Guyana’s Chief of Staff Gen. Godfrey Bess (left), and U.S. Southern Hemisphere Command Chief (SouthCom) Admiral Craig Faller (right) signed on January 12, 2021 a training agreement.

I have the honour to address Your Excellency, in your capacity as President of the Security Council of the United Nations, the body responsible for ensuring the maintenance of international peace and security, to take the opportunity to denounce recent events that endanger and threaten the peace and security of both Venezuela and the Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole.

In this context, allow me to bring to your attention the launch, on 9 January 2021, of joint military exercises between the Defense Force of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and the United States Coast Guard, under the disguise of an operation to combat “illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing”, in very close proximity to Venezuelan waters.

The military exercises to be carried out are part of the chain of systematic and recurrent United States threats of use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of Venezuela, which we have continuously denounced before this body in the past (see S/2019/641, S/2019/765, S/2020/277, A/74/861-S/2020/399 and S/2020/971). In addition, these take place on the eve of the visit to Guyana of United States Navy Admiral Craig Faller, Commander of the United States Southern Command, who has played a key role in the United States campaign of “maximum pressure” against our nation, and which is scheduled from 11 to 13 January 2021.

What we are currently seeing is not only an attempt from the United States government to interfere in the existing and longstanding territorial controversy between Guyana and Venezuela over the Essequibo, but also a deliberate attempt to fabricate a conflict in Venezuelan waters, to provoke an incident of a military nature and to advance the United States plan of aggression against our country, at a time when the United States of America is going through its darkest times in history, as its Head of State has recently been described by the very Speaker of the United States House of Representatives as being “deranged, unhinged and dangerous” during his last days in office.

In the light of the above, we request that the Security Council, using the powers conferred on it by the Charter of the United Nations, and given their implications on the maintenance of international peace and security, investigate the most recent and reckless actions of the United States government in our region and determine the clear and present danger of the threat of use of force of the government of the United States of America against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in flagrant violation of all norms of international law and the very tenets of the founding Charter of our Organization.

I respectfully request your good offices for circulating the present letter among the member States of the Security Council for their due information and that it be issued as a document of that body.