Guyana’s government on Wednesday said it has formally asked Facebook and Twitter to remove “illegal maps” posted by users showing large parts of Guyana as Venezuelan territory, reflecting a longstanding claim by the neighboring nation.
Venezuela has long laid claim to most of Guyana’s mineral-rich western Essequibo region, disputing the decision of an 1899 international boundaries commission at a time when Guyana was a British territory.
The International Court of Justice in the Netherlands agreed to hear the case in 2020, but a ruling could take years.
Photo: REUTERS
The area, which covers 40 percent of Guyana’s current territory, is believed to contain billions of barrels of oil and large amounts of gas deposits, in addition to gold, diamonds and other minerals.
Authorities in Guyana believe that the group posting the maps has internet protocol addresses linked to officialdom in Venezuela, Guyanan Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud said.
He said the posts and their comments “have the potential to permanently damage relations between states, incite violence against the territory and people of Guyana, and derail the current adjudication of the matter before the ICJ.”
The social media platforms should be able to trace the posts to determine whether they are from individuals or are part of a campaign by Venezuela to influence the court, he said.
The Associated Press sent messages seeking comment from a group mentioned by Guyana, but did not immediately receive a response. The listed Web site was inactive, and a related GoFundMe page said it was based in Miami.
Venezuela has several times taken military action against Guyana as part of the dispute. In 2013, Venezuelan gunboats arrested and detained the crew of a vessel leased by US oil company Anadarko, expelling them from a disputed offshore area.
In 2019, a military helicopter attempted to land on a rig doing survey work for US oil company ExxonMobil in Guyana’s northwestern region. In 2015 when Exxon declared that it had found a large quantity of oil and gas offshore Guyana, Venezuela issued decrees amending its national map to encompass a large part of coastal Guyana it had not previously disputed.
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
EXTRADITION FEARS: The legislative changes come five years after a treaty was suspended in response to the territory’s crackdown on democracy advocates Exiled Hong Kong dissidents said they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the territory could put them in greater danger, adding that Hong Kong authorities would use any pretext to pursue them. An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to a government crackdown on the democracy movement and its imposition of a National Security Law. The British Home Office said that the suspension of the treaty made all extraditions with Hong Kong impossible “even if
Former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, best known for making a statement apologizing over World War II, died yesterday aged 101, officials said. Murayama in 1995 expressed “deep remorse” over the country’s atrocities in Asia. The statement became a benchmark for Tokyo’s subsequent apologies over World War II. “Tomiichi Murayama, the father of Japanese politics, passed away today at 11:28am at a hospital in Oita City at the age of 101,” Social Democratic Party Chairwoman Mizuho Fukushima said. Party Secretary-General Hiroyuki Takano said he had been informed that the former prime minister died of old age. In the landmark statement in August 1995, Murayama said
RSS