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‘Despotic’ Maduro accused of risking Venezuela-Guyana conflict over oil-rich region

The foreign minister of the tiny South American nation of Guyana has said that neighbouring Venezuela is “on the wrong side of history” as it risks sparking conflict over an oil-rich and long-contested swath of rainforest.

Tensions between the two countries have reached unprecedented heights ahead of a referendum on Sunday intended to rubber-stamp Venezuela’s claim on the region of Essequibo.

Among the five questions President Nicolás Maduro is asking his citizens is whether they should convert the 160,000 sq km area into a new Venezuelan state.

It remains unclear what the legal or practical implications of a yes vote would be, and the referendum is widely seen as a way for the deeply unpopular dictator to drum up public support ahead of presidential elections next year. But there are growing concerns that Maduro could push the country into war as he uses the century-old dispute to whip up patriotic fervour.

“People in the border region are very concerned,” Guyana’s foreign minister, Hugh Todd, told the Guardian. “Maduro is a despotic leader, and despotic leaders are very hard to predict.”

SuddenDownpour ,

The foreign minister of the tiny South American nation of Guyana has said that neighbouring Venezuela is “on the wrong side of history” as it risks sparking conflict over an oil-rich and long-contested swath of rainforest.

This phrasing surprised me since it is usually lingo for Marxist organizations. It looks like the ruling party in Guyana actually comes from a far left tradition. I haven’t found much regarding their actual policies, but they do not seem too different from Venezuela’s PSUV. And this whole mess shows a fundamental difference between Chávez and Maduro: Chávez made unprecedented efforts for such a relatively small country to support similar political organizations in the rest of the continent, to the point that he was considered to be the leader of the first pink tide; while Maduro seems perfectly willing to throw who could be a natural ally under the bus for his own political gain.

Furball ,

“On the wrong side of history” is definitely not an exclusively Marxist thing, it’s used often by state leaders to speak of their enemies.

SuddenDownpour ,

Fair enough. Still, I didn’t say my hunch was confirmed for no reason:

Ideology Democratic socialism Social democracy Left-wing populism[4] Left-wing nationalism Factions: Marxism-Leninism[5]

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is a democratic socialist, left-wing populist political party in Guyana.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…/Civic

pan_troglodytes ,

is guyana’s oil of a higher quality than venezuela’s? I seem to remember reading somewhere that venezuela oil is high in sulfur and requires significant processing to be usable.

jdrch ,
@jdrch@lemmy.world avatar

I guess this explains Guyana’s Metal Shark orders.

Marsupial ,
@Marsupial@quokk.au avatar

War has changed.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The foreign minister of the tiny South American nation of Guyana has said that neighbouring Venezuela is “on the wrong side of history” as it risks sparking conflict over an oil-rich and long-contested swath of rainforest.

It remains unclear what the legal or practical implications of a yes vote would be, and the referendum is widely seen as a way for the deeply unpopular dictator to drum up public support ahead of presidential elections next year.

Maduro has presented history lessons on state television, interrupted school classes to get young children to cheer on the country’s territorial claim and handed out revised maps depicting an engorged Venezuela straddling a Guyana a fraction of its internationally recognised size.

The socialist government has also released a series of highly polished campaign videos of Venezuelan children playing in the lush forests and cascading waterfalls and an official song, The Essequibo is Ours.

Venezuela’s interior minister, Vladimir Padrino López, has shown no interest in calming the rising tensions, telling his troops earlier this month: “We are ready to defend [Essequibo] to the last drop of blood and sweat.”

Though Todd says Caracas’s ambassador to Georgetown has told the country’s leadership that Venezuela has no intention of invading, Guyana remains on high alert owing to Maduro’s unpredictability.

The original article contains 1,408 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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