By Earl Bousquet

Territorial disputes exist the-world-over: The Antarctica, Malvinas Islands, Western Sahara, Somalia, South China Sea, Korean Peninsula, Nagorno Karabakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Taiwan, Occupied Palestine, Syria’s Golan Heights, Ukraine and Russia.

Ages-old Caribbean territorial disputes include that between Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the shared island of Hispaniola, Belize and Guatemala — and now, Venezuela and Guyana’s latest war of words over the former’s longstanding claim to the latter’s Essequibo region.

While 125 years old, today’s neighbourly Essequibo stand-off however features new global geopolitical considerations involving governments of nations big and small, alongside bigger and smaller international and multinational energy players, in the world’s newest Oil & Gas frontier.

Venezuela’s claim dates back to an international 1899 Arbitral Award and its latest phase can lead to the two neighbours either tearing themselves apart, or smoking a peace pipe.

After a United Nations (UN) mediating process (started in 1966) that’s kept the two sides talking since, stakes have been recently heightened on both sides.

For Venezuela, it sounds like talking is over.

It participates in the UN processes without being bound by related rulings, while also calling for direct talks with Guyana.

Venezuela disregarded a call by the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) to exclude the Essequibo region from the May 25th 2025 national elections for Governors and Parliamentarians.

Guyana is also digging-in its heels, building defence support for its smaller armed forces from nations near and far, including the USA, which has long been actively seeking a presence in there to wage propaganda warfare and gain military advantage to counter the Bolivarian Venezuela Chavez started and chose Maduro to continue.

A pro-American ‘Think Tank’ in Guyana is recommending a multinational military presence on Guyana’s side of the border with Venezuela.

But the call for an armed multinational Peace-keeping Force (PKF) on the Guyana-Venezuela border is akin to calling for militarization of a process that’s remained peaceful for over-a-century.
It also defies the reality of the sorry chapters of PKF history in Haiti.

Any such action will not only represent a departure from diplomacy, but also surely bring the two nations closer to opting for a military solution when a negotiated solution always remains possible.

Wars of all types only end through talks that lead to peaceful resolutions, which history has repeatedly proven as the best way out of any conflict.

Longstanding territorial conflicts are always difficult to resolve, even sometimes seeming impossible.
Solutions will prove evasive while nations fight, rattle sabres, quarrel, harden positions, shift goalposts, square-off and skirmish along borders.

However, in the end, each leader has a pen that’s mightier than his nation’s sword.

Choices are usually hard to make and compromises hard to take, but it’s always counterproductive to hurriedly advocate solutions to problems that don’t exist.

Neither side can prevent what either does and each will always act in its own self-interests.
Similarly, neither nation has said a war is the only solution, so each can be encouraged to ignore false flags and find common ground to avoid military options.

The Joint Argyle Declaration for Dialogue and Peace Between Guyana and Venezuela was signed on December 14, 2023 in St. Vincent & The Grenadines by Presidents Irfaan Ali and Nicolas Maduro, respectively.

But even though progress might be slower than hoped, diplomatic dialogue should never be thrown-out like the proverbial baby with its bath-water.

Guyana and Venezuela’s Caribbean and Latin American friends should end the silent policy of convenient neutrality and start actively advocating new and continuing peaceful approaches that will address stark realities and dispel tardy hopelessness.

CARICOM member-states of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Bolivarian Alternative for Our America (ALBA) can do more to help bridge existing gaps and build joint efforts to facilitate continuing dialogue between the neighbouring progressive developing nations.

The accumulating effects of the worsening imperial sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela also require similar special attention.

Luckily, current events offer frameworks for neighbouring friends in the Caribbean and Latin America to start working with other regional and global partners to keep the two sides talking peace and silencing war drums.

Venezuela’s May 25, 2025 elections again demonstrated the virtual impregnability of the unique and transparent electoral system designed under the Bolivarian Republic’s first President Hugo Chavez, that was highly-praised by US President Jimmy Carter and his Carter Centre.

The pro-Maduro Grand Patriotic Pole (GPP) was declared as having won 83.42% of votes cast, earning 23 of 24 governorships and 256 of 285 seats contested.

The next day, May 26 — Guyana’s 59th Independence Day — President Ali announced the next presidential and parliamentary elections there will be on September 1, 2025.

Venezuela will observe the 1st anniversary of last year’s presidential elections on July 28 and Guyana’s presidential poll will be four weeks later.

Between them, the two events offer a three-month (90-day) period (June to August) for initiation of new and greater efforts to get the two sides talking less about what divides and more about what can better unite than ever.

Neither side should abandon the almost six-decades-long UN mediation process, but both and each need to open-up to new approaches to finding solutions to a problem that can only worsen if allowed to continue as is.

The Argyle Accord included mutual declarations of intent worth constant monitoring by friends and supporters of both sides to the neighbourly quarrel that’s escalated into a war of words with regional and global impact and consequences.

Continuing and enhanced dialogue must be encouraged, but it’ll all depend heavily on politics and policies of governments and the realism of expectations.

Previous administrations in both capitals found ways to keep talking for six decades and not allowing history to replace neighbourly cooperation with cross-border sabre-rattling.

All should therefore be done to preserve this status quo, which, after all, is still the best way to go!

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