Is Guyana about to disappear?
A miniature sheet issued on 27 November 2023 by the postal service of Venezuela has been featured on a thread of Stampboards in the past couple of days. The item contains 4 stamps and was posted by the commentator Stewie1980 and publicises the referendum to be held in Venezuela as to whether or not Venezuela should annex the state of Essequibo which makes up about two thirds of the Commonwealth republic of Guyana, the former British Guiana, which gained independence from Britain in 1966 and is the only English-speaking country in South America.
Essequibo is rich in minerals which is a great attraction for the pariah Venezuelan state but it is true that Venezuela has long layed claim to Essequibo although more vehemently at some times than others. The Guyana-Venezuela border was fixed by international negotiators of the British and Venezuelans as long ago as 1895 but this has not stopped the Venezuelans from claiming Essequibo intermittently.
Some experts feel that the Venezuelans are only days away from sending their armed forces into Guyananese Esequibo to occupy the territory and at a stroke put an end to the Guyana republic. Quite how the international community would react to a full scale occupation of Guyana by Venezuala remains to be seen. The toothless United Nations already has at least two very serious international crises to deal with - the Russian assault on Ukraine and the terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza - so it’s hard to see that anything useful would come from that quarter which would result in putting an end to a Venezuelan invasion.
These are dangerous times for Guyana. Not that it has not lived with the fear of Venezuelan assault since it first achieved independence. Indeed, in the past, the Guyana postal service has previously issued a number of stamps which asserted that Essequibo is an integral part of Guyana. An example of these are an issue of 1981 which was made up of Revenue stamps depicting a map of Guyana and surcharged and overprinted with the inscription “ESSEQUIBO IS OURS”.
The next few days may be critical in deciding Guyana’s fate.
New issues.
🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -
24 January 2024 - Chinese new year, Year of the Dragon - 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 6 stamps. This tweet mentions that this will be the penultimate issue in this long, tiresome and somewhat expensive series. Hopefully after that Guernsey Post will not introduce another 12 year cycle of stamps on this subject which has no relevance whatsoever to this small Channel island. Rating:- 0.
