tl;dr that region was venezuelan territory which england “lawfully” annexed as guinea territory when they were a british colony. since them it was always a objective to venezuelans to claim that territory back. is not a maduro’s thing or chavists thing, it is for the venezuelans, so much that even the right wing is on board.

the subject got brought up again after the discovery of natural resources and the exploration of it by us corps, so they ran a referendum to show that the venezuelan people considers that territory theirs, not to invade as hegemonic media is portraying.

https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/3190900

There is a lot of good explanations around but the short version its like the Maldives thing only its in the mainland and recently found oil in, so the us is hounding it, but Venezuela has a very solid claim to that land.