evidence: As soon as the last British troops left Guyana in October 1966 – Guyana’s independence year – the Venezuelan National Armed Forces seized the 7-km² Ankoko Island in the Cuyuni River. It has remained in illegal occupation ever since. The island is used as a military garrison to harass Guyanese miners and to engage in occasional acts of provocation against the Guyana Defence Force border detachment at Eteringbang on the opposite bank of the river. But the symbolism of the occupation of Ankoko has been a bone in the throat of Guyanese negotiators ever since and has intoxicated Venezuela’s diplomats with delusions of superiority. Venezuelan leaders seem to derive satisfaction from the simmering dispute and evince no interest in attempting a solution. In the hands of President Hugo Chávez Frías and his successive ministers of external relations, the territorial issue has become a useful instrument of ‘finlandisation.’ Through veiled threats and subtle pressures and small concessions about commodities, Venezuela has sought to establish itself as the arbiter of Guyana’s development of the entire Essequibo that it still refers to as its zona en reclamación. Weak Guyanese diplomats and ministers seem to satisfied with their impotence.