Essequibo Dispute: Evidence Surfaces of ExxonMobil Payments to Guyana

It was recently revealed that ExxonMobil paid the fees of Guyana’s lawyers at the International Court of Justice and knew in advance about the decision that the General Secretariat of the United Nations (UN) would come to regarding the controversy over the Essequibo territory.

According to the lawyer and researcher Ricardo De Toma, in his thesis, “Geopolitics of oil in territorial disputes: the maritime dimensions of the Essequibo case between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Cooperative Republic of Guyana,” this pact between the US oil corporation and the former British colony was made three months before former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon notified the parties of the definition and one-year extension of the strengthened Good Offices Mediation mandate. This, in turn, led to the referral of the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by António Guterres, in violation of the 1966 Geneva Agreement that stipulates that any resolution mechanism should be chosen by mutual agreement between the parties.

Exxon pagó los honorarios de los Abogados de Guyana en la CIJ y la ONU les avisó sus intenciones #24Nov #MiMapa
"La publicación de esta carta demostró que el acuerdo secreto entre ExxonMobil y el Gobierno de Guyana fue pactado tres meses antes de que el Secretario General de la… pic.twitter.com/Om257PfcOu
— Mi Mapa de Venezuela incluye nuestro Esequibo (@AntroCanal) November 25, 2023

“I shall be grateful if you would arrange for the under-mentioned foreign currency account to be opened at Bank of Guyana in order to receive a deposit in the form of a signing bonus to be given by ExxonMobil,” reads a letter describing the transfer of resources by the US oil company to Guyana. “This account should not be treated as part of the Bank’s reserves. Instead, the proceeds should be held in the currency of the deposit, that is, United States dollars, and invested in secured interest-bearing securities

Recent findings show that, before the letter announcing the transfer of resources was sent on September 20, 2016, the decision that would be announced by Ban Ki-moon on December 16 of that year was already known, to the point where ExxonMobil was coordinating, with the government of Guyana, its financial contribution to the payment of the lawyers who would represent the country at the ICJ.