U.S. stoking Venezuela-Guyana territorial dispute: observer

The United States is stoking a long-running territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela in a bid to derail the latter's reformist political influence in Latin America, according to a political observer.

Eleazar Diaz Rangel, the Director of Venezuelan Daily Ultimas Noticias, said the U.S. State Departments' objectives in the region are clear, and it is using oil company Exxon Mobil and the government of Guyana to achieve them.

In his regular Sunday column on the Havana-based news agency Prensa Latina, Diaz Rangel noted that David Goldwyn, the State Department's special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, traveled to Guyana in 2010, revealing U.S. interest in the region.

At the time it emerged that the small South American nation, which borders Venezuela to the east, was part of a U.S. program in energy management and training.

Dario Mortandy, Venezuela's ambassador to Guayana from 2007 to 2012, recently said the program was being implemented by transnational companies, under the guidance of the State Department, and it "once again threatens our access to the Atlantic."

According to Prensa Latina, U.S. influence in Guyana gradually increased following Goldwyn's visit to the point where the country's current government, headed by President David Granger, is serving the interests of big U.S. oil firms, specifically Exxon Mobil.

The company was granted concessions in areas under dispute, becoming one of the government's major backers.

These events, said Diaz Rangel, are part of a concerted effort by Washington to break Latin America's Venezuelan-led oil association Petrocaribe.

After failing, just hours after the Organization of American States Summit concluded in Panama in April, U.S. President Barack Obama traveled to Jamaica, where he met with representatives of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), but that effort also failed to turn them away from Petrocaribe, said Diaz Rangel.

In March, Venezuela denounced the government of Guyana and Exxon Mobil for extracting oil in the disputed Guayana Esequiba, a 159,542 square-kilometer territory administered by Guyana, but claimed by Venezuela in a disagreement that dates back to colonial times.

Venezuela says the conflict should be resolved in accordance with the 1966 Geneva Accord signed by Venezuela, the UK and then British Guiana, which calls for the creation of a joint commission to resolve the issue. Endi