Venezuela gonna annex the Sudetenland (Guyana anyway)
Good summary of the situation here:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67583582The Venezuelan government has called the referendum to measure popular support for its historical claim to a contested oil-rich swathe of jungle currently administered by Guyana.
The 159,500-sq-km (61,600-square-mile) region is known as Essequibo and makes up two thirds of the total of the land currently controlled by Guyana. It is home to 125,000 of Guyana's 800,000 citizens.
The dispute over the area has been rumbling on for more than a century.
In 1899, an international arbitral tribunal awarded the area to Britain, which at the time was the colonial power ruling over Guyana, or British Guiana, as it was then known.
But this ruling has been dismissed as unfair by successive Venezuelan governments over the past 60 years.
In 1966, Britain and Venezuela reached an agreement - known as the Geneva Agreement - to establish a commission made up of representatives of Guyana, which became independent from Britain that same year, and Venezuela to revisit the territorial dispute.
But even though almost six decades have passed since, there still has been no resolution.
The dispute flared up in 2015, after US giant ExxonMobil discovered oil in Essequibo's offshore waters.
In 2018, Guyana took the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), after being given the green light by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The ICJ, based in The Hague, in the Netherlands, is the principal judicial body of the United Nations, with one of its primary roles being the resolution of legal disputes between states.
It can take years for the ICJ to issue rulings and the first step in most cases is for it to decide whether it has jurisdiction, that is whether it has the legal authority to rule on a particular dispute.
In 2020, the ICJ ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear the dispute but it has yet to decide on the merits of the case, meaning whether the 1899 arbitral award giving the Essequibo to Guyana stands.
Venezuela has not accepted that the ICJ has jurisdiction but has so far continued to attend the court's hearings.
Tension rose further, when the government of Guyana held an auction in September of this year at which oil companies bid for exploration licences in Essequibo waters.
This move and a further "significant" new oil discovery made in those waters just over a month ago has increased the pressure on the Venezuelan government.
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Latest news:
https://apnews.com/article/venezuela...3987a68a7d39b0Venezuelans on Sunday approved a referendum called by the government of President Nicolás Maduro to claim sovereignty over an oil- and mineral-rich area of neighboring Guyana it argues was stolen when the border was drawn more than a century ago.
It remains unclear how Maduro will enforce the results of the vote. But Guyana considers the referendum a step toward annexation, and the vote has its residents on edge.
The National Electoral Council claimed to have counted more than 10.5 million votes even though few voters could be seen at polling sites throughout the voting period for the five-question referendum. The council, however, did not explain whether the number of votes was equivalent to each voter or if it was the sum of each individual answer.
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“It has been a total success for our country, for our democracy,” Maduro told supporters gathered in Caracas, the capital, after results were announced. He claimed the referendum had “very important level of participation.”
Yet long lines typical of electoral events did not form outside voting centers in Caracas throughout Sunday, even after the country’s top electoral authority, Elvis Amoroso, announced the 12-hour voting period would be extended by two hours.
If the participation figure offered by Amoroso refers to voters, it would mean more people voted in the referendum than they did for Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, when he was re-elected in the 2012 presidential contest. But if it is equivalent to each individual answer marked by voters, turnout could drop to as low as 2.1 million voters.
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The International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Venezuela not to take any action that would alter Guyana’s control over Essequibo, but the judges did not specifically ban officials from carrying out Sunday’s five-question referendum. Guyana had asked the court to order Venezuela to halt parts of the vote.
Although the practical and legal implications of the referendum remain unclear, in comments explaining Friday’s verdict, international court president Joan E. Donoghue said statements from Venezuela’s government suggest it “is taking steps with a view toward acquiring control over and administering the territory in dispute.”
“Furthermore, Venezuelan military officials announced that Venezuela is taking concrete measures to build an airstrip to serve as a ‘logistical support point for the integral development of the Essequibo,’” she said.
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Originally Posted by wizardwatson
Is war about to happen in South America over oil?
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