The ExxonMobil-Guyana Conspiracy

In the latest development in the impasse between Guyana and Venezuela, President Maduro has announced that he has recalled the Venezuelan ambassador in Guyana and will be reducing personnel in that embassy.

Addressing the National Assembly on July 6, Maduro warned that “there is a great and serious campaign which is trying to install in the collective being of our brother countries elements of mistrust, revenge, and hatred in order to justify, at any given moment, an escalation of a series of events against the country. Therefore I have come here to denounce: there is apolitical, diplomatic, media, and economic operation in order to implement against our nation a pincers movement and to try to implant a high intensity conflict.”

“Indeed,” added Maduro, “it is all part of a plan of provocation with strong support and funding from the oil transnational Exxon Mobil, and which counts with strong support from important power lobbies in Washington, and form United States power agencies, including the pentagon.”

On July 7 Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez wrote on twitter (@DrodriguezVen): “We will firmly defend the rights of Venezuela against the pretentions of the imperialist centers and its international agents. No economic, financial, media, economic, or foreign power should be mistaken about Venezuela: we are a Fatherland of peace and friendship.”

Public media has been claiming since last month that the impasse between the two governments is a “creation” of the United States with the purpose of destroying PETROCARIBE, the Venezuelan oil program benefiting 17 South American and Caribbean nations.

An article published by the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias explains that “the opinion of many analysts is that PETROCARIBE, the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution, the ALBA, and UNASUR, are today the targets of a new and sinister plot [conjura] to destroy the unprecedented and peaceful process created by Chávez, and the integration mechanism which were created by his impulse, and which rescued the Greater Fatherland, a vast and vital geo-strategic space in what was once the Empire’s back yard.”

Journalist José Vicente Rangel added more elements to the conspiracy claims: “From Guyana infiltration activities are being executed by intelligence organisms such as the CIA, the British MI6, and the Israeli MOSSAD, which have been collaborating in military and intelligence training with the troops of the Guyana Defense Forces.”

The objective of these activities would be, according to Rangel, to send troops to destabilize Venezuela. It is all “part of a program of social and economic destabilization of the region,” claimed Rangel.

In support of the government’s nationalist agenda, the public television channel Venezolana de Televisión, is now beginning its news programs with an image of a map of Venezuela which includes all of Guyana, and not only the part claimed by Venezuela.