Once upon a time, this time would be the start of the usual end-of-year season of peace and good will to all everywhere, as people assess the year-to-date and plan for a better next. But oh how times have changed, with the months of October and November shattering all notions of peace being sacred to all nations and people.
Leaders the world over are resorting to walking and talking about war more than peace these days, whether in Europe or the Middle East – and even the Caribbean.
Those who’ve long professed the Caribbean as a zone of peace are today calling for war, marshalling people for battles not worth fighting for causes not worthy of pursuit – and all for politics instead of maintaining peace, with no apparent care about lives at hand.

The Ukraine war rages on relentlessly, never mind attention and resources having moved towards Israel and Palestine, but the latter has enraged the world into demanding that the current ceasefire be extended to permanent peace after seven weeks costing almost 15,000 Palestinian and 1,272 Israeli lives.
But while the world’s media has gone silent on Haiti, increasing attention is being paid in Latin America and the Caribbean, the USA and Europe, about the growing escalation of war talk and calls to arms and action that have followed Venezuela’s ultimate continuing rejection of findings of international arbitrators that don’t conform with its everlasting claim for two-thirds of Guyana.

Just how Venezuela expects to carry out its threat to reclaim a territory it never owned or ruled continues to elude even the brightest of its own legal luminaries, who have refrained from joining the national chorus ahead of the December 3 effort to get an electoral fig leaf to justify words and actions that can only lead to war in a Zone of Peace.
Venezuela, which begs international support for its causes and claims with mutual neighbours, wants to have its cake and eat it: To decide when to hug and kiss its enemies, but not expecting Guyana to strengthen its ability to defend itself and maintain peace.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) remains friend to both Guyana and Venezuela, but support fellow member-state Guyana to the hilt in this simple case of one neighbour trying to swallow-up another like it’s bringing a wayward great-grandchild back home just to alter its surname.
The upcoming Venezuela referendum beats the drums of war in a land not known to have a history of desiring and pursuing conquest simply for national expansion.
The results may or may not influence the results of the next Presidential elections, but long before that, those fanning the flames of war will have to account more for what they have failed to do at home than what they cannot deliver by way of changing how the Essequibo region is called and turning generations of Guyanese there into Venezuelan nationals.
Past preachers of peace are today preaching war, threatening to sink the world into yet another war that they simply cannot win, whether they win elections or not.
Caracas is showing no signs of watering-down its fiery political and elections rhetoric, but remains bent on sticking a certain finger to the International Criminal Court (ICC), only after it didn’t entertain its official pleas at The Hague.
Venezuela’s leaders continue to actively prepare for war while loudly calling for table talks.
In such circumstances, Guyana cannot but seek to shore its defences at all levels, including seeking solidarity and support from affected and interested neighbours willing to fight for peace instead of tearing it to pieces.