Why Venezuela Is Escalating the Essequibo Dispute

The more than century-long dispute over the resource-rich Essequibo region in Guyana has intensified. Venezuela’s autocratic President Nicolas Maduro asserts, in one of the few issues it agrees on with the opposition, that the 1,450 square mile territory belongs to Caracas. The Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, was awarded to the then-British colony in 1899. Venezuela has long opposed the judgment, arguing it was invalidated by a 1966 agreement, made after Guyana’s independence, to resolve the dispute.…