Following protests from Guyana that the socialist Venezuelan Government is attempting to usurp?international waters for itself, the Colombian government issued a statement over the weekend rejecting a Venezuelan decree claiming waters off the coast of Colombia for itself.The highlighted spot including the Deepwater Champion area is what Venezuela is also claiming.Venezuela passed Decree 1787 in May, converting international waters into “Operating Zones of Integral Maritime and Insular Defense.” The national government claims the operating zones, which intrude upon Colombian and Guyanese waters,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, are necessary for national security.The move recalls China’s self-proclaimed “Air Defense Identification Zones” issued over Japanese waters in November 2013. Much like those Japanese waters are technically part of the East China Sea,Cheap NFL Jerseys, so too are Colombia’s threatened waters in the Gulf of Venezuela.Unlike those waters, however, the Gulf of Venezuela remains disputed, and Colombia is not fully claiming them for itself. Colombia’s Foreign Ministry instead noted that the maritime territories are still disputed, and thus neither Venezuela nor Colombia has the ability to declare those waters part of their nation at the expense?of the other.In an official complaint issued by the Colombian Foreign Ministry by hand to Caracas, Colombia warned Venezuela to “avoid unilateral measures and avow itself of common sense regarding issues as delicate as sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction.”Decree 1787 does note that the waters are disputed, and proceeds to declare them Venezuelan anyway, despite the complex history of borders in the region. The Venezuelan state,Cheap Jerseys, it reads,Wholesale MLB Jerseys China, “recognizes the existence of maritime areas whose border delimitations are pending,” and which “require that the Venezuelan state tend to them until definitive borders are marked amicably.”What the Colombian Ministry of the Interior?has warned Venezuela of committing what may be a belligerent action, conservatives in the legislature are calling an outright invasion.?Senator Jimmy Chamorro, an opposition member in the legislature, described the decree as “arbitrary, irresponsible and completely populist.”Senator ?lvaro Uribe, who served as President of Colombia between 2002 and 2010,?declared that the “invasive decree in Colombia’s waters is being used as a smokescreen for Venezuela’s crisis.”Venezuelan President Nicol?s Maduro, Uribe claimed, was “attempting to stoke anti-Colombian sentiment in an election season to disorient Colombians and Venezuelans.”Venezuela’s economy,Cheap NFL Jerseys Online, experts contend, is near full free-fall. Observers estimate the national inflation rate as the highest in the world,Wholesale China Jerseys, well into the triple digits. Products such as soap, vegetable oil, and toilet paper are subject to strict rations and price controls that make it near impossible for the average Venezuelan to procure them without resorting to the black market. Amid the economic turmoil, Maduro continues to crack down on political dissidents,Cheap Jerseys From China Outlet, the most prominent of whom are currently engaging in a widely-publicized hunger strike in prison.Even before the collapse of Venezuela’s economy under Maduro,NHL Jerseys From China, however, Venezuela’s socialist Chavista government had triggered territorial disputes with Colombia.During Uribe’s presidential tenure, late President Hugo Ch?vez?broke ties with Colombia after Uribe accused Ch?vez of providing?Marxist FARC terrorists safe haven in Venezuelan territory during a cooperative campaign against the terrorist group, with support from the American government.While the rivalry with Colombia is long-standing and wide-ranging for Venezuela, it is also facing opposition on the new territorial decree from Guyana. The nation declared Venezuela a “regional threat” following the decree, which also absorbs Guyanese waters into Venezuela. Unlike the Colombian claims, which that nation acknowledges is disputed, Venezuela had already acknowledged the waters near Guyana to be Guyanese territory in an 1899 international court decision. (www.breitbart.com)