2024-04-04 19:04:54
“The decision that the people of Venezuela made in the consultative referendum will be fully implemented, with this law we will defend Venezuela in the international arena,” Maduro said.
In early December, N. Maduro organized a controversial referendum, in which, according to official data, 96 percent of those who voted were in favor of “Guyana Essequibo” becoming a state of Venezuela.
Guyana’s Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, said even after the referendum that he would seek the help of the UN Security Council if Venezuela took further steps. President Irfaan Ali later said Venezuela’s actions “pose a direct threat to Guyana’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence”. Essequibo makes up more than two-thirds of the territory of the former British colony. 125 thousand people live there. of the country’s population of 800,000
The law will create the 24th state within Venezuela’s “territorial policy,” the presidential palace said. The inhabitants of this territory will have their own representative in the next parliament, which will be elected in 2025. The law also provides for the establishment of a “state and country High Commission for the Defense of Guyana Essex”. This raises fears that Venezuela could enter the region and start a war.
The dispute over territory in western Guyana claimed by Venezuela has appeared to have subsided recently, with the two presidents shaking hands and exchanging gifts at a Latin American and Caribbean summit a month ago. “Peace and love,” Maduro told his colleague I. Ali at the time.
Venezuela has long laid claim to the resource-rich territory, which covers about two-thirds of the neighboring country. The current borders were determined by an 1899 arbitration in Paris initiated by the United States and Great Britain. Venezuela relies on the 1966 treaty with the UK, signed a few months before the independence of the then colony of British Guiana. It provided for a negotiated settlement of the dispute. The case is being heard by the International Court of Justice at the request of Guyana, but Venezuela does not recognize its jurisdiction – and has enshrined this in a law that has now been passed.
Off the coast of Guyana in 2015 large oil resources were discovered.
2024-04-04 19:04:54