Possibly. It’s already included in Venezuela’s flag.

Our president Dr. Vanessa Neumann was on the BBC World Business Report again on 8 December 2023, to discuss the heightening dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the oil-rich Esequibo region and the likelihood that Venezuela will occupy the region, provoking a regional conflict. What Venezuelans call ‘Guayana Esequiba’ is effectively between two-thirds and three-quarters of what is currently Guyanese territory, and encompasses the off-shore oil-rich Stabroek Block, with an estimated 11 billion barrels in oil reserves.

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has taken a page out of Putin’s playbook in Crimea and:

• Established a military division for the Guayana Esequiba
• Established a national identity card division for Guyanese residents there to be granted Venezuelan citizenship, identity cards, and voting rights
• Established Guayana Esequiba divisions of state-owned enterprises PDVSA (oil) and CVG (mining) and granted drilling rights in the ‘Guayana Esequiba’ region

While foreign oil companies are unlikely to take heed of these licenses, there can be little doubt that we are headed to a grey-zone conflict in the Western Hemisphere. Even Brazil’s Pres. “Lula,” a friend and supporter of dictator Maduro, has scrambled both his diplomats and his military to dissuade Maduro from such a confrontation, which will only invite a proxy war between Russia and the US and UK, who would rain hellfire on the region.

You can listen at this link here to our CEO Dr. Vanessa Neumann’s interview on BBC World Business Report where she discusses the matter. Her main points were:

• Given that Guyana is the 8th star on the official Venezuelan flag, and that Maduro is effectively advised by Putin, a confrontation is entirely possible.
• A grey-zone hybrid asymmetric invasion would garner US attention and give Maduro more leverage over POTUS Biden, as they both head into elections in 2024.
• Such a conflict will not improve the lives of ordinary Venezuelans, as Venezuela is not out of oil; Chávez and Maduro merely destroyed the oil industry by making it a laundromat for drug cartel money. Hence, it will only destroy yet more land, sea, and civilian communities, as well as the economy of another country.

However, there is another scenario, Dr. Neumann raised in the interview: a previous Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez was planning to invade Guyana in 1958, except he was overthrown first, in what became Venezuela’s transition to democracy under the Pacto Punto Fijo. An ill-prepared and underpaid Venezuelan military will not be willing to suffer a brutal multilateral onslaught, primarily by the US and UK, based on the ego of a fat thief, who has never served as anything other than a bus driver.

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