evidence: For a century and a half, Guyana and Venezuela have quarreled over Essequibo, a stretch of the Amazon that both countries claim. Guyana has long governed the territory, but Venezuela also claims sovereignty over it, citing maps drawn in colonial times. Last year, Maduro expressed a sudden enthusiasm for seizing Essequibo that took many Venezuelans by surprise. International conglomerates had discovered lots of oil there, but that was in 2015, and in any case, Venezuela, too, has plenty of oil. [...] The disagreements have remained unresolved, but in most minds, Essequibo is and has long been Guyana’s. Most maps, even the CIA’s, say it is. Venezuela’s government has no presence there. Whenever the dispute resurfaced over the following decades, the international media would almost invariably note that Essequibo accounts for two-thirds of the territory of Guyana, suggesting that, yes, it is part of Guyana.