Venezuela-Guyana Conflict: Maduro Orders Forces to Exercise in the East Caribbean While the UK Sends a Warship

As the South American neighbors dispute a sizable border area, President Nicolás Maduro ordered Venezuela’s military forces to perform defense drills in the Eastern Caribbean after the United Kingdom’s deployment of a warship near Guyana’s territorial waters.

6,000 Venezuelan soldiers, including air and naval units, will carry out cooperative activities along the country’s eastern coast close to the Guyana border, according to Maduro, who made this announcement in a nationally broadcast speech on Thursday.

Maduro called the British ship HMS Trent’s scheduled landing on Guyana’s beaches a danger to his nation. He said that the deployment of the ship goes against a recent agreement between the countries of South America.

“We have faith in communication, diplomacy, and harmony, but nobody will jeopardize Venezuela,” Maduro said in a chamber surrounded by twelve military chiefs. “This is an intolerable threat to any Latin American nation that is sovereign.”

A boundary dispute between Venezuela and Guyana presently exists over the Essequibo, an area the size of Florida that is sparsely inhabited and has significant oil resources off its coast.

Although Guyana has ruled the area for many years, Venezuela revived its historical claim to the Essequibo in December by asking citizens of the nation to vote on whether the region should become a state inside Venezuela.

The presidents of both nations gathered on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent as tensions in the area increased, and they struck a deal promising to settle their differences peacefully.

However, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said during the negotiations that his country retained the right to cooperate with its allies in order to guarantee national security.

Guyanese authorities said on Thursday that HMS Trent’s visit would go according to schedule and that it is a planned action meant to strengthen the country’s defensive capabilities.

In Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told reporters, “Nothing that we do or have done is threatening Venezuela.”

The patrol and rescue ship HMS Trent was recently sent to stop drug dealers off the coast of West Africa. It has 30 mm guns, a landing strip for drones and helicopters, and the capacity to hold up to 30 sailors and an 18-man marine detachment.

Originally scheduled to intercept drug traffickers near Barbados in early December, the ship’s mission was rescheduled to Guyana on December 24. When it was predicted to reach off the coast of Guyana was not stated by the authorities.

The ship will be performing cooperative operations with the military forces of Guyana, according to the military Ministry of the United Kingdom.

The 800,000-person country has a modest military consisting of 3,000 troops, 200 sailors, and four Barracudas, small patrol vessels.

When Guyana was still a British territory and the border was determined by arbitrators from the United States, Russia, and Britain in 1899, Venezuela claims it was the victim of a plot to steal land. The fact that the Venezuelan government had severed diplomatic ties with Britain was one of the reasons the US represented Venezuela.

Officials from Venezuela claim that Americans and Europeans conspired to deprive their nation of its territory. They contend that the 1966 arbitration was essentially void due to an agreement reached by Venezuela, Britain, and the British Guiana colony to settle the issue.

The highest court of the United Nations was petitioned by Guyana in 2018 to decide that the original deal was lawful and enforceable, but a ruling on this matter is still years away. With the discovery of oil in Guyana, the century-old issue has lately flared up again.