Lula avoided the frying pan – 12/12/2023 – Elio Gaspari

If Lula went to the meeting of the presidents of Venezuela and Guyana that begins this Thursday (14) on an island in the Caribbean, he would run the risk of falling into a frying pan of expectations. Despite Nicolás Maduro’s talk, we don’t know exactly what he wants, much less how far he is capable of going. At the other end of the problem, it is not known what the president of Guyana wants to negotiate, much less whether ExxonMobil agrees to discuss its oil exploration contracts on the Guyana continental shelf. In either case, a decision by the International Court in The Hague will weigh.

This circumstance gives Essequibo’s trouble a difference with two major, and failed, military adventures: that of Argentina in the Falkland Islands in 1982, and that of Iraq in Kuwait, in 1990. In those cases, two dictators invaded other people’s lands thinking about talking later . The rest is history. Nicolás Maduro did not move a single soldier. He attached Essequibo to the Caracas printers that print maps and said he wants to talk.

Maduro doesn’t want land, he wants royalties. Therefore, this is a dispute for diplomats and lawyers, not for soldiers. As Ambassador Italo Zappa taught, unlike military confrontations, diplomatic negotiations do not presuppose clear and immediate winners and losers. Sometimes, those who lose say they won and those who win say they lost.

If Lula went to the Caribbean meeting, Brazil would carry the iron ball of its sympathy for the Venezuelan government. Amorim’s departure allows Itamaraty to act as a facilitator in creating deadlines and forums for Guyana and Venezuela to talk.

Little to do with mediation, because with his false plebiscite, Maduro poisoned the issue. As the dispute over Essequibo is almost two centuries old, a year here, two years there would make little difference.

If Lula appeared in the photo, the meeting at the end of which it was decided to just continue talking could be considered a fiasco, as it fueled expectations. With Amorim’s departure, it can be seen as a first step, even if we don’t know where to go.

All Venezuelan rhetoric can be contained if, while the dispute is being negotiated, Maduro accepts a situation in which his state-owned oil company will grant oil exploration licenses on the Guyana platform, without moving equipment. These contracts, like the map he displayed, would only be typographical achievements, worth the sheets of paper on which they were printed.

Less than a week passed between the plebiscite and Maduro’s declaration that he was open for talks. (In between, there was a “routine” military exercise by American troops.)

Everything indicates that Venezuelan theatricality has a foot in domestic politics and nothing stops Maduro from continuing to brandish his map. After all, Argentines continue to say that the Falklands Islands are theirs and they are called Malvinas.

Maduro treats the United States as “the Empire” and the American government excites the Venezuelan opposition, but when the issue turned to oil, heads cooled. Last October, Maduro released five political prisoners and Washington suspended sanctions blocking the purchase of Venezuelan gas and oil for six months.

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