Venezuelans to vote on Sunday on taking western Guyana

On Sunday, May 25, Venezuelans across the South American nation will vote in municipal elections for regional governors and deputies, and in doing so, will will also be asked to elect a governor and administrators for a large swath of land in neighboring Guyana that, for decades, Venezuela has claimed as its own — a controversial move.

- By BERT WILKINSON Special to the AmNews

In the late 1890s, an international boundaries commission demarcated border lines between the two nations, but a Venezuelan junior commission member contended, in a memoir released after his death in the late 1940s, that his nation had been cheated out of the western Essequibo region that has been in Guyana’s control since the demarcation. Guyanese officials say the commissioner offered no evidence of cheating other than declaring that malfeasance was afoot during the land surveying.

Once the document became public, Venezuela began to agitate for the area, which represents about two-thirds of Guyana’s land space, claiming the mineraland oil-rich region belongs to it. By 1966, just months after independence from Britain, Venezuelan troops began to occupy Guyana’s portion of Ankoko border island, raising tensions between the two. Over the decades, Venezuela has threatened to invade the Caribbean Community (Caricom) nation to take the Essequibo region by force. In December 2023, for example, Venezuelans were asked to participate in a takeover referendum vote for the area, and this week are being requested to elect a governor and eight deputies to administer the county.