Guyana wants Facebook, Twitter to remove ‘illegal maps’ claiming parts for Venezuela

It’s a decades long border fight over where English-speaking Guyana ends and Spanish-speaking Venezuela begins, and now social media has been pulled into it.

Guyana, which is considered part of the 15-member Caribbean Community though it lies on the northern coast of South America, shouldering the Atlantic, is asking Facebook and Twitter to get its facts straight and remove what the government considers “illegal maps” of the former British colony. The maps, say the country’s office of foreign affairs, are being posted by Spanish-language media accounts and are claiming a large swath of Guyana for neighboring Venezuela.

In letters to executives at both Facebook and Twitter, Guyanese Foreign Secretary Robert M. Persaud says social media operatives have been using their respective platforms “to propagate a false narrative” about a border spat that was settled back in 1899 over a region west of the Essequibo River, consisting of 61,600 square miles.

In recent years, Venezuela has revived the dispute in light of the discovery of oil by Guyana, landing both nations into international court after arbitration and mediation efforts by the United Nations failed to resolve the conflict. Now the matter is before the International Court of Justice.

“I wish to point out that Facebook [and Twitter] posts and the subsequent comments surrounding the particular posts, have the potential to permanently damage relations between States, incite violence against the territory and people of Guyana, and derail the current adjudication of the matter before the International Court of Justice [ICJ],” Persaud wrote.

Persaud informed the companies that the border dispute between the two South American nations was settled by a legal international arbitration process on Oct. 3, 1899, pursuant to the 1897 Treaty of Washington by which “both parties agreed to respect the results of the arbitration as a full, perfect and final settlement of the boundary.” At that time, Guyana was British Guiana, a colony of Great Britain and the United States had stepped into the fight and pressured the arbitration court to act.

The boundary and the corresponding territory of Guyana are internationally recognized, including by the United Nations, Persaud said.

“In this regard, I am requesting that these types of Facebook posts [and Twitter] which violate the basic tenet of international relations between States, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana and incite a threat of use of force against Guyana, be removed forthwith and more stringent measure be taken against their publications,’’ he wrote.

Persaud’s office said the “illegal” maps have appeared just as an “orchestrated disinformation campaign” are being renewed against Guyana.

In 2015, Guyana accused Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s government of convincing Google Inc.’s map service to change the English names of streets in the sparsely populated jungle area in the disputed territory to Spanish-sounding names. Neither Twitter, nor Facebook nor Google responded to inquiries from the Miami Herald for comment.

Guyanese officials have long contended that the Maduro government’s interest in reviving the border issue is because Venezuela wants to lay claim to the oil deposits that have been discovered off the coast of Guyana and could well make Guyana one of the wealthier countries of the region after decades of economic hardship.

After Exxon Mobil Corp. discovered an estimated 700 million barrels of oil reserves, the Maduro government in 2015 issued a decree laying claim to Guyana’s exclusive economic zone where the deposits were located. Maduro not only claimed that region by reasserting its sovereignty over Essequibo, but the decree also claimed the exclusive economic zones of Colombia as well as eight other Caribbean territories.