Our government has used the excuse of the sovereign over the Esequibo in order to awake some patriotic sentient on people to boost their positive perception among the population, they have done it before and it was all a circus, a distraction, politicians going around the continent trying to lobby in favor of our interest over that land, it always happens right before the government needs votes.
I have obviously never heard of Esequibo before, but how important is it for ordinary Venezuelans? What do your history textbooks say about it? What do the maps show? Do most people actually consider it part of Venezuela that was unfairly taken away, or is it more like "meh, bygones be bygones". More like Falklands or more like... I don't know... Koenigsberg... no, that's too recent, maybe like Alsace–Lorraine?
Does Venezuela even need more oil? I thought it already has enough to make it super rich, if the government was a bit more... uhm... normal.
The ordinary Venezuelan is aware of the status of that territory but only the educated knows the history being the English appropriation of those lands, the average common Venezuelan is more concerned about working, earning money and get by to put food on the table, we can be hard working people in general. In order for many of us to retain what is left of our mental health, we have decided to embrace political nihilism/become numb towards politics and just try to work or move to other countries, that is one of the biggest reasons there are so many Venezuelans moving to USA lately, because of the things we have witnessed here people just want to go and live a semi decent life elsewhere.
Because of this detachment from polítics, those more enthusiastic with a take over of that territory are mostly involved with the ruling party, we have just become so numb we can't react normally as a population. If tomorrow we lost that territory we would be screwed as today, and even if tomorrow Guyana gives up and gives us that territory, we would be still screwed as today. If we did not have literal criminals in charge of this country we would be more positive on the posibilites of exploiting new land, but it is not the case.
I will give you a sample of the thing of stuff we experience and continue to experience which have made us apathetic:
One of the president's politicians who was at the time in charge of the oil industry, was caught in a scandal, he seems to have stolen up to 30 billion $ from the oil state company (
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/middlemen-have-left-venezuelas-pdvsa-with-212-billion-unpaid-bills-2023-03-21/).
Consequences ? He resigned and he is nowhere to be seen after some pictures of women of those involved playing Jenga with literal Gold bars got leaked, not even mentioning the boobs transplants and the Hummer cars, shinning clean. No procecution, no trial, nothing to him. Just Poof. Gone.
All of it while pregnant women have to give birth on the floor of hospitals and cancer patients die in Public hospitals. I have seen people bad mouthing the Healthcare system in USA, about how expensive it is to cover one's health. But here it is different, at least there you get attention. Here you can show up in an hospital with a gunshot wound and if you do not have cash or insurance you are asked to sit down and wait. I myself lost a cousin to cancer, he needed constant blood transfusions to stay alive, until people in the public hospital just got fed up and told him and his close relatives to go die at his home and stop bothering them. That is the level of evil we dealt with. Private hospitals while give you a estimate of the expenses even before allowing to get a dying person in a room, pay or go away.
Also, we have the lowest min wage on this hemisphere and maybe of the planet.
Would you care about developing/claiming land in this context...?
... Heh, I did not expect to remember dead relatives today. Tbh.
