Where is the solidarity with Guyana?

On Monday, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC), the environmentalist group Just Stop Oil (JSO), the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG), which is a group of ‘Corbynite’ MPs, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, held a joint press conference. With differences in emphasis, they all strongly condemned the moves of Venezuela’s dictator-president Nicolas Maduro to annex the Essequibo region of neighbouring Guyana. 

‘The last thing the world needs right now is another imperialist war for oil’, a StWC spokesman said. JSO were particularly dismayed by Maduro’s announcement that he would immediately ‘grant operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in the entire area of our Essequibo’. The SCG said they felt compelled to speak out, because Maduro continued to insist on calling himself a ‘socialist’, a label which, according to the SCG, he had forfeited any right to use. 

The press conference was followed by a ‘Solidarity with Guyana’ march from Parliament Square to the Venezuelan embassy, where activists waved Guyana flags, and held up banners condemning Maduro.