Monday, February 19, 2018

The Last Resort

While there is no indication that Venezuela is massing troops on their border, Guyana is worried about Maduro's intentions:

The Guyana government has been paying close attention to options available to Venezuela, following United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Antonio Guterres’ referral of the border controversy to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a senior government official said.

Minister of State, Joseph Harmon told Demerara Waves Online News that reports that Venezuela had been planning an incursion into Guyana’s territory was being factored into government’s analysis. “Of course, as a nation, we have to take all of these things into consideration. We cannot disregard any reports like that,” said Harmon, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Guyana Defence Force and current member of the Defence Board.

That author cites Stratfor analysis (huh, I missed that) for why Guyana might be a target.

With Venezuela accelerating toward starvation and chaos, my longstanding worry that Venezuela's thug socialist rulers might think a short and glorious foreign war might rally the people around them has heightened.

But as I noted in this post about potential targets, going after Guyana automatically gets the Organization of American States to rally around Guyana against Venezuela.

No, a safer target for Maduro in consideration of South American sensitivities is the distant Netherlands with enticingly close island possessions.