Quite the diplomat
After last week’s events in Brasilia, Guyanese President David Granger is now headed to the U.S. capital to participate in a regional security conference and to meet with State Department officials, in order to discuss the current Esequibo rift with Venezuela.
Significantly, Granger is traveling along with the Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defense Force, Brigadier Mark Phillips. The meeting with the State Department is expected to focus on defense issues as well.
Meanwhile, don’t expect a meeting between Granger and Barack Obama, as he’s about to make a trip to Kenya and Ethiopia at the same time.
Granger has reasons to feel bullish, as the results of the oil exploration that reignited tensions between the two neighbor countries are better than expected:
An Exxon Mobil Corp. discovery in the Atlantic Ocean off Guyana may hold oil and natural gas riches 12 times more valuable than the nation’s entire economic output.
The Liza-1 well, which probably holds the equivalent of more than 700 million barrels of oil, may begin producing crude by the end of the decade, Raphael Trotman, the South American country’s minister of governance, said in an interview Monday.
“A find of this magnitude for a country like ours, which sits on the lower end of the scale of countries in this hemisphere, this could be transformational,” Trotman said. “From my sense, from speaking to experts outside of Exxon, it has to be something in excess of 700 million barrels.”
As the drilling ship Deepwater Champion has left Esequibo waters, the oil and gas reserves found in the Stabroek Block could not only improve the Guyanese economy, but make the Cooperative Republic a regional energy player.
Meanwhile, questions arise over UNASUR’s future involvement in the Esequibo matter, but actually this option is one of the alternatives given by the 1966 Geneva Agreement, once a bilateral solution is not found between both countries and included in Article 33 of the U.N. Charter. And that’s something that the central government is asking to enforce.
Caracas Chronicles 
What is the reaction in Guyana to Venezuela’s actions and rhetoric? Is this stirring up any nationalistic feeling behind Granger?
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The logic of Telesur is that the dispute is Washington’s fault for shaping “propaganda that paints Venezuela as an aggressor, thereby providing the pretext for US escalation.”
(http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11450)
I guess Pompeyo Torrealba is a CIA agent!
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How is Telesur doing with its ratings anyway? What became of those disgruntled employees that reached out to Juan some months ago?
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I think that Granger is feeling fairly confident at the moment. In spite of an adverse correlation of forces on paper, Guyana’s position is actually very strong. Venezuela has become a thorn in the side of nearly all the countries in the region. If Venezuela were to actually mount some sort of military attack on Guyana, they would be immediately condemned and discredited by everyone. There is NO international support for Venezuela’s claims. Furthermore, I question whether the FAN could actually mount any sort of credible invasion of the Essiquibo. Their mobilization to the Colombian border following the Colombian attack on a FARC encampment in Ecuador that killed Raul Reyes exposed their poor state of “readiness”. If they couldn’t successfully deploy within the borders of Venezuela, how could they manage a deployment into the Essequibo jungles? And, if anything, the FAN readiness is probably even poorer now than it was then. Alternately, they could take action against Guyana’s navy, but that would not achieve any strategic objective. It would polarize the region against them for no real gain. So, effectively, Venezuela is impotent militarily.
Yeah, if I was Granger, I would be feeling pretty good right now.
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FYI: I would surmise that the main purpose of his trip to Washington is confirm the analysis above and to ascertain if the U.S. has any additional intelligence that may have a bearing on the issue.
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All they have to do is to send a destroyer close to where the drilling is being made or have a couple of planes fly overhead in tight formation , when Los Monjes were about to be seized by Colombia MPJ sent some military planes to fly overhead the place , and when Colombia sent the Caldas to the Venezuelan Gulf , Venezuela sent a missile destroyer to take position in front of it until the Caldas left .!! It doesnt have to be an invasion , just a show of force !!
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First of all, it will be many months before they can get to the point of deploying drilling rigs. Guyana will need time to solicit proposals and negotiate exploitation rights, and after that there is engineering and planning. There will be nothing on the water for Venezuela to intimidate for a long time. And yet, the regime needs to create their distraction or national emergency before December. So, we are back to the scenario I described above. Venezuela can do nothing about this except make a nuisance of itself. By the time Guyana is ready to deploy drilling rigs, the Venezuelan economy will be in such shambles that Venezuela will be in no position to mount even the sort of protest you are speaking of.
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Granger is saying to Maduro “I’LL DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE, I’LL DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE”
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I rather see it as the Venezuelans sipping the Kool-Aid offered by Maduro.
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He’s actually saying “I’ll drink your RikoMalt! Nanananaa!”
http://www.elchiguirebipolar.net/30-09-2014/maduro-toma-rikomalt-sin-pagar-y-se-arrecha-porque-se-lo-cobran/
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Too bad chavismo already entitled someone as “Mr Danger”, that would come in like «anillo al dedo» to them now. LOL.
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Granger is just doing precisely what he should be doing for his country: Rallying international support to protect Guyana’s future, especially now that they’ve found oil, especially when facing an unpredictable, criminal dictatorship next door.
Facing a desperate bunch of Wicked Thugs that, as we as all know, could very well use war against its small neighbor as an excuse to stay in power, as early as this year, to justify an Estado de Excepcion, to avoid December’s elections.
In such dire circumstances, Guyana’s president should be doing nothing else, other than that.
Granger is exactly the opposite of our embarrassing highschool dropout, bus-driving “president”, and former laughable “diplomat” for years under Chavez, who can barely speak Criollo machucao.
Granger is a well educated Historian and Military man, perfect for his current job. He has already proven to be an astute leader and dilgent diplomat in his short tenure, by solidifying worldwide support, including Caricom, USA, Europe, Brazil, and ironically, Cuba. Chupate esa mandarina! He speaks proper English, as most decent Presidents and all diplomats do nowadays. As opposed to Masburro’s second language, Mango texting.
The majority of our uneducated populace wanted Chavismo and more Patria? We’ve got it.
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On the bright side, we can all count on our gracious, dignified representative in the civilized world, Lady Delcy Rodriguez. Every time she speaks for Vzla overseas, she leaves everyone in sheer astonishment, “con las tablas en la cabeza”. Just delightful.
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The cretin thugs of the Vzla govt. are picking a fight that they are doomed to lose. Better to focus on keeping cerveza supplied to the Pueblo lest there be a real revolution.
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Remember, the drunkards might get really angry, but chaburrismo still has the better tranquilizer ever: Bullet-a-nol.
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“I question whether the FAN could actually mount any sort of credible invasion of the Essiquibo.”
The idea is ludicrous. South American “armies” don’t do invasions. There’s no money in it.
JL
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