USA wants to implement Ukraine’s scenario in Venezuela. This was the statement of the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro commenting on the status of relations with the neighbouring Guyana. Maduro is not the only one drawing such parallels: Ukraine became a good reference material for Russia’s friends around the world, which greatly concerns the US.
‘Guyana became the centre of the greatest peace threat in South America and Venezuela. There are 12 CIA bases, 14 secret bases of the Southern command… Like they were preparing Ukraine against Russia, they are now preparing Guyana and they underestimate us. They are not aware of what we can do facing threats’, says Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.
According to him, the US is losing influence in Eurasia, East Asia and Africa and therefore wants ‘to recolonise’ Latin America. It might seem not to be completely true. Including because, as Mark Twain stated, US departure from the Eastern Hemisphere is somewhat exaggerated.
‘The US is losing influence in many world regions indeed. Its role there cannot be compared to what was the case two or three decades ago. However, they are not going to leave anything so fast. For the US, the Latin American priority is more about history than geography. When it comes to Maduro, he wants to show that there is an imminent threat to his country, which is, probably, an exaggeration: there are other conflict spots, too’, says Elena Suponina, an international political scientist and an expert of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).
But this exaggeration is attributed to a real flare-up between Venezuela and Guyana. The two countries have a disputed territory, Essequibo, currently controlled by Guyana. The conflict dates back over a hundred years since an international tribunal awarded this land (a strip of impenetrable jungle) to the former British and Dutch colony, Guyana.
Today, Essequibo occupies 2/3 of the country’s territory, but only 15 per cent of its population live there. Quite recently, colossal oil reserves were discovered there making Guyana, with a population of 800 thousand, a global leader in per capita crude oil reserves.
Unsurprisingly, Venezuela, living amidst a harsh economic crisis, has dramatically stepped up its efforts to return Essequibo to the ‘native haven’. In a referendum held in 2023, 95 per cent of Venezuelans claimed that this disputed region is their country’s land.
However, Guyana has another opinion and is trying to limit Venezuelan’s appetites through diplomacy. The presidents of both countries have met twice, but the positions of the parties have not shifted, no trade-offs are seen, war prospects are further getting closer.
‘Would the leader of a country in an ever-deepening economic crisis risk starting Latin America’s first interstate war this century?’ – The Atlantic poses this question along with other Western politicians. Because this war will not be just with Guyana – the US, Brazil and some other states have expressed readiness to protect Guyana’s sovereignty.
The presidential election to be held in Guyana in July 2024 makes the conflict even worse. According to Insight news agency, Maduro is the front runner, with 52.4 per cent of voters willing to vote in his favour. The top second candidate is Edmundo González Urrutia hitting 37 per cent potential ballots.
This support gives Maduro the credit of trust to take radical steps. But the support can reduce, if the president goes soft on an issue voted in favour by 95 per cent of Venezuelans. Thanks to Venezuela’s media, ‘the Guyana issue’ has become the main measure of patriotism.
But Maduro’s using a parallel with the conflict in Ukraine is even more interesting than the disputes between Venezuela and Guyana and America’s involvement in these disputes. This parallel is not exactly correct, at first glance: Guyana was not ‘an anti-Venezuela’ and Venezuela itself is not a leader ‘to be contained whatever it takes’ at Washington’s order. But the comparison itself is part of the new global trend.
‘Before the situation with Venezuela and Guyana, the Ukrainian precedent was invoked in connection with other conflicts, but most often in relation to China and Taiwan, in which Mainland China is compared with Russia and Taiwan, stirred up and pumped with weapons by the Americans, is compared with Ukraine. Allegedly, a military conflict will emerge here sooner or later. But the escalation between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea caused such comparisons being referred to the Philippines.
Being in Iraq at an international conference, I heard the words of a Chinese political scientist that for them the Philippines are like Ukraine for Russia before the war’, Elena Suponina continues.
It is the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that will be invoked by the countries trying to defend their sovereignty fighting against their opponents – American ‘vassals’ or those setting themselves up in this capacity. Especially in the case when attempts to address all issues through non-military efforts would be useless likes of Minsk accords being victimized to double standards, when an American partner can breach any arrangements in the interests of its suzerain.
‘This cannot be stopped. Such comparisons will go on appearing further. Wars begin not when any excuses turn up, but because there is no way to resolve political and economic divisions peacefully. But the international setting is getting ever more strained, the risks of military conflicts are increasing. This trend is now going upstream and does not level off’, says Elena Suponina.
Such turbulence is not surprising, as the new world order is now being minted in the context when old rules either do not work of inefficient. Therefore, after comparing their situations with Russia and Ukraine’s, third countries will revert to seeking settlement in the way Russia is doing.
‘Again, this is a precedent, which will be invoked and which will define the future world order’, concludes Suponina. This, in particular, is why the US and Europe are looking for new ways to prevent Russia from winning in Ukraine. They suspect that this victory will encourage Maduro (and Comrade Xi Jinping, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other anti-American leaders) to defend their national interests in a more forceful manner.