The Duran Podcast - Searching for a solution between Venezuela and Guyana

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

Searching for a solution between Venezuela and Guyana

All right, Alexander, let's do a follow-up video on the situation in Guyana with Venezuela. We've had the referendum as expected. It was in favor of Maduro and Venezuela's plan to annex this part of Guyana, a huge part of Guyana, I think two-thirds of the territory. And as we said in our first video on this topic, a lot of this, if not all of this, is connected to the discovery of the extraction of oil off the coast of Guyana or what Venezuela sees off their waters or that's the dispute, I guess, that's that we're heading into. And we've seen troop movements now as well, even though I get the sense that Maduro doesn't want. a military intervention in Guyana. We are seeing troops, Venezuelan troops moving to the border. Guyana has issued a statement essentially asking the United States to get involved. And Maduro, from what I understand, he is trying to see various members of the BRICS nations. I imagine he's looking for advice as to how to approach this.

because Maduro is in a difficult position. There would be people that argue that he was pushed into this, this position with Guyana, with Exxon in the United States, and perhaps the U.S. season opening with regards to the Guyana, Venezuela, and to the energy resources in the region. And so there is the argument that Maduro was pushed into this, but it's a tough situation for him. Especially if the US does get involved.

It's a very, very tough situation. And I go back to what we said in our previous program, that if you were to speak to him, I think he would tell you that he has been maneuvered into the situation. I mean, this has been deliberately set up in the way that it has been in order to put him in a very difficult situation Indeed, can I just say, first of all, if we go to Venezuela, the important thing to understand is that there is across the board, full support for the Venezuelan government on this position. It isn't just that this referendum turned out to be overwhelmingly in Venezuela, in the government's favour.

But it seems even the opposition political parties in Venezuela, who, as we know, are highly critical. critical of Maduro. Anyway, they back the government on this issue. So this is an issue which unites Venezuelans. There's also, so on the one hand, I mean, it's politically impossible for Maduro. It's very difficult. I mean, I didn't say impossible, but I mean, I can't imagine that he would want to back down. And if he did back down, if he allowed this oil exploration, this work on the oil fields to continue with Exxon, then I think that he would suffer severe political damage in Venezuela as well. Secondly, it's clear to me that there is a great deal of disinformation or misinformation going on. I mean, I was reading the other day that Venezuela has mobilized its army and is transferring, you know, its entire army to the border of Guyana.

Now, it may eventually come to that, but I understand that those reports are at the very least premature. I mean, Venezuela, the Venezuelan government has not up to this point said that it is intending to resolve the situation through military means. That isn't what they've been actually, as of now, threatening to do. but they do want the situation resolved and Maduro has said that all companies and other companies in this region need to stop their work within three months now three months gives a fair amount of time

for a diplomatic resolution to this and it seems that he does want to get all the brick states alongside Brazil it turns out has also got territories in this region which are contested the borders here have never been fully defined. And Lula is obviously observing the situation very closely. There is apparently a history of personal tension between Maduro and Lula.

They're not friends. And that may be a complicating matter. But Venezuela does have friends. It seems that Maduro wants to go to Moscow and probably will soon. and he will be meeting with Putin there. He will also no doubt be in touch with the Chinese. And I think that quite likely we are going to see a BRIC's diplomatic initiative.

And what will happen, I presume, is that the Chinese and the Russians will speak to the Brazilians, try to get the Brazilians on side, and they will try to diffuse that. whereas Guyana, as you've rightly said, is calling on the United States. And of course that does make you wonder whether that was the intention all along. Now, you go back a couple of months. If you remember, the Biden administration had got in touch with Venezuela then. And they said that they would ease sanctions in return for certain political concessions.

by Venezuela, he's sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry in return for certain political concessions by the Maduro government. And that seemed to be a deal. And it looked like it was intended to facilitate export of oil from Venezuela. And we know that the administration is generally worried about the oil market. Russian oil is now trading at a over $60 a barrel. The oil sanctions haven't worked. America's strategic reserve of oil has been massively depleted. Oil prices at the moment are slipping because of the economic problems in Europe

and perhaps potentially the United States as well. But the US would like the buffer of Venezuelan oil coming back into the oil trade in a big way. and that seemed to be the agreement then, except that that agreement appears to have unraveled. It seems it was never popular with some people in the United States. There were also problems implementing it in Venezuela itself, or so I understand. On this aspect, I'm not going to get into details

because, to be frank, I simply don't know. So, given that this is so, given that the US does want access to, does want to facilitate trade in Venezuelan oil. I do wonder whether perhaps this isn't an attempt to start some kind of regime change operation in Venezuela by drawing the Maduro government into a conflict with Guyana, which will either result in US intervention or alternatively into a situation. where Maduro is forced to back down

and his political position in Venezuela is undermined. Now, this is a bit speculative, but it is the kind of thing that neocons do. Yeah, that's why Maduro is probably making a good call by getting in touch with, say, the Chinese or the Russians. Yes, I mean, definitely needs some counsel on this. And I think a key, a key move, that needs to be made is

for Brazil and for Venezuela to engage. Absolutely. I mean some things are going his way. Guyana, back by the Western Palace, made an application to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for an injunction to prevent, to prohibit

the Venezuelan referendum going ahead. And the ICJ refused to do that. They said they had no jurisdiction to do it. It's internal Venezuelan matter. And apparently they refuse another request from Guyana for an injunction on a different aspect of this crisis. So, you know, he's got some things go his way. He's not done anything yet which violates international law.

But, you know, when you get reports about Venezuela mobilizing, deploying its army, readying for war, which are, to be clear again, well ahead of events, that does make one wonder whether somebody isn't working hard to construct a narrative

of a Venezuelan aggression and we know who the great narrative creators are. It would be a disaster, I would imagine. it would be perhaps even a fatal mistake for Maduro to actually start a military intervention. Well, yes, I don't think that's what you know. My hunch, but I think that is right. But I mean, Beres best something in mind if this is another attempt, which I think it might be to, you know, start another neocon war.

Neocon wars always end badly in the end. And, you know, I don't want to, go forward and try to work out what might happen if there was a war in this part of the Americas and the US were to become involved. But I can say for a fact that some countries in the region, Brazil being won, wouldn't certainly not be happy. So I can easily see that if some people in Washington think that a nice little war in, the Americas might help. the United States and the administration out of some of its difficulties.

I can easily see how it might make them worse. All right. So Maduro, what he wants, ultimately he wants Exxon out. Yes, I think this is right. I think this is right. I think this is a difficult problem to solve, actually. Yeah, how do you solve it then? Especially if the U.S., if Exxon, especially if Exxat tells the Biden White House,

we're not going anywhere. And the Biden White House says, no, you stay put because this might lead the way to a regime change. I mean, how do you solve this? You solve it by persuading the Guyanan government in its own interests to call this thing off and to agree to negotiate with Venezuela,

which is, I mean, there have been apparently negotiations of one or another going on for 24 years, but it seems that they've never really, they've never really got underway. because from my understanding of it, and again, I may be wrong about this, but my understanding is that Guyana has never really been interested

in negotiating with Venezuela because it is the country in possession and it actually controls this territory. So I think what the Guyanaans need to do is to sit down with Venezuela. The BRIC states, the other Latin American states, could help. And the Gaianans need to sit down

and come to a final agreement with Venezuela about this territory. Now, it's two-thirds of Guyana's territory, so I can understand why the Gaiana don't want to hand it over to Venezuela. That would clearly be more that they could possibly agree to, but they could come to agreements with the Venezuelans

about how to develop this region in a way that, you know, acknowledges, perhaps some form of Guyana sovereignty over it. I mean, there are examples of this if we talk about the Arctic. There's an island Spitsbergen,

which at one point was disputed between Norway and Russia and many, many, many decades ago an agreement was reached between the Norwegians and the Russians. It's still in effect, still operating, whereby Russia

recognized Norway's sovereignty over Spitsbergen. And Norway in return recognized Russia's rights to conduct economic development in Spitzbergen. And there is in fact, well, Svalbad is what I believe the Norwegian squad.

And there is in fact a Russian town on this island, and the Russians do conduct, but they used to conduct coal mining. I know what they do now. But anyway, they still have a presence there, an economic presence there. And that diffused that particular crisis. So maybe something similar could be negotiated over this issue. And it would be in Guyana's interests to do that.

And perhaps instead of American oil companies, you could find other ones. Brazil. Brazilian oil companies. I think they do exist. Exactly. I was going to say that. I think it may not even be so much the actual territory, but the territorial waters. Yeah.

That is the real sticking point in all of this. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you can find, you can find ways. If there's goodwill, ways can be found. The problem is Exod, where it's not going to be happy about that. And the neocons are not going to be happy about that. Well, there we are.

A sit down between Guyana and Venezuela, yeah. Well, that, well, exactly. probably move things along. Brazil can move things along. Probably the other Latin American states can also. And, you know, this is a problem which calls for a solution. And I'm, you know, I'm sure it can be found. Let's hope.

All right. We will leave it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, bit shoot, telegram, rock fin, and Twitter X and go to the Duran shop, 20% off. Use the code. through at 20. Take care.