Venezuelan ambassador to Dominica, José Durabio Moros, has accused oil and gas giant ExxonMobil of trying to destabilize the Caribbean and South America as a border dispute between his country and Guyana continues to heat up. Speaking on state-owned DBS Radio on Wednesday, Moros said the two South American countries enjoyed good relations until oil resources were discovered and since then the oil company has been pushing Guyana “to fight” Venezuela.
“From 1966 to 2015 Venezuela and Guyana have been in good relationship, in a help-each-other relationship,” Moros stated. “Venezuela has cooperated with Guyana and Guyana has cooperated with Venezuela.”
He added that the two countries have worked together on projects such as Petrocaribe, amongst others and that “Venezuela helped in solidarity with our fellow countries.”
However, according to Moros, all this changed after the oil resources were discovered in 2015/16 by ExxonMobil.
“ExxonMobil started to push Guyana to fight Venezuela, to push Guyana, to escalate so they can appropriate the oil resources that they found,” he remarked. “So ExxonMobil is using Guyana as a Trojan Horse to destabilize the Caribbean and the South America region. They don’t care about the good relations between us, they just care about…to appropriate, to gain the oil resources.”
Guyana and Venezuela have been in an escalating dispute over a wide swathe of potentially oil-rich land between them known as the Essequibo Region, which both countries claim belongs to them. Venezuela will be holding a referendum on December 3, and one of the questions being posed to citizens is whether they agree to make the region a state of Venezuela. Guyana has described the planned referendum as nothing less than the annexation of its territory, which it said is a blatant violation of the most fundamental rules of the UN Charter, the OAS Charter, and general international law.
CARICOM has sided with Guyana on the matter saying that the planned referendum amounts to taking over Guyanese territory which is a violation of international law. Guyana is a member of CARICOM. However, Moros said the referendum is a right of all Venezuelans to prove to the world the rights that they have over their territory.
“It’s not the position of one or two of us, it’s the position of Venezuelans,” he said.
“So that is why on December the third we are going to do the referendum. We are promoting it around the country, people are excited to go to vote and to express their position about our territory.”
He said President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has explained at a conference the “historical moment and he is explaining why we have the right of that piece of land.”
Despite this, Moros said Venezuela hopes the matter is settled peacefully.
“Venezuela as a peaceful country wants a peaceful solution with Guyana under the 1966 Geneva Agreement,” he said. “We wish that Guyana recognize that it is making a mistake, not to believe in these transnational powers, and try to get back to a position [of] negotiation and a peaceful solution with us.”
Meanwhile on Tuesday this week, Guyana went to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague asking it to issue emergency measures to stop the referendum. However, today Wednesday, November 14, Venezuela said it will go on no matter what.
“Nothing will prevent the referendum scheduled for December 3 from being held,” Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez told the court.
The ICJ, also known as The World Court, which is the United Nations’ highest court for disputes between states, has not set a date for a ruling on the matter. However, according to the Reuters news agencies, decisions on emergency matters are usually issued within a few weeks.
The rulings of the ICJ are final however, it has no way of enforcing them.
Looks like Rohan Khanhai and Alvin Kallicharan from Essequibo were not Guyanese but Venezuelans. Looks like they played great cricket as Venezuelans. Did not know Spanish folks could play great cricket also. lol.
You guys took Bird Island from Dominica and now you want to take part of Guyana stay the hell away from our Caribbean islands and our newly found wealth or we will fight for what is ours backed by big brother USA.
When Venezuela was in its oil glory, it allowed internal political conflict to pave the road to a national implosion which was further exacerbated by the usual external Western instigators who were all too happy to find excuses to seize and freeze the country’s oil revenues.
Venezuela, who gained a reputation of regional benefactor based on a policy of oil based generosity in the Caribbean region, has regrettably morphed into a modeler of the same bullying bad behavior that led to $6 billion of its oil money being placed on ice for nefarious reason.
In a sad but predictable manner of some bullying victims, Venezuela has turned to menacing its South American neighbor Guyana with whom it has a century old territorial dispute.
Guyana’s recent oil discovery and burgeoning oil production industry appears to have turned Venezuela into an antagonistic and covetous neighbor who is hell bent on claiming what is not theirs. I hope Caricom stands firm with Guyana in their moment of…
The Venezuelan gvmt must find a scapegoat for the insurmountable problems created by their dictatorship !!
Although I am supporting Guyana, this is created by sanctions aka economic bullying to submit to a system that doesn’t work Practically much of the world’s poor are under these bullies sanctions. They have failed the world to sell arms and instruments of war.
DBS ration have been used by this so called ambassador to propagate his foolishness.
This radio station will go down on history as the medium that help promote Venezuela war on Guyana.
Why would Cecil and his clowns not realised this kind of publicity isn’t health for our democracy?
DBS continues to be used for political propaganda. This radio station shouldn’t be called the national station.
Why are we allowing Venezuela to push such propaganda on our State media? Venezuela has been claiming parts of Guyana long before Exxon discovered oil in Guyana!
DNO, I believe you have a responsibility to provide the wider context to this type of one-sided propaganda by Venezuela. For instance, “CARICOM insists that the Referendum proposed by Venezuela has no validity, bearing, or standing in international law in relation to this controversy; the Referendum is a purely domestic construct, but its summary effect is likely to undermine peace, tranquility, security, and more, in our Region.” https://caricom.org/statement-by-the-caribbean-community-caricom-on-the-guyana-venezuela-border-controversy/
They took or bought Bird Island from Dominica under the AM PM Roosevelt Skerrit but that is not enough! Venezuela wants a war in this Caribbean Sea! They want to target Exxon and the US? They should be careful what they wish for! Hands off Guyana! Remember the Falklands? Ask Argentina!
it was Venezuela who started mashing up the Caribbean by giving gifts to introduce the politicians to corruption, as dead chavez and skerrit
Can you imagine that Dominica’s national broadcaster, DBS Radio, is being used by the Venezuelan Embassy in Dominica to promote Venezuela’s propaganda that the Essequibo Region of Guyana belong to them and that they have a right to call a referendum to take the region away from Guyana.
Can you imagine that propaganda happening right here in Dominica.
I just hope that the Government and people of the Commonwealth of Dominica do not buy into that Anancy story of the Venezuelan Ambassador to Dominica, H.E. Jose Durabio Moros.
President Nicholas Maduro is planning the referendum on 3rd December 2023 in a bid to invade Guyana and annex its Essequibo Region even though he knows that the Essequibo Region is rightfully owned by the Government and People of Guyana. Maduro is hyping up the people of Venezuela to take up arms and invade Guyana, a sister CARICOM country and headquarters of CARICOM. Their plan is to disrupt the peace in the region, and, destabilize Guyana.
But Ambassador Moros is now saying that it is Guyana with the help of Exxon that is trying to disrupt the peace and destabilize the region. The Government of Dominica knows that this is not true, and, should clear the air of this, so that the people of Dominica can know the truth.
I hope the DLP Government make a statement on that and condemn Venezuela’s plans.
ha! the government of Venezuela has done a good enough job destabilizing their own country
Most wars and conflicts among nations are mostly about land and natural resources. The dispute between Venezuela and Guyana is no exception. Oil is the black gold.
We don’t want another war particularly in the Caribbean region. No one truly wins in a war. There is too much destruction of lives, crops, houses, edifices, roads, bridges, et cetera.
Our once revered international institutions and organisations have become paralyzed, powerless, ineffectual. The United Nations and most of its ‘subsidiaries’, the international media outlets, the International Criminal Court (ICC) etc., have all failed us. Human beings have become easily expendable.
All that oil Venezuela have and they still want more. Who they fooling by saying is Exxonmobil that causing the trouble, donkey years since I born the Essequibo Region has been Guyana’s land now they want to come and say no it’s Venezuelan land come out dere eh