don't know what's happening and war is bad, but I trust mustache boy Maduro

I’ve been furiously trying to work this one out and so far I’ve got

• region is massively underdeveloped, meaning very poor and a lack of education or employment - even by the standards of the lower middle income nation of Guyana
• Guyana’s claim to the region isn’t very strong on grounds of international law but has been the de facto status quo for over a century
• the region has long been “claimed” by the respective sovereigns of both countries for literally hundreds of years going back to the age of empires but hasn’t really been ruled by anyone in the sense of having the people provided for in a meaningful sense. It’s always been a place where resources are extracted and where you trade with the indigenous communities who mostly mind their own business
• the nation of Guyana is populated almost entirely by the descendants of African slaves and Indians who were brought in by the British and Dutch during the slaver era. This is overwhelmingly the bulk of the population who overwhelmingly live not in this region but along the eastern border and in Georgetown on the coast
• the disputed region is roughly 10-15% of the total population and is where the indigenous minority live, the indigenous minority making up about 10% of the population of Guyana
• I’ve seen it asserted by Venezuelan politicians that this indigenous minority feel a “kinship” with Venezuela but I don’t really understand what this claim is based on, and I’ve completely failed to find any kind of polling. I have found a couple of anecdotes from indigenous Guyanese saying they didn’t feel a connection with Georgetown that’s the closest I’ve found to a guide to actual sentiment of the local population so I consider the self determination of the resident population of the region an open question that is surprisingly difficult to answer
• Venezuelans definitely see the region as part of Venezuela
• the main opposition leader was against the referendum but the issue is so popular in Venezuela that he didn’t make it a party line and members of the main opposition were given a “conscience vote” and allowed to decide their position on an individual basis
• roughly half the opposition seem to be in favor of it, with the more hardline opposition calling this group sellouts
• there doesn’t seem to be evidence of an imminent invasion
• the referendum was a consultative one meaning it is more like an opinion poll to decide government policy. It has some vaguely defined legal force but it’s more like a tool to establish a political mandate for a policy choice rather than mandating specific actions or outcomes

That’s the background I’ve managed to put together, I would appreciate corrections and additions

The conflict itself

• basically it’s the Britishes fault
• in 1899 the USA “represented Venezuelas interests” treating Venezuela as a protectorate under the Monroe doctrine and “negotiating on their behalf” with the British empire, ceding about 90% of the territory to British Guyana
• Venezuela protested then but couldn’t do anything about it
• in the 1960s they officially repudiated the deal and the dispute reopened in the legal sense but nothing really happened.
• the outcome of the 1960s was a vague agreement that both sides agree to negotiate and if they can’t make a deal then it goes to the Sec Gen of the UN to decide
• nothing was agreed and it didn’t go to the Sec Gen, it just kind of stalled at this point in the 60s
• basically Guyana has no reason to negotiate because the status quo has them holding almost all of it so any deal would entail a loss of territory hence no deal
• Chavez basically ignored the issue, apparently on the advice of Fidel to not stir shit up but towards the end of his time in office he started to stir some shit up about it but basically the status quo remained in place
• the reason why things have changed now is that Guyana recently became very oil rich and a significant minor portion of this oil is in the sea shelf off the coasts of Guyana and Venezuela
• Guyana applied to have these sea shelf’s recognized as their EEZ which triggered a protest from Venezuela and so the issue of the EEZ has not been decided since that decision is predicated on no ongoing border disputes
• Guyana made some deals with ExxonMobil anyway which is forcing Venezuela’s hand here, so it’s not as simple as a cash grab (although probably that plays a role) but Guyana is forcing the issue by treating the area as its sovereign territory (in the past it was easy to let the issue lie dormant since nothing much was happening here aside from impoverish indigenous village life)
• Guyana has referred to the 1960s agreement and sought a border dispute from the Sec Gen of the UN who deferred the decision to the ICJ
• Venezuela says 80 years of bad faith from Guyana made that void since there were no good faith negotiations, and also claims that by moving forward with economic exploitation and claiming the EEZ before settling the dispute is bad faith that invalidates the agreement which makes requesting a decision from the Sec Gen and thus the ICJ invalid

My take so far is that the claims of “rightful sovereignty” are all colonial era shit anyway on both sides - who gives a shit if the Dutch or the Spanish got there first 400 years ago it wasn’t theirs to begin with - and what matters to my thinking is the rights and desires of the indigenous people who live there but that’s the one thing I just cannot find any guide on, aside from statements by the Venezuelan government (who I don’t assume to be lying but obviously that’s not sufficient) and I can only find several anecdotes shared to journalists (which isn’t an adequate substitute and only indicated a sense of profound disconnection from Guyana rather than a sense of connection with Venezuela.)

The best proxy for this I have is the very clear sense among Venezuelans that they have a connection to this land and so I assume there is probably some connection in fact existing between the indigenous groups on both sides of the border but I just cannot find much at all about the opinions of indigenous Guyanese.

Also it would be an L for US power in the region.

One funny part of this is that Exxon is dealing with both sides, making deals to further develop Venezuelan oil deposits while also working with Guyana despite the existence of a recognized EEZ so Exxon are W’ing no matter what, which might be sufficient to keep Uncle Sam from getting involved. I wonder too if the timing of it coinciding with a geopolitical detente between Venezuela and the US means Venezuela has some tacit green light from the state department which would make it eerily similar to the start of the first Iraq war.

In summary I don’t know what’s going on either but venceremos.