Guaido Subject of Investigation for Planning to Sell Esequibo Territory

September 6, 2019

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced at a press conference Friday that a police investigation has been launched into opposition leader Juan Guaido, Vanessa Neumann, a Venezuelan living in the United States and working for the Pentagon and Manuel Avendaño, Guaido’s advisor; for allegedly being involved in plans to sell the sovereignty of the Essequibo territory to transnational companies. “We have launched an investigation on  these three for entering  into an illegal negotiation aimed at waiving the historic claim our country has over the Essequibo territory in exchange for political support of the United Kingdom,” reported the Attorney at a press conference in Caracas.

Saab accused these opponents of “treason against the homeland” as they are abandoning Venezuelans’ historic work and struggle “to reincorporate the administration of this territory, which was part of the Captaincy General of Venezuela, to Venezuela.”

Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez had requested the Attorney General to conduct a complete investigation on the mentioned citizens after releasing an audio recording in which Mrs. Neumann clearly says that they would not be given any support “as long as they continued to follow the official line of appropriating the Guyana Essequiba.”

According to the evidence presented by Rodriguez, these opposition leaders had been planning to hand over the Essequibo to Guyana prior to January 2019.

The new measure launched by Juan Guaido, currently president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, would be part of his plans to submit to the interests of the U.S. in the Bolivarian country, reported the Venezuelan Government.

Venezuela and Guyana are disputing the strategic region of the Essequibo, a former British colony, since 1966. Tensions however began in 1899, when Caracas was stripped of 160 square kilometers of land due to a court ruling that allowed the United Kingdom to hand over that territory to Guyanese authorities.

The United Nations has been mediating in the issue since the Geneva Agreement was signed in 1966 but the territorial dispute strengthened during the last years when Exxon Mobil found new oil fields in the area.

On Thursday Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro condemned Guaido for trying to seize the country’s oil with the support of the imperialist countries..

Source: Hispan TV, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau