Tensions with Great Britain
Venezuela responds to warship deployment with maneuvers
December 28, 2023, 10:16 p.m
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Oil discoveries in Guyana are arousing desire in neighboring Venezuela. In order to put Caracas in its place, Guyana’s former colonial power Great Britain is moving a warship to the region. Now Venezuela is responding with a military maneuver.
Tensions between Great Britain and Venezuela have continued to escalate. In response to the deployment of a British warship off the coast of Venezuela’s neighboring country Guyana, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced a military exercise in which more than 5,600 soldiers are to take part. Maduro said the “defensive” exercise was a response “to the United Kingdom’s provocation and threat against the peace and sovereignty of our country.”
Against the backdrop of a border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the oil-rich Essequibo region, Great Britain announced on Sunday that it would send a warship – and thus drew the ire of the government in Caracas. The British Ministry of Defense said the patrol boat “HMS Trent” would visit “regional ally and Commonwealth partner Guyana” in December.
Venezuela’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López described the deployment of the British ship as a “provocation”. He also referred to an agreement reached in mid-December between Maduro and Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali, in which both sides pledged to refrain from violence and threats of violence.
Tensions had previously escalated massively over the Essequibo region in Guyana, which Venezuela has claimed as its own for more than a century. At the beginning of December, participants in a non-binding referendum in Venezuela voted by a large majority in favor of Essequibo’s membership in Venezuela, according to government information. Shortly afterwards, Maduro called for the area to be declared a Venezuelan province by law and for oil production licenses to be issued.
Around 125,000 of the 800,000 residents of the former British and Dutch colony of Guyana live in Essequibo. Venezuela’s desires increased after the oil company ExxonMobil discovered an oil deposit in the area in 2015. In October, another significant oil discovery was made in the region.