Maduro barreling down a path of self-destruction

Dec 08, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The visions about Guyana’s Essequibo coming out of Venezuela’s President Maduro are extreme to say the least. He is getting ready to usurp what does not belong to his country, and he has gone even wider by issuing unmistakable ultimatums to companies operating in rich fields in Essequibo under Guyana’s sovereign authority. Maduro has to know that the latter is a ticking time bomb, which could blow up in his hands. He has already gone too far, but keeps diving even more deeply into the mess that engulfs him.

He may succeed in pleasing the hardliners that are part of his team. His own visions of a warrior on horseback doing the unprecedented and heroic for Venezuelans hold the highest risks of bringing him down. His obvious and growing hubris now stands as his biggest enemy. Guyana’s security and safety, Guyana’s continuity as a nation of 83,000 square miles, hinge on his overreach that could wound him grievously. By our calculation, he has already overreached by unacceptable margins, and in more than one area.

Aggressive leaders cannot be allowed to whimsically come up with their own maps of where their borders should lie, because they decided that that is where they must be. It is why the position here is that his intended annexation of Guyana’s Essequibo will not stand, will shatter, and take him down. Respect for the provisions, standards, and constraints of international law will have no meaning, if Maduro’s actions, however they materialize, are left unanswered. The result would be great upheavals among nations, with no ruling holding for long, no peace viable, with no confidence that it could be relied upon. In such instances, any country with a reckless leader becomes a superpower, a law onto itself, particularly when the scales are uneven, in that there is smaller, vulnerable neighbour with rich territory that generates all manner of temptations and adventures. This is one of the planks of Guyana’s salvation: that the man has rushed headlong into a path of self-destruction.

For sure, the ICJ ruling has been given the most dismissive of scorned reactions by Maduro, and the Geneva Convention has now been dusted off and is being bandied about. If the rule of law is permitted to be treated contemptuously and capriciously, as a mere convenience, in the hands of scheming leaders, then there is no convention or an agreement that has weight or value anymore. This is the dark corner into which Nicolas Maduro has painted himself with his premeditated rogueries, his insatiable appetite for what does not belong to him or Venezuela. Essequibo is of Guyana as the sun and sand and mud that are so woven into this country. Essequibo is inseparable from Guyana, and no referendum result, no leadership madness, no extravagance of vision can or will ever change that conviction, that reality.

In his race to assert his machismo, to confirm his nationalist credentials, Maduro has done the unthinkable. He has blacklisted ExxonMobil. America cannot afford to stand at ease when its own interests are jeopardized so unilaterally and insultingly. If so, then its credibility will be looked upon most critically around the world. Having prepared his plans so broadly, Maduro has no choice but to go all the way. This means getting ExxonMobil out of the way, and discontinuing the royalties and profits from 620,000 barrels to Guyana. There is the side issue of ExxonMobil being forced to revise its rosy profit projections sharply. The brightest “jewel” in ExxonMobil’s crown could be snatched by this Venezuelan usurper. There has to be a heavy blow coming from America to shake some sense into this man, now looking more and more as if some derangement has overtaken him.

Finally, he has issued arrest warrants for Venezuelan Opposition figures who denounced his farce of a referendum. It is another nail that he himself has hammered into his own coffin. The partial relaxation of US sanctions was specific in the space and reception that Venezuela’s Opposition were to be afforded. Though Maduro signed off on this, and has now walked back his earlier commitment. This man Maduro cannot be trusted, has zero truth in him, possesses no credibility. He has sealed his own warrant.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

destruction, Editorial, Essequibo, President Maduro, Venezuela

Latest News