few months before the then colony of British Guiana became independent. It provided for a negotiated solution to the dispute.
The border conflict worsened when large reserves of oil were found off the Atlantic coast of Essequibo in 2015. Guyana, one of the poorest countries in South America, sold the production licenses to the US oil company Exxon Mobil.