The so-called Essequibo Territory is a geographical area, including both land and a portion of maritime surface, included between Venezuela’s eastern border with Guyana and the Essequibo River, which cuts this country in two. That land, which represents more than half of Guyana’s territory, has been the subject of a territorial dispute between the two neighboring bourgeois States for decades.

The Esequibo is rich in raw materials, above all oil and gas. The oil multinationals – first of all the American Exxon Mobil – in recent years have carried out operations to search for new hydrocarbon deposits with fruitful results, benefiting from the support of the Guyana government. The Venezuelan government protested these operations, denouncing the military support given to them by the United States government.

The regimes of Venezuela and Guyana, both of which are cloaked in socialist disguises, reveal their real nature in disputing this territory: the whole controversy is nothing other than a clash between bourgeois States, in which the opposing world imperialist powers intervene, at the end of control of raw materials and markets. Suffice it to say that Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

Tension between the two countries began to rise when in 2015 Exxon Mobil discovered a deposit at sea, which was then the subject of a long-standing territorial dispute. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro claimed that Exxon Mobil was destabilizing the area, given that the multinational had relied on the government of Guyana to carry out search operations in the area disputed between the two countries. Exxon had had commercial relations with the Venezuelan government in the past, but as a consequence of this affair, relations between Caracas and the multinational were interrupted.

Among bourgeois there are no relationships of friendship or ideological affinities but only of business and convenience. In fact, other member companies of the PDSVA, the Venezuelan State oil company, and the mixed capital companies present in the country, first of all the US Chevron and the Chinese State company CNOOC, also participate in the exploitation of the Esequibo resources.

For this reason, the accusations leveled by the Venezuelan government against Exxon Mobil are equally hypocritical as they are against the so-called "international community" for supporting this multinational and Guyana. On both sides there are only the interests of the various capitalist cliques at stake.

The workers are just labor to be exploited with the lowest possible wages and cannon fodder to be deployed in the event of a military confrontation.

The question of the Esequibo is used by the Venezuelan bourgeois government to revive nationalism and strengthen national unity, that is, the unity between the antagonistic classes, in the face of the wear and tear of its following among the proletarian masses, also in view of the presidential elections of 2024.

To this end, on December 3, the Caracas government called a consultative referendum, with 5 questions regarding the political conduct to be followed regarding the territorial dispute. The pro-government parties have formed a “Coordination for the Campaign for the Defense of the Esequibo”. The opposition parties, such as Democratic Action, marched in the same direction, announcing the formation of similar bodies and, like the government, giving indications of participating in the referendum and voting in favor of the questions posed by the government. The employers’ associations also supported the government line and so did most of the trade unions.

The outcome, as expected, was a plebiscite with over 90% of votes in favour. There is much doubt about the veracity of the result. But, despite the frantic propaganda of all the apparatuses of the bourgeois regime in its various branches and the unity of all its political parties, officially only 10.5 million voters went to vote, approximately 50% of those entitled to vote, which highlights the distrust of the proletarian masses towards bourgeois politics and its electoral procedures.

In the unity of intent between government and opposition parties regarding this territorial dispute, we can see the common bourgeois origin of the two political sides, in whose false opposition, which is by no means irreducible, they want to harness the working class to prevent it from fighting for its own immediate and historical interests.

Venezuelan workers have certainly not been consulted to decide on the level of their wages, their pensions, the conditions of employment, the quality of the working environment, and they must not participate in any of the electoral mechanisms through which their workers are chosen executioners in the factories and endorsed their policies.

The promotion of patriotism, in addition to being useful for parties trying to regain popularity, has other harmful effects for the working class and beneficial for capitalist exploitation. Nationalism unites the exploited with the exploiters in the false common interest of defending the homeland and the national economy, thus hindering the class struggle, distancing workers from the fight for their true immediate interests (increase in wages and pensions, reduction of the duration and intensity of work, health and safety), placing the proletarians at the service of the interests of the bosses (private or "State") to the point of making them cannon fodder in a possible war.

None of the managements and trade union currents that called to participate in the Consultative Referendum can be considered an authentic force in defense of workers. On the contrary, they are traitors to the immediate interests of the working class. Authentic class trade union forces must reject any appeal to support the Venezuelan bourgeois government in this territorial dispute and, if necessary, oppose the sending of workers in uniform and in arms to massacre themselves with their class brothers in Guyana, in a war between capitalist States, fought to grab mineral wealth.

The workers, both in Venezuela and in Guyana, must concentrate on the fight for wage and pension increases and for the affirmation of their immediate interests, fighting from below for the formation of a United Class Union Front and denouncing them as traitors to the class workers all those trade union leaders who join the bourgeois government and opposition parties by accepting their calls for the "defense of the Esequibo" to march in the direction of a crazy and criminal war against Guyana.