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Population
Migration
2021: Net outflow over 4 years
Economy
GDP
2022: GDP growth of 64% thanks to oil discovery
After the discovery of oil habitats, Guyana is experiencing a major economic recovery and is constantly increasing production volumes. For 2022, GDP growth was 64%.
Oil production
2023: U.S. companies roll out massive oil production in the country. Venezuela declares half of Guyana's territory as its 24th state
In October 2023, the oil company Chevron entered into an agreement to acquire all shares of Hess Corporation for $60 billion. Thus, Chevron gained access to the largest oil fields in Guyana, which is already called one of the "most promising assets" in the company's portfolio.
In Guyana, Exxon is already operating, which at the end of October made a "significant discovery of oil and gas" on the Stabrook block. By November 2023, crude oil production in Guyana amounted to 400 thousand barrels per day. Guyana has actually become one of the main drivers of growth in supplies to world markets from non-OPEC countries. Up to 1.2 million barrels per day are expected to be produced there by 2027.
At the same time, there is an increased diplomatic activity of the Guyana authorities in relation to the disputed territories with Venezuela. The appeal to the UN about holding a referendum in the disputed territories looks like protecting the national interests of Guyana, but in reality it is about the interests of TNKs, which need access to the fields located there.
The long-term territorial dispute between the two countries over the ownership of the territory with an area of 159.5 thousand square meters. km west of the Essequibo River, called "Guyana-Essequibo" (three quarters of the entire territory of Guyana), claimed by Venezuela, escalated due to the provision of oil concessions by Guyana to ExxonMobil.
Approximately 125 thousand people live here and most of the land is an impassable jungle and swamps - however, it is here that some of the largest reserves of oil, gas, copper and gold on the planet are located.
The maritime boundaries of this area have not yet been determined. In addition, the United States plans to deploy a military base on the disputed territory to protect the assets of American companies. In the future, it can be used to put pressure on the Venezuelan government.
On December 3, 2023, the people of Venezuela voted in a referendum to support their country's claim to the oil and mineral rich territory of neighboring Guyana.
The referendum, which Guyana described as a pretext for "annexation," marks a new stage in the dispute over the Essequibo region, which escalated after ExxonMobil discovered oil in the Stabroek block off its coast in 2015.
On December 6, 2023, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared the western part of Guyana - Essequibo - the 24th state of the country. He proposed to create units of departments on the annexed territory that issue licenses for the production of gas, oil and minerals. The Venezuelan authorities have not left attempts to return Essequibo for more than a hundred years.
Incomes of the population
2022: Share of citizens with a budget of less than $5.5 per day - 38%
Foreign trade
2022: US is the biggest export destination
2020: Main export item - sugar
Power
2020: Low per capita energy consumption
and
Agriculture
2019: Low use of pesticides in agriculture
Consumption
Meat
2023: Poultry meat is the most consumed type of meat
Health care
Maternity leave
in
2020: Duration of guaranteed paid sick leave 6 months or more
Crime
Prisons
2022: Minimum age for children to be jailed
2018: Number of prisoners per 100 thousand citizens
Sport
2022: The most popular sport is cricket
in
History
1978: Death of 913 members of the American sect
In the 1970s, publications began to appear in the American press that the Temple of Peoples (founded back in 1955) is a destructive cult that zombies its adherents. Relatives of Temple members demanded that the authorities investigate the activities of Temple founder Jim Jones. Under these conditions, Jones decided to leave the United States and settle in South America.
In 1974, in the jungle of Guyana, on a leased plot of 3852 acres (15.59 square kilometers), several members of the Temple of Peoples founded a settlement, hereinafter called Johnstown, named after the head of the movement. In 1977, Jim Jones, along with his followers (over 900 people), moved to this settlement.
In Johnstown, members of the "Temple of Peoples" were engaged in cleaning and gentrifying the territory, growing crops. In the village were built: sawmill, club, kindergarten, nursery. Residents of the village had to work quite a lot (11 hours a day), in the evenings they organized meetings or studied.
There are different opinions about the real life of ordinary members of the movement in the village. During the existence of the village, many people visited it, and left mostly positive reviews of the life of the inhabitants of Johnstown. On the tape recordings of the evening meetings that Jones did, jokes are heard, laughter, which these reviews partly confirmed. However, some former settlers have alleged numerous human rights abuses in Jonestown, torture, severe corporal punishment for wrongdoing, and that Jones and his entourage suffer from drug addiction. The Concerned Relatives movement arose, trying to draw the attention of the public and the US authorities to the situation inside Johnstown, in which Tim Stone, a former lawyer for the Temple of Peoples, who was expelled from there on charges of ties to the CIA, played a leading role.
The leadership of the settlement, feeling the precariousness of its position, decided to establish contacts with the USSR Embassy, as a result of which a petition for emigration was submitted, forms of questionnaires and applications for transfer to Soviet citizenship were received. Courses in the Russian language were organized, and by the time consul Timofeev visited the commune, many could already communicate in this language. Representatives of the commune were even invited to a reception at the embassy, which made an unpleasant impression on US diplomats.
U.S. Rep. California Leo Ryan, under pressure from the Concerned Relatives movement, decided to visit Johnstown to see with his own eyes what was happening in the settlement and how true the scary rumors about the place were. For objectivity, he decided to take with him several journalists and representatives of the organization of relatives.
The commune met the news of the upcoming visit with caution, it was decided that the inhabitants of the commune should not communicate with the congressman, on November 9, almost all adult communes signed a petition against the visit, where the congressman was accused of supporting military assistance to the dictator Chile Pinochet. Researchers consider this document evidence of the general decision to kill it. However, when the congressman arrived in Guyana, the commune decided to do everything possible to make a good impression on him.
On November 17, 1978, a group of visitors arrived in the settlement. The representative of the commune, Sharon Amos, fearing provocations, told the USSR consul Timofeev that at the same time as the US congressman, a group of strong young male tourists arrived in Guyana in 50-60 people who met with Tim Stone, whom she considered a CIA agent. For two days, the congressman got acquainted with the life of the village. A festive concert was held in honor of the guests. All residents looked satisfied with life and position. Nevertheless, Al Simons and the Parks family agreed to the congressman's offer to leave with him (the family's mother, Patrick Parks, initially disagreed, she had to be persuaded), then another member of the community, Larry Layton, joined them.
While still in the settlement, Ryan was attacked by Don Sly, one of the members of the community. He approached Ryan from behind and grabbed him, holding a knife to his throat. The attacker was disarmed by the forces of other members of the community. The congressman did not receive serious injuries, Jones approached the noise and asked if the incident would affect the overall impressions of Johnstown. Ryan, of course, was excited, but replied: "No, he doesn't change everything, only in particular."
To send everyone, Ryan called an additional six-seater Cessna 206 aircraft, since everyone could not fit in the 19-seater DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft on which the congressman arrived. Leo Ryan and his escorts left Johnstown at 5 pm on November 18, and headed to the nearest airfield in the village of Port Kaituma. The group included: Leo J. Ryan with assistant Jackie Speier, deputy head of the entrance service of the US Embassy in Guyana Richard Dwyer, nine employees of the American media, four of them NBC employees (Bob Flik, Don Harris, Bob Brown, Steve Sung), five print journalists: Tim Reiterman and Gregg Robinson of The San Francisco Examiner, Ronald Yavers of the San Francisco Chronicle, freelancer Gordan Lindsay, Charles Krause of the Washington Post, four representatives of Concerned Relatives. Immediately after the group departed, Jones called a general meeting to inform the conclusion of the visit and the possible consequences.
At 18 o'clock after arriving at the airport, the group began to prepare for departure. At that moment, a truck and a tractor with a trailer, from which armed people jumped out, drove up to the runway of the airport and opened fire to kill. Five minutes later, these people climbed back into the trailer, and the tractor disappeared.
Of the 30 people killed, five were Rep. Leo Ryan, NBC correspondent Don Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson and commune member Patricia Parks. One of the journalists shot dead, Bob Brown, filmed the attack on camera until he was fatally shot in the head. Video footage of the attack has been preserved. Journalist Tim Reiterman, who was on the tarmac, took a number of photographs showing the aftermath of the attack. The Otter aircraft received significant damage and could not fly. Cessna flew to the capital, its pilot informed the dispatcher on the radio about what had happened. The remaining members of the group reached Port Kaitum, where they spent the night, and then, the next day, were evacuated by a Guyanese Air Force plane, arriving 10 hours after the tragedy.
On the same evening, Jim Jones held a regular meeting, the recording of which was also preserved and was one of the main evidence of the FBI in this case. According to the recording, Jones said that the congressman was killed, that the plane would fall into the jungle, since there was a man on board who would kill the pilot; and that now, after what happened, life will no longer be as before. He said that now they will definitely not be left alone, and the only way out of the situation is to commit a "revolutionary act of suicide." Serious objections arose only from Christine Miller, who tried to convince everyone that suicide was not the way out, and offered to contact the Russians for the immediate dispatch of the community to Russia. Jones rejected the proposal, arguing that it was too late, and no one would come to their aid, and that it was impossible to live in such a world and suicide was the only possible solution in this situation. He was supported by many members of the community. At Jones' direction, a tank filled with a "Flavor Aid" grape drink was prepared, to which a mixture of potassium cyanide and diazepam was added. The first drink was given to children. On the record, Jones convinced people that death is only a step further, in the next life, explained that there will be no convulsions or agony, the transition will be painless. Looking at how their children die, adults barely hesitated and took poison. The official version also admits the likelihood that not everyone took poison voluntarily, and that perhaps many were forced to drink the poisoned drink by force.
As a result, 909 people died as a result of the act of collective suicide, including 270 children. Jim Jones and Ann Moore were found shot dead. It remained unclear whether it was suicide or if they had been shot. A little later, a representative of the settlement, Sharon Amos, was found killed by a knife in her Georgetown apartment, along with her children, who had their throats cut. It is believed that she did it herself, but the USSR consul in Guyana Timofeev subsequently claimed that before her death she called him and told his wife that she had received a radiogram that Johnstown was surrounded by troops and military helicopters were circling over him, that they were breaking into her apartment and asked to call the police. In total, 913 people related to Johnstown died in Guyana on November 18.
About 80 members of the commune were saved that evening. Some of them are those who left with the congressman, some did not attend the meeting, and some of the people decided not to share the fate of the suicides and left the camp in the morning.
The tragedy in Johnstown has been received controversially by the global public. In socialist countries, the version that members of the commune were killed by CIA agents on the instructions of the US government was widespread in order to prevent the commune from moving to the USSR, where Jones could carry out anti-American propaganda with impunity.
The development of this version was facilitated by the circumstances under which the tragedy happened: a tense international situation, inaccuracies in the testimony of witnesses and doubts about the reliability of the evidence. The fact that the first data on the tragedy came from the CIA is perceived by many supporters of alternative versions with suspicion. Among other points noted by supporters of alternative versions are the following:
The number of discovered victims, judging by the data received from Guyana, was growing every day of the camp's research. First 346, 405, 775, 800, 869, 910, 912 and finally 918. Defenders of the official version explained this by the fact that, in particular, children's bodies were hidden under the bodies of adults and were not immediately visible. Skeptics believe that even with such an explanation on the first day, the number of bodies found should have been at least 600.
Of the more than 900 bodies, only 6 underwent autopsies, not counting the bodies of Jones himself. The very fact that an autopsy of all bodies was not carried out aroused a lot of suspicion among skeptics, because US government bodies, according to the law, were obliged to conduct an autopsy of each body. Moreover, more than four days passed before the bodies were sent for examination, which, given the tropical climate of Guyana, prevented objective analysis of the bodies for determining the cause of death. Back in Johnstown, as part of an investigation by the Guyanese authorities, the country's chief pathologist, Dr. S. L. Mutu, worked to analyze the cause of death of the inhabitants of the commune, examining the bodies. He concluded that more than 700 people were killed. He refers to them children who legally could not decide on their own suicide and fall into this category by default; as well as some adults, on the backs of which traces from injections were found. According to Dr. Mutu, these traces suggest that these people were injected with cyanide against their will.
Most of the documents related to the investigation of this tragedy were classified. Doubts were also raised about the congresswoman's killing at the airport whether it was arranged by a group of "tourists" from the United States who flew "to inspect the area" from Georgetown five hours before the incident.
To many, the very fact that such a number of people could commit collective suicide seems unreliable.
1899: 'Court' in Paris orders transfer of Essequibo to Britain
One of the main stages of the legal proceedings between Venezuela and Britain on the issue of disputed territories happened in 1899, when the question of Essequibo's ownership was considered by the so-called Paris international arbitration, which decided to transfer this territory to Britain.
In 1949, interesting facts emerged: the American lawyer Severo Malle-Prevost, who participated in this process as a defense of the Venezuelan side, published a memorandum accusing the judges of the Paris arbitration of partiality and favor of Britain.
Britain includes part of Venezuela's territories in British Guiana
With territorial claims Britain , they turned to (Venezuela at that time part of Greater Colombia) and demanded that British settlers leave the lands of Western Guyana (Essequibo region), which, according to earlier treaties between Spain and, Netherlands belonged to the territories of Venezuela.
However, Britain continued to colonize these lands and soon merged them with several other former Dutch colonies, creating British Guiana and claiming its own exclusive rights to it.
1814: Britain gains control of Guyana and the neighbouring Essequibo region, formerly part of the Spanish colony of Venezuela
The Essequibo region of Venezuela was one of the Spanish colonies on the continent.
During the war for the independence of the Spanish colonies in America, conducted under the leadership of Simon Bolivar at the beginning of the nineteenth century, problems began for the Dutch colonies, including the territory of present-day Guyana. Only the Dutch were in conflict with Britain, which claimed part of their territories formally included in the French Empire. As a result, the parties reached an agreement (according to the Anglo-Dutch Convention of 1814, dictated by the interests of Great Britain) that part of the territories - including South American, which included Essequibo, would be under English jurisdiction. The Netherlands, on the other hand, retained its trading rights in these territories. So - relatively speaking - lands were born, which will later be called British Guiana. Moreover, lands that initially do not have a clear allocated border in the Essequibo region.
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