Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has ordered the country’s state-owned companies to “immediately” begin to explore and exploit the oil, gas and mines in Guyana’s Essequibo region, a territory larger than Greece and rich in oil and minerals that Venezuela claims as its own.
The announcement came a day after Maduro declared victory in a weekend referendum on whether to claim sovereignty over the region.
Maduro said he would “immediately” proceed “to grant operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in the entire area of our Essequibo.”
As we’ve noted before, the trouble with socialism is that you run out of country to plunder.
Scrap metal merchants at Grytviken…
The trouble with socialism is not so much that you run out of country to plunder but that you’ve run out of a private sector to do the plundering with. Who (other than Owen Jones, Diane Abbott or the Absolute Boy) would be mad enough to accept even as a gift a concession from Maduro?
All your base are belong to us.
Be interesting to know how he proposes getting there. Guyana’s basically a great deal of nothing apart from the area south-west of Georgetown & the coast. It has a couple of roads not connected to anything & a great deal of trees. The Essequibo River would provide access. But since that passes by the capital of Guayana, shouldn’t think he’d get that easily.
Never underestimate S. America. Remember, there still isn’t a road between Panama City & Colombia. It stops at Yaviza. The bit between it & the CO frontier kills half the people who try it. The reason the frontier between Venezuala & Guayana is somewhat indeterminate is you could spend a lifetime trying to find it. Guayana’s best response to Maduro’s likely “You want it boy, go get it.” Then watch him killing off what remains of the Venezuelan economy trying.
Nearly 30 years ago I recall first hand stories about how local agents engaged (definitely not employed you understand) by Trafigura were particularly adept at ensuring cargos were loaded and offloaded as quickly as possible in some of the more interesting parts of the world.
Guyana should cut a deal with Brazil and Colombia and pre-empt the invasion. Perfectly legit to steam in there with troops now that Venezuela has had this vote.
Evil Bob Carolgees (copyright Steve) swinging from a rope while a load of South American countries carve up the Venezuelan oil fields.
You think like me Western Bloke. (My apologies.)
One does wonder whether this could end up as something like the South American version of the Ukraine War.
WB – thanks but Evil Bob Carolgees belongs to The People.
I see Brazil is preparing for Venezuelan fuckery. This seems like Evil Bob about to do something career-limiting like what Saddam or Gaddafi did. Venezuela’s armed forces could be defeated by a couple of TA regiments, they’re really not up to much.
NB the turnout in Venezuela for their fake referendum was pitiful. Vennies don’t want war, they want toilet paper. The Venezuelan people are not behind Evil Bob Carolgees.
Bboy – One does wonder whether this could end up as something like the South American version of the Ukraine War.
I wouldn’t think so, unless China started feeding weapons to Venezuela. (China is their main creditor).
None of the south American states are very heavily armed, and the Chinese are leery of the Yanks, typically very cautious about where and when they throw their weight around, so it shouldn’t blow up.
But I’m sure people said similar things about the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1913.
Vennies don’t want war, they want toilet paper.
LOL
Rather like El Cid before the gates of Valencia, catapulting bread into the city, the Guyana Defence Force carpet bombing Caracas with biog roll.
Otto – during the Reconquista, we should trebuchet hot water bottles and disposable vapes to our besieged brothers behind enemy lines (London).
Btw, we were talking about Suez moments recently. Daniel Hannan – that’s LORD Judas Goat to you, plebs – is also thinking canalistically:
https://conservativehome.com/2023/12/06/daniel-hannan-if-we-dont-see-ukraine-through-to-victory-it-risks-turning-into-our-next-suez/
I recommend reading the whole thing. It’s amazingly deluded, like hearing a Japanese politician discussing how to win WW2 shortly after the Battle of Midway. Unfortunately, “we” are on the losing side of mobilisation and attrition arithmetic this time.
Perhaps just as interestingly, DanHan names Donald Trump as our Enemy (!). Lord Judas Goat is earning his vermine.
Remember – DanHan is a Lord, and gets to help make our laws, but his take on Ukraine is objectively less in touch with reality than random internet commenters. We are ruled by the cognitively challenged, and that’s a state of affairs we literally can’t afford to persist.
He actually says: “ideas associated with our civilization: personal autonomy”, in ignorant bliss that one of the triggers for that war was Ukraine using tyranny majority to smash the personal autonomy of the minority.
I don’t mind him being a Lord – the place is going to have monstrous opinions in it whether from elected or not, and he’s got some solid takes on history, but for crying out Mr Hannan, your view on current affairs is terrifying.
Arm and send your own kids to Avdeevka. And spell civilization with an ‘s’
“Trump, with his weird adulation for Putin, could be back in the White House”
You see this sort of comment constantly, or variations thereof.
It wasn’t Trump that ignored Trump’s demand that Europe take Putin seriously as a threat, to stop making Europe dependent on Russian energy, and to stop lining Putin’s pockets in the process. Neither was it Trump that allowed Nordstream 2 to go ahead.
It can’t be stupidity surely, so what is it?
Bongo – Yarp.
Twasn’t long ago that DanHan was supposed to be one of them Proper Conservatives you could trust to do Proper Conservative stuff, such as…. maybe not support insane Neocon wars. The full quote is:
We made the decision to arm Ukraine; if it loses, we lose. As our global reputation gives ground, so will the ideas associated with our civilization: personal autonomy, private property, impartial courts, regular elections, limited government, human rights.
So “we” (who’s “we’, Paleface?) have to keep proxy fighting Russia, because something something human rights?
Not mentioned in DanHan’s moral calculations: the amount of corpses we need to create and how many trillions of pounds we need to burn in order to defend the good reputation of limited government.
Would a Ukrainian breakthrough shore up our authority? Yes, a bit, at least for a while. It would make Taiwan safer, draw Delhi back into the fold and concentrate minds in those autocracies that see the eclipse of the West as an opportunity to settle local scores (Venezuela’s claim on Guyana being the latest example).
I will resist the urge to make comparisons to the movie Downfall, but DanHan openly admits the counteroffensive has failed. Instead of drawing the obvious conclusions from that, he wants us to double down on failure, in order to “shore up our authority”. But using what? NATO already dug deep down the back of the couch to arm the counteroffensive. We’re not making tanks, shells or any other type of weapon fast enough to keep up with this war.
Here in the United Kingdom, we had a government minister advise the public only yesterday to stock up on candles and batteries. The economy is completely fucked and the government has dissolved our borders. Just last month we discovered there are millions of Hamas supporters living in our country. We’ve got huge problems, and Ukraine is just one of our problems.
DanHan says “fie!” to this, and urges other men much physically braver than he is to die in the Charge of the Shite Brigade.
What Would Hayek Do?
It can’t be stupidity surely, so what is it?
$$$ and (nonce) cents.
The “international board” of Mr Hannan’s institute for free trade includes one Ben Sasse, a former NeverTrumper senator who is wholly owned and operated by the neocons. One of those people actual Yank conservatives absolutely despise because he’s the Septic equivalent of Anna Soubry. As conservative as a wet fart during drag queen story hour.
You can tell a lot about a man by his friends.
Which raises the question: who owns and operates Lord Hannan? He’ll be getting his nice EU pension plus his Lords expenses, but maybe that’s not enough.
We need a map of Parliament that tells us who each bloc are working for. It’s not the British public, that’s for sure. Things would be clearer if they introduced Jeremy Hunt as the Rt Hon Member for Serco.
If the state oil companies can’t exploit Venezuela’s own reserves – how are they going to exploit Guyana’s?
Yeah Agammamon. I can only assume this is all about beating the chest and howling, ‘I am the greatest’.
@Steve
“Remember – DanHan is a Lord, and gets to help make our laws, but his take on Ukraine is objectively less in touch with reality than random internet commenters.”
With the greatest of respect Steve, you’re never going to be the poster boy for being in touch with reality.
Googlemaps has already decided that the area is no longer formally part of Guyana! They’ve splashed fuzzy wuzzy disputed lines over the country…