The recent wave of posts on social media platforms regarding the Venezuela border controversy has prompted Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali to urge the public to rely only on information emerging from official channels in the government.
“I have seen a lot of social media posts and [the] level of excitement generated leading to some level of unease in our society. I want to assure the members of the public and urge members of the public to rely only on official releases from the government of Guyana, the Guyana Defense Force and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” President Ali told a media conference on Saturday.
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In recent weeks, a slew of videos of Venezuelan military marching, training and interacting with citizens along with posts of maps with Guyana’s Essequibo region missing have popped up on popular sites like TikTok and Facebook since the new wave of aggression from Venezuela began.
According to the President, Guyana has been taking all steps to ensure its territory and its people are safeguarded.
“Exciting ourselves through sensational posting – some of it concocted to generate excitement – help to create an environment of uneasiness… There is absolutely no space we are leaving in relation to the seriousness through which are treating this matter… We must now allow the narrative to be complicated and made complex by the type of social media we are seeing,” he added.
Venezuela has been relentless in this recent campaign. Constant social media posts have also been made by President Nicolas Maduro and his Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. Guyana’s Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had said that the country will not be responding to any jingoism emerging from that side. President Ali reminded that Guyana’s primary focus is ensuring that the region remains “a zone of peace.”
The President said too that an information campaign will soon be looked at to counter the misinformation on the border controversy.
