With patriotic reggaeton and videos, Venezuela's government fans territorial dispute with Guyana
Middle school student Jeanmaikol Castrillo can quickly point out Venezuela on a map and identify what’s around it — the Caribbean Sea and the countries of Colombia, Brazil and Guyana.
But the map with which he is familiar differs greatly from those included in plenty of books, textbooks and even a CIA website. It shows a much larger Venezuela, one that includes a big chunk of Guyana.
Venezuelans hold as self-evident truth that their homeland’s eastern end includes Guyana's Essequibo region next to the Atlantic — a territory larger than Greece and rich in oil and minerals. As students, they learn it is subject to a century-old dispute and then, for the most part, forget about it.
These days, however, Venezuela’s government wants it to be the
