MADURO PLAYING A DANGEROUS GAME

Oct 02, 2015 Editorial, Features / Columnists

For more than a century, Venezuela has sought to annex Essequibo which accounts for about 40 percent of Guyana’s territory. President Maduro was so brazen that he not only amassed troops at the border but recently persuaded Google Maps to rename the major streets in the area with Spanish-speaking names.
Recent tensions between the two countries escalated in 2013 when Venezuela impounded the vessel Teknik Perdana for conducting oil exploration surveys in Guyana’s territory on behalf of the government.
Tensions grew worse in May when the American oil giant, Exxon-Mobil, announced that it had found huge deposits of high-quality crude oil off the shore of Essequibo. Venezuela responded with a decree on May 27 that extended its maritime border to include the area where the oil was found.
President Maduro’s rhetoric against Guyana has been strikingly similar to the excuses he gave for the fracas with Colombia earlier. He even accused Guyana of seeking to attack and destroy Venezuela. Not only is he steering the world’s 13th-largest oil producer straight off a cliff, but his warmongering, though it may be a ploy by a desperate leader, could destabilize the entire region. He has become so erratic that some are calling him “the South American Hitler.”
In the last few weeks, Maduro took Venezuela to the brink of war with Colombia and caused tens of thousands of refugees to flee the border into Colombia. And last week he plotted to invade Guyana.
He has no reason to invade Guyana other than to use it as a distraction from his socio-economic woes at home. Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in the world, a valueless currency, violent crime and kidnappings. The chronic shortages of goods have become so severe that it is sometimes impossible to buy a roll of toilet paper in Caracas.
President Maduro appears to suffer from an acute case of political paranoia. He has jailed the opposition leader, Leopold Lopez on trumped-up charges and has repeatedly authorized the use of deadly force against demonstrators whom he considers a threat to his government. There is no independent media in Venezuela and for the last several years, there has been no democracy either. Maduro’s Chavista party dictates to the people and sometimes rule by decree.
But his persecution is not limited to domestic affairs. He has accused Colombia and Guyana for waging economic war against Venezuela; charges which he sought to justify by violating the sovereignty of both nations.
In mid-August, Venezuelan troops attacked hundreds of Colombian peasant farmers, many of whom were indigenous people whose ancestral lands traditionally span the frontier. It resulted in about 20,000 terrified refugees fleeing into Columbia. Venezuelan war-planes also violated Colombian airspace while ground troops crossed the border and harassed locals.
In mid-September, Venezuela deployed troops along the border with Guyana. President Granger denounced the military build-up. The country did not back down even though Guyana’s small army cannot withstand an all-out assault from its larger neighbour.
While Guyana’s newfound oil wealth could benefit the cash-strapped nation, it could just as well be a pretext for the sudden troop buildup on the border. Clearly, President Maduro is playing the nationalist card in order to rally the armed forces and the people behind him. He is extremely unpopular and is worried that his Chavista party will take a shellacking at the polls in the upcoming mid-term elections on December 6.
Although the troops are currently being withdrawn from the border, the international community must use its influence to prevent a conflict that could be disastrous for the entire region. It seems that Maduro, the one-time bus driver, is willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power, even if that means wreaking havoc on the country and perhaps taking the rest of the region down with him. He is playing a dangerous game.

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MADURO PLAYING A DANGEROUS GAME

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