While I couldn't give less of a fuck about Venezuela taking Exxon oil, I feel like the US is going to use this as a pretense to do some kind of (military) intervention. Let's hope they decide that their resources are too tied up in Ukkkraine and Isn't real, although I doubt they'll miss an opportunity to meddle in South American affairs.
This has real 'opening narration for a season of Blowback' vibes.
Looking forward to there being an extreme amount of liberal concern for the freedoms of a country they didn’t know existed a week ago
Guyana is pretty small (800k population), giving them weapons and military training wont be expensive. Still i think they will directly intervene, this may be a very important region.
I guess from an international point of view, America is not in an advantageous position to stop him. Unpopular president, stagnant economy being sucked dry by 20 years of sustained warfare including funding two current ones with declining popular support for both. Maduro hoping he can sneak one under the radar. Good luck
If the US intervenes, any chances that China could back the other side?
No, I don't think so... China will only watch until the U.S personally stirs their shit up...
Iirc there were Russian and Cuban soldiers in Venezuela during the attempted coup against Maduro by Guaido and the Bay of Piglets. No idea if China would support Venezuela, but China said this: Wang Wenbin, Chinese spokesperson, says he "supports Venezuela and Guyana" in the Essequibo dispute because "both are good friends."
Anyway, these two countries are fifteen thousand kilometers away from us.So we are irrelevant.
I cannot see the US taking this sitting down. Isn'trael, Ukraine, both proxy fights, the US military other than needing to have part (far less than half) of it sit around looking intimidating off the coast of occupied Palestine is mostly free at the moment.
While I get why Venezuela is doing it, the timing is still meh, Biden is reeling from Republicans shutting down his Ukraine aid, facing a defeat and humiliation there, insurrection from his party base on his support of the zionist genocide and he needs a win. Something like this that he can spin as evil authoritarian tankie country invades wholesome democratic nation and US comes to the rescue and pushes them out and upholds order is just the kind of thing he probably really wants for his re-election to distract from the other failures. The kind of thing to get him plaudits and support from the war-hungry western press, his own party membership, and yes the Republicans. Sure there would be some cynical winking stuff about doing it for the oil joked about but most liberals would see it as genuinely correct and humanitarianly necessary and the reactionaries would thump their chests in approval at attacking a socialist state they've long tried to topple from within.
The US planned to build bases in the area and have been trying to overthrow the government in Venezuala for decades so it's justified but I'm just not sure it's wise as a pretext is useful to them.
During preparations they noticed the population of Guyana is mostly of Indian and African descent and
Showkicked in.
Just took me back to the opening of the Ukraine war with CNN talking heads going “this isn’t some mud hole in the Middle East, these people look like us!”
Bleak to think that the line back then was "the first war this century between civillized countries" which was already racist as fuck, and since that time we've regressed to "Russia is orc"
There has been no official report of mobilization. As another user said, Venezuela is going to administer the land as if it were its own. This would force Guyana to respond militarily, which it cannot do, or to go to the international court to resolve the issue.
Yes. But that doesn't stop nazi imperialist media from spreading lies nor does it stop "leftists" from uncritically sharing the fake news.
Deprogram thread already is full of westolefto going liberal.
EDIT: to be fair, hexbear is also lacking.
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on Teddit and Libreddit, which are Reddit frontends that protect your privacy.
There are some other news outlets but they are mostly in spanish and some in portuguese (if you want to read about Brazil)
Follow Telesur and Orinoco Tribune
Edit: both based out of Caracas
Brazil has begun mobilization of troops to aid Guyana, and this has soured relations with Colombia that Venezuela has been working hard at building.
Brazil's Minister of Defense, José Múcio, stressed Wednesday that the Armed Forces will "guarantee" security on the triple border the country shares with Venezuela and Guyana in the state of Roraima, whose territory will not be used by troops from any foreign country. "Brazil has to guarantee its borders and our borders are more than guaranteed. We will not allow it. That I assure you", emphasized the Minister of Defense when asked about the latest developments related to the territorial conflict between Guyana and Venezuela over the Essequibo region. Minister Múcio's assessment lies in the fact that the disputed region divides Venezuela and Guyana through lush jungles, so that the least costly access would be by sea or through Brazilian territory, for which reason the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has already ordered to reinforce the military presence there. The Minister of Defense announced this week that by order of President Lula he had doubled the number of military troops deployed to this border, from the initial 70,000 to 130,000, in addition to sending some twenty armored vehicles. Lula da Silva already conveyed to the Venezuelan side that Brazil "would not support any foolish gesture" in this matter during the visit of presidential advisor Celso Amorim to Caracas a few days ago, according to the Brazilian news portal G1. The territorial dispute dates back to the 19th century, when a
https://www.infobae.com/america/agencias/2023/12/06/brasil-garantiza-que-venezuela-no-usara-su-territorio-en-la-disputa-con-guyana/
why is venezuela doing this? i know nothing about guayana (or venezuela really)
Death to America
Esequibo is a region that used to belong to Venezuela, when Guyana was under British rule they stole it, they have been reclaiming it for as long as they exist under different circumstances but always the imperial powers denied it and kept it there. Recently it was discovered that Esequibo holds the biggest oil reserves in the world, so reclaiming them has become even more important. It is the Venezuelans' Malvinas.
thank you for the explanation :07: death to imperialism
Death to America
I posted a summary here.
https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/3190900
The narrative is far beyond “imperialist Venezuela”. Exxon is claiming oil reserves within Venezuelan maritime borders, its neighbour is an American puppet regime, and America is looking to establish a military base right next door.
Last but not least, Venezuela is being forced to accept opaque “electoral reforms” in return for an easing of sanctions.
The dominos are falling faster than anticipated. The US is loosing control.
It will be interesting to see how China responds to this, after they recently elevated their relationship to an 'all-weather strategic partnership' (only DPRK is higher, iirc):
"China has always viewed its relations with Venezuela from a strategic and long-term perspective, and firmly supports Venezuela's efforts to safeguard national sovereignty, national dignity and social stability, as well as Venezuela's just cause of opposing external interference," Xi told Maduro.
"The establishment of an all-weather strategic partnership between China and Venezuela meets the common expectations of the two peoples and conforms to the general trend of historical development," Xi said, calling on the two sides to push for more fruitful China-Venezuela strategic cooperation, bring more benefits to the two peoples and inject more positive energy into world peace and development.
Doesn't seem to involve military support but I can't see China getting so close with Venezuela only to let the US take over.
China will do nothing, as they always do, that is probably by far on their number 1 list of things to adhere, non interference. Specially considering Venezuela is taking territory and it's not the other way round.
It would be surprising if China did intervene directly. Maybe it could mean support at the UN? Not that it means much.
Yeah, diplomatically I'm sure it will do the most it can, but supporting militarily any country in the US's backyard would be a declaration of world war.
This has too many Belize vibes. I'm giving Maduro the benefit of the doubt because he's not a dumbfuck fascist like our Presidents are. He needs to be careful about this.
I'm not educated nearly enough on this particular matter to have an informed opinion on it.
But I will say that, even though communists support Venezuela's sovereignty and their struggle against Western imperialism, I feel like a lot of communists forget that Venezuela is not a communist country and that Maduro is not a communist. In fact, the relationship between the communists of Venezuela and Venezuelan leadership has been deteriorating pretty heavily over the past decade. The left shouldn't expect the ruling party of Venezuela to behave like a principled communist party and not be too surprised if they end up violating the sovereignty of another country for their own national interests.
I know no one is seriously claiming Maduro (and by some extention Chavez) is a communist, but he does seem to get romanticized as if he were one.
Sorry if this feels unrelated, so take this comment as just a side-note.
I've read the allegations that Venezuela has been cracking down on the Communist Party, and while I don't have the full context, it seems that the the communist party deserves it, because it increasingly sides with pro-Amerikkkan imperialists and peddles Amerikkkan colonialist propaganda, and is sabotaging the Venezuelan state.
Interesting. Can you give me a source/example? Just a jumping off point for my own research?
Sure, here are some articles. And as a heads-up, even though they interview Joti Brar, a monsterous raving transphobic piece of shit, she is right on this.
https://orinocotribune.com/venezuelas-communist-party-controversies-reach-new-level/
https://orinocotribune.com/british-communist-joti-brar-pcv-kke-do-disservice-to-the-anti-imperialist-cause/
https://orinocotribune.com/venezuela-supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-communist-party-dissidents-appoints-ad-hoc-board-for-elections/
https://orinocotribune.com/communist-party-of-venezuela-expresses-solidarity-with-far-right-politician-maria-corina-machado/
The communist party of Venezuela is revisionist, Maduro is a strict Stalinist I keep having to remind people of this fact…
can't tell if the last half is a joke; if not, in what sense is Maduro a "Stalinist" (presumably meaning ML)?
All I can find online is Maduro joking about how his moustache is similar and Western press running with "omg see guys he admits he wants to a kill bazillion people like Stalin"
I'm aware. Chavez did sabre rattling about this too from what I remember. It's just disappointing to see someone who's been pretty good for the most part taking this sudden turn that I've only seen the most far-right leaders do.
While I support Venezuela's claim and am not against annexation, I feel like fighting a war in a jungle area is very hard to do. Hopefully it's a quick war, if they decide to invade.
Yet, i can assure you that the US wont let it slide. The southcom generals have been drooling about this regions resources.
https://youtu.be/T7CX7cn31xA?si=AaIn04Q5bsKZ2JH1
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Do you think Guyana will simply lay down and let this happen? War is the logical end conclusion of this.
With a population of 804,567 and an active "army" of 4600 active personnel and 3000 reserves (2 brigades)
Compared to a country with a population of 28.2 million with an army of 115,000
Even if they conscript 1% of their population (in the short term) that's only another 2 brigades
Do you think their society will have the morale to fight as though the US invaded them with a Latin American neighbour? To me it seems that the many leftists in Guyana would be apathetic.
This will be a long, bloody border war that Venezuela can’t afford as it desperately tries to distract its people from their poor material conditions.
This will only end poorly. The jungle is the last place you want to fight.
This conflict is about more than just "distracting people". Guyana reportedly wanted to build US military bases around its border with Venezuela. Since the US can't use Colombia or Brazil to launch a ground invasion of Venezuela, it wants to use Guyana in exchange for money and oil exploitation.
Also, Guyana has never cared about this territory, which is why the native peoples who live there tried to join Venezuela in 1968.
“Native people”?
They were white capitalist ranch owners who thought that the new indigenous leadership would strip them of their land rights, and give all their “hard earned land” to black people which they despised. They even explicitly stated that the leadership of Guyana was to “Afrocentrist”.
Two of the three leaders of the rebellion were Americans
The indigenous leadership wanted to grant land certificates to native indigenous peoples to protect them from encroachment on their land. Those ranchers were threatened by this.
Those are not native people. Those are greed driven capitalists who tried to defect to a (then) fascist Venezuela who they thought would protect them.
The native population stamped out that capitalist rebellion.
Also the claim that the US was going to build military bases came from the Venezuelan foreign ministry in September. Where is this base? There was no move to build bases or increase support from the US.
Ironically, Brazil has begun mobilization to defend Guyana, and Guyana will also likely turn to the US for aid. What did you think they would do? Let themselves get run over?
Guyana doesn't even have an army, and the size of their defense forces is of 3000 men, Venezuela's active personnel is something around 300.000, furthermore Venezuela has complete air superiority. If this becomes a battle of attrition it is simply because Guyana decides to align itself with imperial power that may give them some support, if they do this, it will be a blood bath carried out by their leaders in a war that cannot be won, for land that was stolen and it is not theirs.
Guyana does not maintain a standing military, but has the ability to raise more people through conscription measures outlined in their constitution.
They also do not need to commit to total war, as Brazil has begun the mobilization of troops along the in support of Guyana.
Further, air superiority is all but completely useless in jungle settings, as the US painfully learned in Vietnam and Cambodia, or with the Japanese during WW2.
Venezuela will destroy Guyana and themselves in a pointless war of attrition over oil and gold.
Brazil mobilized troops so that Venezuela doesn't invade Guyana through Brazil's border, since it is the easiest way, it is not supporting Guyana at the moment. I highly doubt Guyana can conscript much troops, and even if they do they are untrained men without the proper equipment, even if Venezuela is less successful at conscription they could still get 100.000 men more and that's already half the population of Guyana if we keep in mind the other 300.000. There's not amount of support imperialist can give for this war to end in favour of Guyana.
Brazil also has no need to pointlessly escalate the conflict, and with Lula’s warning to avoid “foolish gestures”, it doesn’t look like they’d be very favorable to Venezuela if they attempt to seize the region by force. 130,000 men and an armored brigade is a massive and costly amount of troops to mobilize if it wasn’t supposed to be warning.
The battle lines don’t look very favorable either. Either Venezuela launches amphibious assaults into the most heavily defended and populated parts of Guyana, goes through Brazilian land along the floodplains, or marches through hell on earth by pushing through endless mountainous, inhospitable jungle.
That last one is a defensive army’s wet dream. Guerrilla fighters do not need a massive amount of training, manpower, and weaponry to wreck havoc on an enemy in that sort of terrain.
