Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro (left) and National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez (right) explain the Essequibo referendum procedure. Photo: Presidential Press.
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, condemned the government of Guyana for trying to grant concession to multinational oil companies for the oil blocks in the disputed waters of the Essequibo region, and accused the Guyanese government of being a puppet of transnational corporations.
“The ExxonMobil government in Guyana has decided to hand over oil blocks in the disputed waters of the Essequibo territory and we are not going to allow it,” said President Maduro. He contrasted Guyana’s position with that of Trinidad and Tobago, which recently signed agreements with Venezuela for peaceful joint exploration in their common international waters, as an example of how to do things on good terms.
Essequibo Dispute: Guyana Intends to Violate Geneva Agreement
At the request of President Maduro, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, explained the next steps that will be taken from an organizational point of view to establish Venezuela’s position on the attempted dispossession of Venezuela’s territories and resources by Guyana acting as a proxy for the United States.
Rodríguez explained that after consultations with the Commission for the Defense of the Essequibo Territory, it was decided to call a consultative referendum, not to ask the people of Venezuela whether or not to decide if the Essequibo territory is Venezuelan, since that is a fully accepted position, but to allow “the people to directly demand actions that the government must take to defend the Essequibo.”
“We will go to the National Electoral Council so that, once the parliamentary initiative to call the consultative referendum is put in motion, the CNE prepares the questions and immediately calls for the consultative referendum,” Rodríguez said. “We hope it will be held before the end of this year.”
Rodríguez added that Commander Chávez and President Maduro have maintained Venezuela’s peace diplomacy, which has always been aimed at seeking an agreement in the spirit of the 1966 Geneva agreement.
“But we are facing a government hijacked by US corporations that want to steal oil belonging to Venezuela,” Rodríguez said, referring to the government of Guyana.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SC/BLA
