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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday directed the country’s state-owned companies to “immediately” begin to explore and exploit the oil, gas and mines in Guyana’s Essequibo region, a territory larger than Greece and rich in oil and minerals that Venezuela claims as its own.
The announcement came a day a day after Maduro got the victory he sought in a weekend referendum on whether to claim sovereignty over the region.
Maduro said he would “immediately” proceed “to grant operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in the entire area of our Essequibo.” He also ordered the creation of local subsidiaries of Venezuelan public companies, including oil giant PDVSA and mining conglomerate Corporación Venezolana de Guayana.
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This is going to end in a war.
With who’s army fighting though? Guyana seems a bit too small to properly be able to defend itself from Venezuela… Unless Brazil goes full on South America police on the situation (and apparently, they might?), I don’t see how this will end in anything other than Venezuela steam rolling Guyana…
UN intervention is actually a possibility, though.
Russia will be happy for another conflict to distract the US so I’d expect them to veto any action, unfortunately
Which is kinda stupid because this multi-theater approach is basically what the US military is built for, and it’s not even multi-theater, the US wouldn’t suddenly not be able to provide aid to Ukraine while prosecuting a war with a force established for a completely different theater of combat.
Like the Soviets collapsed because the US just spending raced them into oblivion, Russia is not going to be able to pull an uno reverse card on that shit, especially from under all those sanctions they’ve gotten themselves into.
I think they’re counting on congressional aid drying up as the American public gets distracted by other conflicts
Which is kinda silly to count on since lack of direct attention from the American public has hardly been a hamper on the goings on of US military assistance, if anything not knowing the gritty details will enable the MIC to give Ukraine even more fun toys since now there isn’t a constant check out of fear of escalating.
I’d agree if isolationist republicans didn’t seem so hell bent on completely fucking up US foreign policy. We didn’t have that in the 80’s
A Russia veto could happen, but I expect the USA to use the Organization of American States as backup justification if needed.
That is indeed possible
Fascinating, that hadn’t crossed my mind at all. The actual world police could do something probably good (stabilizing at the very least) for the situation.
But that said, I don’t think I would bank on the UN for this one… It seems like Guyana would need continual military presence to dissuade Venezuela because it appears that Venezuela is doing this because Guyana was too fiscally successful over the pandemic. But I mean if the UN does long term guarding like that, then it might be a viable option…
Lemmy.ml is already in full anti-US imperialism mode, saying that the western imposed sanctuary of borders needs to stop and the US puppet state of Guyana has to surrender to Venezuela.
So I wouldn’t trust that the UN can step in, if Russia or China takes this stance as well.
Interesting, I personally wouldn’t actually accuse the UN of being tankie… Maybe capitalist but not tankie… I think if someone makes a convincing argument about the price of oil, it might result in the US or the UN (most likely UN I would wager though) stepping in…
I don’t think the UN will actually do anything though, this is more just me harvesting some hope/cope
I wouldn’t accuse the UN of being tankie, but it does have internal rule structures that it has to abide by, including that Russia has a veto to any UN resolution.
Which is likely why the USA might rely on OAS instead to provide the justification for war and use a coalition of American militaries to push Venezuela out. There is massive self interest in the Americas to keep borders frozen and Guyana is a post-colonial nation, so it isn’t like the Falklands.
Korean DMZ has entered the chat
Hah! I see the logic, but I think that happened only because the big powers backing each Korea couldn’t push the proxy war to overwhelm each other either way… But then again, I could be wrong, and that could be a viable option here, I really don’t know… The less buried mines on earth, the better, but when you’ve got 1/4 of the population of your enemy, you don’t exactly have the privilege of fighting traditionally either…
You misunderstand.
The UN intervened on the side of South Korea after the Soviets walked out of the Security Council in protest… and failed to account for the fact that the council was not only still in session, and that votes taken in their absence would still be valid, but also that they hadn’t vetoed anything, which you need to do explicitly. So, the UNSC voted to help South Korea defend itself against North Korea (and, eventually, Mainland China, which did not at the time have a permanent seat on the UNSC).
The UN was directly involved in the Korean War, and TONS of countries sent forces in support of the mission (though, admittedly, SK themselves and the US did most of the heavy lifting).
The UN should send cruise ships to the region.
@FlickOfTheBean the ICJ and the UN have been mixed up in this for a long time and have a binding ruling, so UN intervention is not out of the question imo.
This is going to trigger a South American equivalent to the Gulf War. The US isn’t going to tolerate this and the Organization of American States seems to be united against Venezuela. Venezuela may steamroll Guyana, but a US led coalition is going to steamroll Venezuela back.
I don’t think the domestic support is really there, but America plopping a single carrier group off the coast of Venezuela would send more than strong enough a message. and we could eradicate any invading force in minutes.
Ideally, Guyana is able to request aid from an international coalition, and the US can act in that capacity rather than be seen as unilaterally playing world police again.
Nah they are all needed parked off the coast of Gaza
Bro you have no idea how insanely large the US military is, let alone the navy. We don’t outspend the next 10 nations for nothing.
Yeah, that’s the joke - that instead of going to S America they’d park another carrier off of Gaza coast
End? I think the word I’d use would be “Start”.
Almost definitely being egged on by Russia to further distract the international community (and particularly the US) away from Ukraine.
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So instead of failing at one country, Maduro and Co. can fail another country as well, fantastic!
And it’s not like Venezuela didn’t have everything one could dream to be a paradise: oil, minerals, forest, land, hydro, beautiful beaches, amazing and varied natural wonders… Everything mismanaged to the ground. And now a two-bit invasion perhaps inspired by their buddy Putin? I bet they wouldn’t try that with French Guyana, Brazil or Colombia but who knows these days with crazy autocrats?
The World certainly doesn’t need another conflict but perhaps this will turn bad and break Chavez’s “legacy” and give Venezuela a chance not to be governed by more thieves (one can dream).
This is the best summary I could come up with:
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday directed the country’s state-owned companies to “immediately” begin to explore and exploit the oil, gas and mines in Guyana’s Essequibo region, a territory larger than Greece and rich in oil and minerals that Venezuela claims as its own.
Maduro said he would “immediately” proceed “to grant operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in the entire area of our Essequibo.” He also ordered the creation of local subsidiaries of Venezuelan public companies, including oil giant PDVSA and mining conglomerate Corporación Venezolana de Guayana.
It is not clear how the Maduro administration intends to implement the idea of exercising jurisdiction over the territory once it’s officially declared part of Venezuela through a law that is to be soon discussed by the National Assembly, which is controlled by the ruling party.
In addition to the announcement regarding the exploitation of resources in Essequibo, Maduro announced Tuesday the creation of a new Comprehensive Defense Operational Zone, Zodi in Spanish, for the disputed strip, similar to the special military commands that conduct operations in different regions of the country.
Its interest piqued again in 2015 when ExxonMobil announced it had found oil in commercial quantities off the Essequibo coast.
Guyana has denounced Venezuela’s actions and Sunday’s referendum as pretext to annex the land.
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