Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro has embarked on an aggressive campaign to annex some 160,000 square kilometers of territory belonging to Guyana, following the December 3 consultative referendum. The referendum sought to gauge the opinions of voters on five issues relating to a long-standing dispute between Venezuela and its eastern border neighbor.
On the same day Elvis Amoroso, head of the National Electoral Council said that 10,554,330 votes had been counted. He did not provide data for abstentions or null votes, nor did he mention the forced participation of the Venezuelan military. This number drew mockery and suspicions, given the evidence that during that day, the 15,857 voting centers set up throughout the country remained empty or had very low turnout.
The turnout appeared so underwhelming that the Venezuelan regime “has been widely accused by analysts of falsifying the results,” The Guardian reported. The following day, in a second statement, the same official said that 10,431,907 people had participated, that is, 122,423 less than previously indicated.
“That gives a participation per center that is in the order of 15 percent more or less […]. Now, if they say that the turnout was 10 million, that is, more than half of the voter register, we did not see them. It’s something totally impossible,” said Benigno Alarcón, director of the Center for Political and Government Studies of the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, told Diálogo on December 6. “The regime itself has brought confusion about the results by speaking of votes and not of voters.”
On December 4, the Venezuelan regime dropped the debate on the real participation in the referendum and began to make decisions concerning the Essequibo. First, Maduro affirmed that the December 3 vote would have a “binding” character. The following day, he showed a map that incorporated the Essequibo in Venezuelan territory. He also announced the designation of Major General (Ret.) Alexis Rodríguez Cabello, former commander general of the Army and current pro-regime congressman, as the “sole authority” over the Essequibo.
Juan Francisco Contreras, president of the College of Internationalists of Venezuela, told Diálogo that these decisions by Maduro are in line with one of the most controversial questions of the consultation, referring to the creation of the state of “Guayana Esequiba” and the execution of an “accelerated plan for the comprehensive attention to the current and future population of that territory, which includes, among other things, granting Venezuelan citizenship and identity cards […], consequently incorporating said state in the Venezuelan territory map.”This implies that Venezuela is to enter into a “major conflict,” which would have the Maduro regime act “outside of international law,” Contreras added.
Yet the Venezuelan dictator is keeping up with the pre-established course of action. On December 5, Maduro delivered to the National Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, a draft bill for the creation of the state of Guayana Esequiba. “Guyana must know that we will fix this the nice way, or we will fix this, because this is going to be an Organic Law for all the governments and generations to come, for the decades of this century and more,” he said.
According to Contreras, during this process, the countries of the region that had previously supported the Venezuelan regime are now “ silent; they are keeping an astonishing silence. It even seems that they are now supporting Guyana.”
Contreras recalled that prior to the referendum, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which supports Guyana, had demanded for Maduro to abide by the rulings issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On the eve of the vote, CARICOM urged the Maduro regime to refrain from taking any decision that would “alter the situation prevailing in the disputed territory.”
“So really Venezuela’s situation is quite complicated, especially at the international level. Nicaragua is the only country that says it supports Venezuela’s position,” Contreras said.
Aside from the Maduro regime’s actions, Venezuela will have to present its arguments before the ICJ in April. This pleading, called “counter-memorial,” is what will be taken into account for a decision in this territorial dispute.
“It’s not very coherent to say now that we are going to leave the court, that we are not going to recognize it […]. If we do not present the counter-memorial, our position will be very weak. It’s important to remember that the court’s decision is unappealable and that it is mandatory,” Contreras concluded.