Bogotá, Colombia – Waiting for a vice minister on the eleventh floor of a dusty office block in downtown Caracas, a Venezuelan colleague hissed in my ear: “You can’t show that map, get rid of it”.

Surprised, I plucked the map of Venezuela out of the pile of papers that made up a project our NGO was proposing to provide health support in remote corners of the country. With economic collapse the country needed international support, but was not always open to receiving it. My job was to negotiate access to those remote corners. 

Later, trudging down the gloomy stairwell (the lift wasn’t working) my colleague explained the problem: “Every Venezuelan map you show in Venezuela must include Essequibo.”

Like many newbies in Caracas, I’d never heard of Essequibo, a territory that lies in Guyana but is claimed by Venezuela. At 160,000 square kilometers (62,000 square miles) it has just 125,000 inhabitants, so is five times bigger than Belgium but with fewer people than Bruges.

I was intrigued. And grateful to my colleague: dealing with Venezuelan ministries was tricky enough without causing offense by omitting a vast tract of jungle dangling off the eastern border like a lost appendage.

But far from impotent. 

To the east of Venezuela lies Essequibo, a vast tract of jungle rich in diamond and gold, as well as huge oil deposits discovered in 2015 off its coastal waters.

During his regime former president Nicolás Maduro – now facing drug charges in a U.S. court – laid claim to Essequibo and ramped up both political and military pressure for Guyana to cede the vast territory. This culminated in a legal declaration of annexation in 2023, a move sparking international condemnation.

In 2024 Maduro went further, issuing ID cards for ‘Guayana Esequiba’ as he called it, creating a phantom administrative center for the country’s “24th state”, and proposing a new governor.

Then the Venezuelan strongman sent soldiers to span the Cuyení River, close to the disputed border.

It may have been a bridge too far. In March 2025, U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio condemned Venezuela’s moves as “illegitimate territorial claims by a narcotrafficking regime” and vowed to defend Guyana from Venezuelan incursions.

Any attacks on US oil companies exploiting oil reserves off the Essequibo coast would be a “very bad week for Maduro”, warned Rubio at a press conference in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown. In reply Maduro called the secretary of state “an imbecile”.

The rest, as they say, is history. Nine months later the Venezuelan leader would be snatched from his Caracas hideout by U.S. special forces and bundled off to a New York jail.

Map showing the disputed territory of Essequibo, which makes up most of Guyana.

Rigged arbitration

Following in her predecessor’s footsteps, Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, flew to The Hague last week to argue her country’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The case had been bumped up to the ICJ – sometimes referred to as the ‘world’s top court’ – by the UN, charged initially with untangling the misaligned borders.

First though, Rodriguez had to deal with another land grab issue: Venezuela was now the “51^st State”, according to a map colored by the Stars and Stripes posted on social media by U.S. president Donald Trump.

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Trump’s “51st State” memeAt the ICJ, journalists were quick to jump on the meme.

“We came to the court to defend our sovereignty, to defend our independence,” said Rodriguez, flustered by the irony of it all: her former boss Maduro had three years before pulled a similar stunt by declaring Essequibo – which by land mass makes up two thirds of Guyana – as a “new state of Venezuela”.

Over four days the ICJ judges heard oral arguments from both delegations, which though couched in legal jargon gave fascinating insights to centuries of colonial great games and arbitrary map-making; the case drew comparisons to centuries past when Spain, Holland, Britain and even Sweden tussled for a foothold in the jungles of northern South America.

Guyana’s position was simple: as de facto holder of Essequibo, and under aggression from Venezuela, it wanted the court to ratify the ruling of an international tribunal from 1899 – the so-called Paris Arbitral Accord – which drew the boundary largely in favor of Guyana, then a British colony.

Britain’s argument then was that they had a permanent presence in Essequibo, while both Venezuela and previous Spanish colonial administrations were largely absent.

The problem is that Venezuela never accepted the Paris accord, claiming it was a backroom deal between London and Washington, a quid pro quo where the Essequibo would remain a colony in return for regional favors.

As they put it before last week’s ICJ: “The British Empire, known throughout the world for its aggressive expansionism, negotiated with the U.S. a rigged arbitration to retain the territories usurped from Venezuela in exchange for recognizing the hegemony of the U.S.”

In some ways the Paris Accord was a problem of Venezuela’s own making. Having severed diplomatic ties with Britain, it subcontracted its 1899 negotiation to the U.S., whose delegation included no less than former president U.S. Benjamin Harrison.

Meanwhile the U.S., keen to flex its Monroe Doctrine – basically ‘keep out of our backyard’ – was happy to defend its Caribbean neighbor against old-world empires. Why they fudged the negotiation is a matter of historical debate.

This means a key question for the ICJ judges is rooted in the past: did the U.S. delegation defend Venezuela in good faith or buckle to machinations of the British Empire? And should they uphold the Paris Arbitral Accord?

Communities not consulted

While there has been much international focus on oil finds in Essequibo, there is little mention of the indigenous peoples, such as the Lokono and Warao, who have lived there since long before Europeans arrived. At least nine distinct languages are spoken within the territory. 

But in 2023, at no point did Maduro consult the communities of Essequibo before declaring it annexed to Venezuela.

These communities had “moved between the borders of Venezuela and Guyana since time immemorial,” said Jean La Rose, a Lokono woman and director of the Amerindian Peoples Association of Guyana (APA), writing for Mongabay.

Those rooted in Essequibo considered it part of Guyana, she said, condemning Maduro’s announcements that had forced families to flee from the villages under threat of a military invasion.

“We are Guyanese citizens, and as such, we stand in solidarity with the Guyanese government and reject any foreign claim on this land,” said La Rose.

Warao community close to the border between Venezuela and Guyana. Indigenous people claim they were not consulted over Venezuela’s moves to annex Essequibo. Photo: S. Hide.

Rally to the flag

Though the court’s final findings are months away, most observers see it as unlikely that the ICJ will find for Venezuela.

Firstly, the geographical reality is that the troubled region makes up two thirds of Guyana’s land mass but would only add a small fraction to Venezuela’s much larger territory. Without Essequibo, Guyana shrinks off the map.

Secondly, arbitration courts often defer to the territorial status quo and self-determination of its inhabitants. ‘Possession is nine tenths of the law,’ as the saying goes.

In practical terms, U.S. oil companies are also coining it in Essequibo, also creating an economic boom in Guyana itself. So even with a foot in both camps, Washington is unlikely to back Caracas.

Any ruling in favor of Venezuela would also risk unravelling dozens of pending but stable border disputes stemming from colonial-era chicanery; most Latin American countries have at least one boundary grievance with one neighbour or another.

Such squabbles usually stay in play – a useful distraction for failing states – because leaders routinely reject international arbitration if the findings don’t go their way.

In such a vein Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez told the court last week that her presence there “did not imply in any way a recognition of the competence of the ICJ in the territorial controversy”.

Instead any agreement, she said, had to be hammered out in direct talks between the two nations to establish “a solid and stable foundation for good neighborliness”.

Given recent history, that boat has sailed. 

For guidance, Rodriguez could take a closer look at Trump’s “51^st State” meme. His Venezuela map, like mine, omitted Essequibo. I doubt Caracas will correct him.

Judges hearing the Essequibo case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague last week. Photo: ICJ.

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Police fired tear gas at protesters in Caracas on Thursday, as workers marched to demand higher wages and better pensions.

Demonstrators, reported to number around 2,000, attempted to reach the presidential palace but were blocked by officers in riot gear. Videos shared on social media show police in helmets and shields scuffling with protesters as clashes broke out along the route.

The protest is the latest in a series of anti-government demonstrations that have occurred since the U.S. removed longtime leader Nicolás Maduro on January 3. 

Edward Ocariz, who was at the protest, told Latin America Reports there was a lot of shoving by police. He said an officer took his phone as he was filming on it, but he managed to get it back, sustaining an injury to his hand in the process.

One video published by Venezuelan human rights organisation PROVEA appears to show an officer assaulting a person with his shield, which the NGO said was its photographer.

Workers took to the street to protest over low wages and pensions that have left some citizens struggling to get by. Venezuela’s minimum wage for public sector workers has not been increased since 2022, leaving many employees with just 130 bolívares per month — equivalent to less than US$0.30, not even enough for a loaf of bread.

Top up ‘bonuses’ – additional payments given out by the government — can raise total income to between US$50 and $150, but unions and workers say these are unreliable and they want a dignified salary.

For years, Venezuelans have endured an economic crisis that has left people struggling to pay for food, medicine and basic goods.

“We’re not going to keep surviving on a miserable wage,” Rene Zapata, Secretary of the Organization of the Venezuelan Teachers’ Federation in Miranda State, told Latin America Reports. “With my wage I cannot even buy half a carton of eggs,” he said.

Zapata said he and other demonstrators had managed to push past some barricades and that workers just wanted a better income and to be able to afford to eat.

Since Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured in a U.S. operation on January 3, there have been an increase in anti-government protests calling for better living standards. Following the 2024 presidential election — when Maduro claimed victory despite opposition evidence showing he had lost — protests had been almost non-existent due to the threat of detention.

“People have shown they’ve lost their fear. We are no longer afraid, and we will keep moving forward for a fair wage,” Zapata said.

On Wednesday evening, interim president Delcy Rodríguez announced that wages would rise on May 1, describing the increase as “responsible” and designed to avoid inflation, though she did not disclose the amount. While hoping to quell public discontent, many public-sector workers said the announcement fell short of what they deserved.

“They come talking about a responsible increase, but it is a fallacy and a lie,” Argelia Castillo, general secretary of the APUFAT‑UCV union representing workers at the Central University of Venezuela, told Latin America Reports. 

Castillo, a social worker and university professor, said the government should ensure salaries cover the basic cost of living. She added, “Workers cannot endure this, and we cannot wait until May 1.”Rodríguez has been leading the country since Maduro’s capture, but many citizens see her as a continuation of the old administration and are hoping for new elections.

Featured image description: Workers partake in a protest in Caracas in March 2026 calling for higher salaries.

Featured image credit: Catherine Ellis

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The Venezuelan government on Tuesday authorized the release of another 54 political prisoners, all military personnel, according to information confirmed by relatives of the detainees and support groups such as the Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy. Three of those released are women. According to data provided by Foro Penal official Gonzalo Himiob, most of them were part of the so‑called Operation White Armband, an alleged military conspiracy denounced by Venezuelan intelligence agencies four years ago. They had been held at Ramo Verde prison and the National Institute for Female Rehabilitation (INOF).

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Madrid, Spain – Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, drew thousands of supporters to Madrid’s Puerta del Sol on Saturday, telling them that they would soon be able to return to Venezuela.

“Today we begin our return home,” she said to raucous applause from the crowd.

Machado appeared on a balcony draped with the Spanish and Venezuelan flags overlooking the square and flanked by members of her team.

It was a moment that felt closer to a presidential address than a political rally, followed by chants calling for elections to vote her in and cries of “president, president, president” filling the square at various points throughout her speech.

The Madrid rally marks an attempt by Machado to build momentum, amid uncertainty over the opposition’s next steps and anticipation about when she will go back to Venezuela.

Machado won the opposition’s 2023 primary by a landslide but was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election. Edmundo Gonzalez ran in her place and is widely believed to have won. 

But since the capture of Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces on January 3, many Venezuelans want fresh elections and do consider Delcy Rodriguez, now interim president, to represent them.

A few minutes after Machado’s balcony appearance, she stepped onto a stage in her signature white top and jeans — the same look she wore during dozens of rallies in Venezuela ahead of the 2024 elections — as well as rosary beads around her neck, gifted by supporters.

Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025, lifted small children onto the stage to hug them, as various gifts were passed through the crowd towards the stage — pictures, flowers, and more rosary beads.

She said that on January 3 a huge hole opened up, and that force and energy had begun to flow: “Now, having lived through what we’ve lived through, having endured the worst repression and persecution, having overcome fear, we are now unstoppable — unstoppable.”

While she criticized interim president of Venezuela, Rodriguez, she praised the U.S. president.

“There is one leader in the world, one head of state, who has risked the lives of his country’s citizens for the freedom of Venezuela. And that is Donald Trump,” Machado said, referring to the U.S. capture of Maduro in January.

Machado also paid tribute to the city of Madrid, which she said had welcomed and integrated Venezuelans at their time of need — but said soon they would be able to go back to Venezuela.

“Today the whole world has its eyes on this Plaza del Sol, because it knows that here today we are beginning the return home,” she shouted. “Pack your bags, because we’re going back.”

Spain hosts one of the largest Venezuelan communities in Europe, making it a key base of support for the opposition abroad.

Many Venezuelans at the gathering said that they did want to return home.

“We were nurses, eighteen years of service, and we had to leave home, we had to leave work, we had to leave everything,” a woman called Nazareth told Latin America Reports. She had left with her friend in September 2025 because of persecution by authorities in Venezuela. 

But she said she wants to  go back as soon as it is safe enough — and believes Machado can make that happen: “I’m with María Corina to the very end and beyond. She is a warrior woman, a woman who represents all of us.”

Others who had lived in Spain for years said Madrid was now their home, although some were beginning to consider a return. Liliana Urbina came to Spain 20 ago, when Hugo Chávez was still in power. But she said the changes since January 3 and Machado’s leadership now had her considering a permanent return to her home country.

“When I arrived here, I forgot about the idea of returning, but María Corina has changed that. She has shown the world that we can rebuild the country, that we are united, and that we will move forward,” she told Latin America Reports. “So it is feasible, and it is possible, and it is a dream that we too now have — of returning.”

The event was at times more like a concert than a rally, with musical performances from well-known Venezuelan performers such as Carlos Baute and opera singer Víctor García Sierra.

Many Venezuelans had arrived as early as 2 P.M. to secure their spots, bringing supplies as well as musical instruments to play for others around them. Others dressed up as President Trump or Nicolas Maduro, and posed for photos with the crowd.

As the day progressed and the crowd increased, several people fainted due to the heat and lack of shade.

Earlier in the day, Machado had attended a second symbolic ceremony during her visit. This time, she was awarded the Medal of the Community of Madrid. Edmundo González also received the honour but was unable to accept it in person as he is currently in hospital. On Friday she received the “llave de Oro” — golden key — an honour usually reserved for heads of state.

On Friday and Saturday, María Corina met with the country’s two main opposition leaders — Alberto Núñez Feijóo of the PP and Santiago Abascal of Vox. But she did not meet with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who was hosting a conference of left-wing leaders — including Petro, Lula and Sheinbaum — in Barcelona. However, Sánchez said he had offered to meet her.

María Corina will visit the Spanish Senate on Monday.

Featured image description: Maria Corina Machado spoke to a crowd of supporters on Saturday, April 18. Featured image credit: Catherine Ellis.

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María Emely Delgado crossed paths with Carmen Navas several times this year: at the offices of the NGO Foro Penal, at the Public Ministry, and once at the El Rodeo prison on the outskirts of Caracas. Delgado is 63 years old, Navas was 82. Both were looking for their sons, who disappeared after being arbitrarily detained. Carmen Navas died 10 days after finding her son Víctor Hugo in a cemetery. She had spent 16 months searching for him. María Emely has still not found Jorgen. “You have to be in these shoes to know what this is like,” says the retired teacher, who has been wearing them for almost two years. “Her son had been missing for less time than mine; with Jorgen I’m now coming up on 22 months without news of him.”

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Héctor Rovaín was 34 when he went to prison and his parents were still alive. He left at 57 without having been able to bury them. Luis Molina left his daughter as a three‑year‑old and will now meet a married woman and a grandchild he has yet to know. Like the other two, Erasmo Bolívar spent 23 Christmases without embracing his family. All three were officers of the Metropolitan Police (PM), a force that operated in Caracas and which no longer exists. They were accused, without evidence, along with six other officers, of two of the 19 deaths that occurred on April 11, 2002, when an opposition‑called protest tried to reach the Miraflores presidential palace and demonstrators were repelled by gunfire. There remain doubts about where those bullets came from. That same day, Hugo Chávez was toppled in a coup d’état, though he returned to power 48 hours later.

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Medellín, Colombia – Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez announced the dismissal of Vladimir Padrino as Minister of the People’s Power for Defense of Venezuela today, a long-term Nicolás Maduro ally. 

“We thank G/J [General in Chief] Vladimir Padrino López for his dedication, his loyalty to the homeland, and for having been, throughout all these years, the foremost soldier in the defense of our country,” Rodríguez wrote on X.

In his place, the president designated general Gustavo González López – a veteran officer with experience in security and intelligence – as the new Minister of Defense. González will be heading two key bodies: the Presidential Guard and the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).

Padrino had been Maduro’s trusted man for ten years, appointed to head the ministry in October 2014, making him one of the longest-serving ministers in Venezuela. 

Padrino was also an important figure during the failed coup d’état against Chávez in April 2002. He remained loyal to the Chávez regime and refused to join the uprising while he commanded an armored unit stationed at Fuerte Tiuna, Caracas.

In her statement, Rodríguez also said she is confident Padrino will take on his new responsibilities with the “same commitment and honor” that characterized his trajectory and career. She did not specify what his role will be going forward.

Padrino’s removal was part of a broader cabinet reshuffle, with Rodríguez replacing the Minister of Housing and Habitat, the Minister of Electric Energy, the Minister of Public Works, the Minister of Transport and the Minister for the Social Process of Labor.

Featured image description: Delcy Rodriguez.

Featured image credit: Government of Russia via Wikimedia Commons

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Miguel Díaz-Canel grows emotional, raising his fist before hundreds of left-wing activists from Europe and Latin America gathered at Havana’s convention center, as seen in a video recorded days before a shipment of humanitarian aid arrived, while they chant, “Cuba is not alone.” On May 22, he is seen giving a military salute amid trumpets and Cuban pennants before thousands gathered at the so-called anti-imperialist platform between the U.S. embassy and the Malecón to show support for 94-year-old Raúl Castro, who has just been charged by a U.S. court for ordering the shooting down of two planes belonging to an anti-Castro organization in 1996, an attack that killed four people.

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Between grandstanding, contradictory statements, and secret meetings, something is happening in Cuba. A path has opened that is still full of unknowns, but one that now seems hard to reverse. In recent days, events have accelerated with the unusual visit by the CIA chief to Havana, the U.S. indictment of Raúl Castro — the Cuban Revolution’s last great symbol — and the deployment of an aircraft carrier in Caribbean waters near the island.

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It was in March 2020, with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, that Plus Ultra executives began considering the need to “access the aid” and, at the same time, to knock on the right doors at the “political level” to obtain it. A conversation between the airline’s then owner and vice president, Rodolfo Reyes and Julio Martínez Sola, respectively, shows the involvement —at least in an advisory capacity at an early stage— of Delcy Rodríguez, who was formerly Venezuela’s number two. “Delcy, have her call Ábalos,” the first told the second. “Or someone with Zapatero,” added his vice president.

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Bogotá, Colombia – Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrived in Caracas today to meet with his counterpart in Venezuela, Interim President Delcy Rodríguez.

The visit makes Petro the first world leader to visit the South American nation since the United States captured longtime strongman Nicolás Maduro in a military operation on January 3.

Petro and Rodríguez are expected to discuss bilateral issues including energy and security cooperation on their more than 1,300 mile shared border. 

The Colombian president landed in Caracas on Friday afternoon with his Foreign Minister, Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio, and Defense Minister, Pedro Sánchez.

The delegation from Bogotá has been meeting with Rodríguez and her Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, alongside Foreign Minister Yván Gil at the Palacio de Miraflores – Venezuela’s presidential palace. 

Petro and Rodríguez were scheduled to meet in Cúcuta, a Colombian city bordering Venezuela, in March but the Venezuelan president cancelled at the last minute citing security concerns.

Then last Friday, the Colombian leader announced he would head to Venezuela, saying, “If Mohammed won’t come to me, I’ll go to the mountain.”

The primary purpose of the meeting is strengthening security cooperation, according to the Petro administration.

“The aim of this meeting is for both governments to make progress on a joint plan to strengthen security and intelligence in the border area,” wrote the Office of the President in a post on X today.

The sprawling frontier is a hotbed for guerrilla activity and is largely controlled by the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN), a rebel group involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining on both sides of the border.

The ELN was known to have ties to the Maduro regime but the Venezuelan government is under pressure from the U.S. to crack down on the rebel group, which Washington considers a “terrorist organization.”

While the Petro administration maintains the importance of strengthening bilateral cooperation, the meeting has perturbed many in the Venezuelan exile community in Colombia. 

“President Gustavo Petro’s visit to Venezuela, particularly his meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, raises serious concerns among Venezuelans,” Juan Carlos Viloria Doria, President of the Global Alliance for Human Rights and Vice-President of Venezuelans in Barranquilla, told Latin America Reports.

He noted that many Venezuelans do not consider Rodríguez to be a legitimate leader, describing her as “an extension of the regime led by Nicolás Maduro.”

“In this regard, such visits can be interpreted as a political endorsement or a form of international legitimization of a situation in Venezuela that still lacks adequate democratic guarantees,” maintained Viloria.

There has also been pressure in Colombia for Petro to mediate the release of 16 Colombian citizens jailed in Venezuela.

The families of those detained allege the arrests were made “without a court order or evidence” and say their loved ones have faced human rights violations including torture. 

While there has been an easing in repression following Maduro’s ouster, Venezuela remains an authoritarian state and rights groups continue to denounce abuses.

“The least that we Venezuelans expect is that [the meeting] be used as an opportunity to demand concrete progress on human rights and democracy,” said Viloria.

“Any dialogue or rapprochement must be aimed at improving the living conditions of the Venezuelan people and fostering a genuinely democratic transition, not at consolidating contested power structures.”

Featured image description: Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodríguez at a meeting in Caracas on April 24, 2026.

Featured image credit: @InfoPresidencia via X

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Bogotá, Colombia – Waiting for a vice minister on the eleventh floor of a dusty office block in downtown Caracas, a Venezuelan colleague hissed in my ear: “You can’t show that map, get rid of it”.

Surprised, I plucked the map of Venezuela out of the pile of papers that made up a project our NGO was proposing to provide health support in remote corners of the country. With economic collapse the country needed international support, but was not always open to receiving it. My job was to negotiate access to those remote corners. 

Later, trudging down the gloomy stairwell (the lift wasn’t working) my colleague explained the problem: “Every Venezuelan map you show in Venezuela must include Essequibo.”

Like many newbies in Caracas, I’d never heard of Essequibo, a territory that lies in Guyana but is claimed by Venezuela. At 160,000 square kilometers (62,000 square miles) it has just 125,000 inhabitants, so is five times bigger than Belgium but with fewer people than Bruges.

I was intrigued. And grateful to my colleague: dealing with Venezuelan ministries was tricky enough without causing offense by omitting a vast tract of jungle dangling off the eastern border like a lost appendage.

But far from impotent. 

To the east of Venezuela lies Essequibo, a vast tract of jungle rich in diamond and gold, as well as huge oil deposits discovered in 2015 off its coastal waters.

During his regime former president Nicolás Maduro – now facing drug charges in a U.S. court – laid claim to Essequibo and ramped up both political and military pressure for Guyana to cede the vast territory. This culminated in a legal declaration of annexation in 2023, a move sparking international condemnation.

In 2024 Maduro went further, issuing ID cards for ‘Guayana Esequiba’ as he called it, creating a phantom administrative center for the country’s “24th state”, and proposing a new governor.

Then the Venezuelan strongman sent soldiers to span the Cuyení River, close to the disputed border.

It may have been a bridge too far. In March 2025, U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio condemned Venezuela’s moves as “illegitimate territorial claims by a narcotrafficking regime” and vowed to defend Guyana from Venezuelan incursions.

Any attacks on US oil companies exploiting oil reserves off the Essequibo coast would be a “very bad week for Maduro”, warned Rubio at a press conference in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown. In reply Maduro called the secretary of state “an imbecile”.

The rest, as they say, is history. Nine months later the Venezuelan leader would be snatched from his Caracas hideout by U.S. special forces and bundled off to a New York jail.

Map showing the disputed territory of Essequibo, which makes up most of Guyana.

Rigged arbitration

Following in her predecessor’s footsteps, Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, flew to The Hague last week to argue her country’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The case had been bumped up to the ICJ – sometimes referred to as the ‘world’s top court’ – by the UN, charged initially with untangling the misaligned borders.

First though, Rodriguez had to deal with another land grab issue: Venezuela was now the “51^st State”, according to a map colored by the Stars and Stripes posted on social media by U.S. president Donald Trump.

.

Trump’s “51st State” memeAt the ICJ, journalists were quick to jump on the meme.

“We came to the court to defend our sovereignty, to defend our independence,” said Rodriguez, flustered by the irony of it all: her former boss Maduro had three years before pulled a similar stunt by declaring Essequibo – which by land mass makes up two thirds of Guyana – as a “new state of Venezuela”.

Over four days the ICJ judges heard oral arguments from both delegations, which though couched in legal jargon gave fascinating insights to centuries of colonial great games and arbitrary map-making; the case drew comparisons to centuries past when Spain, Holland, Britain and even Sweden tussled for a foothold in the jungles of northern South America.

Guyana’s position was simple: as de facto holder of Essequibo, and under aggression from Venezuela, it wanted the court to ratify the ruling of an international tribunal from 1899 – the so-called Paris Arbitral Accord – which drew the boundary largely in favor of Guyana, then a British colony.

Britain’s argument then was that they had a permanent presence in Essequibo, while both Venezuela and previous Spanish colonial administrations were largely absent.

The problem is that Venezuela never accepted the Paris accord, claiming it was a backroom deal between London and Washington, a quid pro quo where the Essequibo would remain a colony in return for regional favors.

As they put it before last week’s ICJ: “The British Empire, known throughout the world for its aggressive expansionism, negotiated with the U.S. a rigged arbitration to retain the territories usurped from Venezuela in exchange for recognizing the hegemony of the U.S.”

In some ways the Paris Accord was a problem of Venezuela’s own making. Having severed diplomatic ties with Britain, it subcontracted its 1899 negotiation to the U.S., whose delegation included no less than former president U.S. Benjamin Harrison.

Meanwhile the U.S., keen to flex its Monroe Doctrine – basically ‘keep out of our backyard’ – was happy to defend its Caribbean neighbor against old-world empires. Why they fudged the negotiation is a matter of historical debate.

This means a key question for the ICJ judges is rooted in the past: did the U.S. delegation defend Venezuela in good faith or buckle to machinations of the British Empire? And should they uphold the Paris Arbitral Accord?

Communities not consulted

While there has been much international focus on oil finds in Essequibo, there is little mention of the indigenous peoples, such as the Lokono and Warao, who have lived there since long before Europeans arrived. At least nine distinct languages are spoken within the territory. 

But in 2023, at no point did Maduro consult the communities of Essequibo before declaring it annexed to Venezuela.

These communities had “moved between the borders of Venezuela and Guyana since time immemorial,” said Jean La Rose, a Lokono woman and director of the Amerindian Peoples Association of Guyana (APA), writing for Mongabay.

Those rooted in Essequibo considered it part of Guyana, she said, condemning Maduro’s announcements that had forced families to flee from the villages under threat of a military invasion.

“We are Guyanese citizens, and as such, we stand in solidarity with the Guyanese government and reject any foreign claim on this land,” said La Rose.

Warao community close to the border between Venezuela and Guyana. Indigenous people claim they were not consulted over Venezuela’s moves to annex Essequibo. Photo: S. Hide.

Rally to the flag

Though the court’s final findings are months away, most observers see it as unlikely that the ICJ will find for Venezuela.

Firstly, the geographical reality is that the troubled region makes up two thirds of Guyana’s land mass but would only add a small fraction to Venezuela’s much larger territory. Without Essequibo, Guyana shrinks off the map.

Secondly, arbitration courts often defer to the territorial status quo and self-determination of its inhabitants. ‘Possession is nine tenths of the law,’ as the saying goes.

In practical terms, U.S. oil companies are also coining it in Essequibo, also creating an economic boom in Guyana itself. So even with a foot in both camps, Washington is unlikely to back Caracas.

Any ruling in favor of Venezuela would also risk unravelling dozens of pending but stable border disputes stemming from colonial-era chicanery; most Latin American countries have at least one boundary grievance with one neighbour or another.

Such squabbles usually stay in play – a useful distraction for failing states – because leaders routinely reject international arbitration if the findings don’t go their way.

In such a vein Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez told the court last week that her presence there “did not imply in any way a recognition of the competence of the ICJ in the territorial controversy”.

Instead any agreement, she said, had to be hammered out in direct talks between the two nations to establish “a solid and stable foundation for good neighborliness”.

Given recent history, that boat has sailed. 

For guidance, Rodriguez could take a closer look at Trump’s “51^st State” meme. His Venezuela map, like mine, omitted Essequibo. I doubt Caracas will correct him.

Judges hearing the Essequibo case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague last week. Photo: ICJ.

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