Venezuela sends more troops to border with Guyana amid growing domestic challenges

Despite having pledged to tamp down tensions with Guyana, the Venezuelan regime is increasing its military presence at its border with that country, while raising the volume of its saber-rattling against the neighboring nation amid the poor showings at the polls of ruler Nicolás Maduro ahead of July’s presidential election.

Satellite photos evaluated by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington based think-tank, showed this week that Venezuela now has “substantial quantities of personnel and equipment in sites near the disputed border”, particularly near the expanding military base at the border island of Anacoco.

The think-tank, which had reported back in February the beginning of the buildup, reiterated in its report that the troop movement is part of what it called a “strategy of compellence” aimed at scaring Guyana into granting Venezuela important concessions. But now, the ploy also seems to be seeking to have an effect inside Venezuela given Maduro’s low standings at the polls.

The latest surveys show Maduro losing the election set for July 28 by more than 40 points, 62% to 20%, against presidential candidate Edmundo González, a former diplomat backed by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. While the regime has frequently been accused of winning elections through fraud, the margin is viewed by some international observers as being as too large to steal.

The military buildup, divulged by the Washington center this week in a report, matches the regular announcements made by the regime’s military through the state’s TV stations, in an unceasing propaganda campaign reiterating that the Essequibo, an oil- and mineral-rich region that mounts to about two thirds of Guyana, legitimately belongs to Venezuela.

The increased troop presence in Anacoco has been accompanied by greater activity at the airport and coast guard station in Guiria, the largest town on the Venezuelan northern coast, 60 miles west of Trinidad.

Recent military exercises have also brought hundreds of additional soldiers to the area.

“We are seeing through satellite imagery the increasingly rapid buildup of the military base at Anacoco, where they just constructed a bridge and brought a bunch of new tanks,” said Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow of the Americas Program at the center in a voice commentary accompanying the report.

“They are deploying additional naval assets and aircraft in the city of Guiria, including Zolfaghar missile boats,s and there has been a tremendous amount of naval activity being ‘telegraphed’ through social media and they are using a lot of fuel while there are gas shortages in Venezuela,” he added.

Seeking to lower tensions, Guyana and Venezuela had pledged in December not to threaten or use force against each other and to refrain from escalating the centuries-old border dispute, following a diplomatic spat triggered when Maduro held a referendum where his goverment asked for special powers to invade its neighbor.

However, tensions continued despite the pledges and Maduro has sought to keep the issue alive inside Venezuela through repeated TV spots asserting that the regime will not yield Venezuela’s claim over the Florida-sized region, which has been under Guyanase control since 1899.

The Washington center report notes that Maduro’s standing inside Venezuela has eroded in recent weeks amid the challenge posed by Machado, a situation that is making the ruler “even more beholden” to the armed forces.

“Maduro hopes to receive several things in return for the armed forces amassing more power” through the buildup, specially their loyalty if he calls on them “to repress and secure his regime’s security after July 28, when it looks likely that the regime will brazenly steal the presidential election”, the report said.