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‘Guyana whose rich feet are mines of gold. Whose forehead knocked against the roof of stars. Stands on her tip-toes at fair England looking. Kissing her hands, lowering her mighty breast. And every sign of submission making to be her sister and her daughter both. Of our most sacred maid’ (Adamson, Jack H & Folland, Harold -1969- ‘The Shepherd of the Ocean’, Gambit, Boston).
Sir Walter Raleigh claimed that he had met people who told stories of tons of gold and visited the imperial city ruled by the emperor El Dorado. He said that ‘the Empire of Guiana is directly east of Peru, hath more abundance of gold than any other part of Peru and as many or more great cities then Peru has; it is governed by the same laws, and the people obey the same religion and the same form of policies in government as was used in Peru not differing in any part’ (Ibid). Raleigh spent his entire fortune fitting out expeditions bound for its non-existent imperial city of Manoa.
“It is possible to say of Venezuela and Guyana exactly what was said at the end of the nineteenth century of Britain and Venezuela. ‘The disparity of the strength of the claimants is such that Guyana could only have recourse through peaceful means.’ It matters not how absurd it may appear, it remains true that after over one hundred years of wrangling, the Bid for El Dorado is not yet closed.’ (Jeffrey, Henry, ‘Bid for El Dorado: the Guyana-Venezuela Border Problem”, Guyana Historical Journal, Vol iv & v, 1992-93).
A generation after the above article was written, what Guyana has in relative abundance is black gold and although its neighbour Venezuela has almost thirty times this amount, its bid for El Dorado continues. Some believe that it is Guyana’s recently found wealth that drives the present Venezuelan regime’s frenzied activities to annex Essequibo. Apart from its spurious ownership claim, many motivations may be in play, and one cannot for certain rule out any of them, including that there is no love lost between the Venezuelan government and ExxonMobil.
But although both countries can be categorized as autocratic states with similar political problems, there is an important difference: not rooted in race/ethnicity, Venezuelan politics is more competitive. Like Guyana, Venezuela holds periodic national elections but is classed as an ‘electoral autocracy’ while Guyana is politically an ‘electoral democracy’ verging upon becoming like Venezuela. In both countries national elections are fundamentally tarnished, with opposition demanding measures to make them free and fair. Venezuela’s electoral council, which tallies the votes for all elections, is dominated by Maduro’s allies, as the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) is largely in the control of the PPP. In Venezuela strict media censorship restricts opposition views while the state media mainly carries government propaganda and opposition access to the private media is limited. In both countries government loyalists continue to have preferential access to public employment, social programmes, etc. (Foreign Affairs Magazine, 01/01/2023).
However, as noted above, as it is not rooted in race/ethnicity, Venezuelan politics is much more competitive, and Maduro is becoming more unpopular and must find ways to turn this around. Annexing Essequibo will not help the situation as global responses to doing so will more likely make it appear a self-inflicted wound that is driving the people into greater poverty and despair. But electorates do tend to favour strong leaders who appear to prosecute their ‘just’ cause, and politicians routinely use foreign policy to bolster their personal image. Consider the following three examples from the United States of America.
According to political commentators in 1996, President Bill Clinton’s campaign manager encouraged him to “bomb the shit out of Serbia to look strong,” even though only a minority of voters supported military intervention in the Balkans. After Clinton agreed to bomb Serbian military positions (and to send US forces to the region for peacekeeping), he was forced to conclude that his manager had given him sound political advice. The president repeatedly voiced fascination that while 60 percent of the public had opposed the deployment of US troops to Bosnia, public approval of his foreign policy went up after he ordered the deployment. Clinton concluded ‘that toughness and decisiveness were appreciated even if people disagreed’ (‘The Politics of Looking Strong: Americans Like Tough Talk More Than Tough Action,’ Jeffrey A. Friedman, Foreign Affairs Magazine, 08/11/2023).
When President Lyndon Johnson entered the presidential race of 1969 he considered foreign affairs as one of his main political weaknesses against Barry Goldwater, who argued that Johnson was using timid half measures to contain the communists in Vietnam. Polling data indicated that only 15 percent of Americans supported escalating US military involvement in Vietnam, but Johnson reckoned that a hawkish Vietnam policy would mitigate charges that he was weak. So, he asked Congress for a use-of-force resolution, claiming that it was simply a tool to rebut public concerns that he was soft on communism and promised that he would return to Congress to seek additional approval before sending ground troops to Vietnam. When North Vietnam attacked U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin Johnson used the resolution without returning to Congress (Ibid).
John F. Kennedy claimed that his hawkish position on defense spending was critical to his narrow win over Nixon in the 1960 elections. Kennedy viewed foreign policy ‘as one of his principal political vulnerabilities against the virulent leading anticommunist and believed that voters tended to turn foreign policy discussions into referendums on the candidate’s leadership strength. Thus, he oriented his foreign policy platform around increasing defense expenditures, particularly by expanding the country’s supply of nuclear missiles when only 22 percent of voters thought defense spending was too low. However, taking a hawkish position on military spending allowed him to ‘seize the initiative’ and appear tough against the Soviet menace. ‘Surveys conducted by the Kennedy campaign showed him steadily gaining ground with voters’ (Ibid).
Venezuelans have been weaned on the belief that Essequibo is theirs and I am with those who believe that Maduro is using this context to bolster his plunging popular support in time for the coming 2024 elections. But the examples given above indicate that to be successful one will have to at the very least appear to be making good on one’s commitments. Maduro’s present annexationist behaviour can be viewed in this context. How far he is prepared to go is another matter altogether but as an autocrat, he does have much breathing space.
Maduro’s historical context and current requirements make it unlikely that his intention is to invade Essequibo. This is not to suggest that the Guyana government should not be hypervigilant and totally prepared for such an eventuality. What this analysis does seek to present is the more complicated operational environment that requires very careful thought, particularly bearing in mind that the current Venezuelan regime constitutes merely an historical transience while Venezuela and its people are permanent rational connections.