Regarding the recent ICJ ruling (presided over by former State Department employee, Judge Joan Donoghue) on the Venezuela-Guyana border dispute and the 2020 Guyanese general election, I have come to the conclusion, based on my research, that the USG—along with the UK Foreign Office and Canada—interfered in the 2020 election, in order that their favored candidate (Irfaan Ali of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic) would become President, and that the disputed territory, of Essequibo, rightfully belongs to Venezuela.

Research:

Excerpts, on Essequibo, from “Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know” by Miguel Tinker Salas.

While No One Was Looking: America, Guyana, and Venezuela

On March 2, 2020, the people of Guyana went to the polls. According to the Carter Center, at first things went really well. And then they didn’t. At the close of the day, President David Granger had been re-elected. But, though nine of ten districts reported cleanly, the largest district was mired in confusion. And the promise became chaos.

…

The US was a leading voice in the call for a recount and the US applied a great deal of pressure on Granger to hand over the office of President. Two weeks after the initial count, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Granger not to form an “illegitimate government” based on “electoral fraud” or he would “be subjected to a variety of serious consequences from the United States Government.” Then, on July 15, five weeks after the June 7 recount was completed, Pompeo announced “visa restrictions on individuals who have been responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy in Guyana.”

After undermining democracy, declaring fair elections frauds and supporting coups in Bolivia and Venezuela, why is America so concerned about fair elections in Guyana?

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Ali’s willingness to cooperate with the US, who is actively and aggressively pressing for regime change in Guyana’s neighboring Venezuela, is in sharp contrast to Granger’s reluctance. Granger rejected a request* that came just after the March election from Voice of America for permission to use Guyana to broadcast into Venezuela. Just after the new election results, Ali agreed to partner with America against Venezuela. Granger’s campaign manager suggested* that the Guyanese election “seem no longer to be about the Guyanese people but about other interests.”

Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History at Pomona College, and one of the world’s leading experts on Venezuelan history and politics, told me in a personal correspondence that “The US has been attempting to manipulate relations between Guyana and Venezuela, especially the long standing border dispute between both countries over the issue of the Essequibo which Venezuela has historically claimed.” He added the reminder that “Pompeo was recently in Guyana and Suriname to promote the US policy of isolating Venezuela.”

But, as Miguel Tinker Salas’ comment points out, the US has more than Venezuela in its sights. It also has its sights on the oil discoveries in the disputed waters of the Essequibo. As Miguel Tinker Sala told me, “Add to that oil, and the role of Exxon which is still smarting over their exit from Venezuela and you have the conditions which allow the US to exacerbate tensions between both countries.” But to understand the important role of oil in the US’s interference in the relationship between Guyana and Venezuela requires an understanding of two hundred years of history. And a half century of hypocrisy.

History

The border dispute that the US is exploiting and manipulating was born almost two centuries ago in 1835 when the British gently eased over the western borders of the Guyanese colony it had inherited from the Dutch and usurped a large portion of land from Venezuela.

In 1899, the matter of the disputed territory came up before an international tribunal. But the tribunal ruled in favor of Britain and granted British Guyana control over the disputed territory. Of course it did: the tribunal was stacked. Rather than being an impartial tribunal made up of Latin American countries as it should have been, the dispute was adjudicated by an international body dominated by the United States and – of all countries – Britain. Britain was hardly a disinterested party. Worst of all, Venezuela was not permitted a delegate to the tribunal! The Venezuelans were represented by former U.S. President Benjamin Harris.

“Needless to say,” Miguel Tinker Salas says in his book Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know, Venezuela’s “prospects of prevailing in a tribunal dominated by foreign powers appeared slim.” And slim it was. The tribunal, which was dominated by Britain and excluded Venezuela, ruled in favor of Britain and against Venezuela. The tribunal issued its decision without any supporting rationale. The ruling gave Britain possession of over 90% of the disputed territory it had stolen from Venezuela sixty-four years earlier.

Years later, it would be revealed that the tribunal was not only stacked, it was fixed. The official secretary of the American represented Venezuelan delegation to the international tribunal, Severo Mallet-Prevost**, confirmed Venezuela’s allegation when he revealed in a posthumously published letter that the governments of Britain and Russia influenced the president of the tribunal to exert pressure on the arbitrators to rule in Britain’s favor.

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But this is not the first time. As Miguel Tinker Salas said, Exxon “is still smarting over their exit from Venezuela” in the Hugo Chavez years. So, despite the Treaty of Geneva, Guyana has begun extracting oil in the disputed territory. In 2015, ExxonMobil made a huge oil discovery in the very waters disputed by Guyana and Venezuela. In order to get around the laws enacted by Chavez that nationalized the oil and natural gas industries of Venezuela that had previously been controlled mostly by American oil interests, ExxonMobil and Guyana simply asserted that the oil was in Guyanese territory. That assertion was made in flagrant defiance of the Treaty of Geneva, which stipulated that neither country could act in that territory until the border had been resolved. America can now portray Venezuela as an aggressor, attempting to steal oil from its tiny, impoverished neighbor.

So, the US is concerned with Guyana as a tool for exerting pressure on Venezuela both for regime change and to steal back the oil that Chavez took back [nationalized] to use for his own people: oil reserves so large, they could now make Guyana one of the richest countries in the world.

Continue reading…

*[2020] Guyana’s long election deadlock stirs fears of civil war

Opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo told the Financial Times that war was unlikely but if the Granger government “refuses to leave office, people are not going to take it lightly”. He said some in the country were “working aggressively to divide our people, particularly along racial lines”. [divide and rule]

Last week Mr Granger’s campaign manager, Joseph Harmon, claimed that “dark forces are threatening to pull us apart”.

In an apparent reference to next-door Venezuela, he said the disputed elections “seem no longer to be about the Guyanese people but about other interests”. The Granger government believes the US is trying to use Guyana in its bid to topple Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s president.

…

The election has exposed Guyana’s long-simmering racial tensions. Mr Granger has relied on support from the Afro-Guyanese community that makes up 30 per cent of the population while Mr Jagdeo’s PPP is backed by Guyanese of Indian descent. They make up about 40 per cent of the population.

**Wikipedia: Severo Mallet-Prevost [in Spanish, CIA-edited English Wikipedia only mentions him under Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, which does not disclose the following**👇]

**[2009] Memorandum by Severo Mallet Prevost

**[2008] The sovereignty of Venezuela on the Guayana Esequiba. [in Spanish]

[2020] US Congressional Representatives condemn Trump’s interference in Guyana elections

[2020] UK under pressure to join US sanctions on Guyana

The discovery of oil off the country’s coast is destined to transform its economic fortunes, raising the political stakes even higher.

After the recount, the chief executive of Guyana’s electoral commission, Keith Lowenfield, disqualified 120,000 votes, nearly a fifth of those cast, handing the contested victory to Granger.

Last week, the Caribbean court of justice, Guyana’s final appellate court, overruled Lowenfield. But now another legal challenge has been declared in an attempt to prevent the commission from declaring Granger’s defeat.

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Pompeo’s move has been endorsed by the US Senate foreign relations committee. Canada also said it would use all the tools at its disposal to demand a swift and transparent conclusion to the election process.

Two UK Foreign Office ministers, Tariq Ahmad and Liz Sugg, have made successive calls for Granger to accept the result.

[2020] Anger over World Bank’s $55m pledge to Guyana’s fossil fuel industry

“The World Bank’s public assistance to upstream oil development in Guyana is a blatant contradiction to Guyana’s climate change priorities and the bank’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement,” said Heike Mainhardt, a senior advisor at Urgewald, a German non-governmental organisation that has tracked the projects. “I am perplexed by the [USG-controlled] World Bank’s disregard for its own warning.”

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Oil production has become a significant issue in the run-up to Guyana’s election in March, after criticism of the incumbent government run by President David Granger.

This month Global Witness***, a corruption monitor, said a 40-year deal agreed between the government and ExxonMobil for drilling rights would deprive the country of $55bn. The Guyanese opposition has maintained that it would not renegotiate the ExxonMobil contracts.

[2020] Guyana votes

As Pres. David Granger and main opposition candidate Irfaan Ali of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) step up campaigning with less than a week left, there are major concerns among international observers and the two major parties about the number of eligible elections on the voters list. In all nine parties met the criteria to contest the elections for the 65 seats in the single chamber parliament.

***Global Witness Donors (Fronts that I know of, offhand):

The Alexander Soros Foundation (George Soros), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland, Ford Foundation, The Foundation to Promote Open Society (Open Society Foundations-George Soros), Luminate (Omidyar Network-Pierre Omidyar), Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Hewlett Foundation