This border dispute dates back to early 19th Century; the airstrip was there in 1966:
Guyana-Venezuela relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana%E2%80%93Venezuela_relations
Venezuela claimed more than half of the territory of the British colony of Guyana at the time of the Latin American wars of independence, a dispute that was settled by arbitration in 1899 after the Venezuela Crisis of 1895. In 1962 Venezuela declared that it would no longer abide by the arbitration decision, which ceded mineral-rich territory in the Orinoco basin to Guyana. The disputed area is called Guayana Esequiba by Venezuela. A border commission was set up in 1966 with representatives from Guyana, Venezuela and Great Britain, but failed to reach agreement. Venezuela vetoed Guyana's bid to become a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1967. In 1969 Venezuela backed an abortive uprising in the disputed area.
Under intense diplomatic pressure, Venezuela agreed in 1970 to a 12-year moratorium on the dispute with the Protocol of Port-of-Spain. In 1981, Venezuela refused to renew the protocol. However, with changes to the governments of both countries relations improved, to the extent that Venezuela sponsored Guyana's 1990 bid for OAS membership.[1][2]
In 2013 the Venezuelan navy seized an oil exploration vessel operating in disputed waters claimed as Exclusive Economic Zones by both Venezuela and Guyana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana%E2%80%93Venezuela_relationsAnkoko Island (Isla de Anacoco): Alleged intrusion occupation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankoko_Island
In February 1966, the governments of Venezuela, the United Kingdom and Guyana signed the Geneva Agreement aimed at resolving the controversy over the Venezuelan claim that the arbitral award of 1899, which settled the border between Venezuela and Guyana, was null and void. The Agreement provided that "no new claim or enlargement of an existing claim to territorial sovereignty in these territories (of Venezuela and British Guiana) shall be asserted while this Agreement is in force, nor shall any claim whatsoever be asserted otherwise than in the Mixed Commission while that Commission is in being".
Despite this declaration, a few months later a well-armed group of Venezuelan soldiers, along with civilians, encroached upon and occupied territory by Guyana de facto side of the border. This encroachment occurred, unknowing to Guyana Government, on the half of the island of Ankoko that Guyana claims as its own at the confluence of the boundary rivers, Cuyuni and Wenamu (Wenamo). It took the form of the introduction of military and civilian personnel and the establishment of an airstrip and the erection of other installations and structures, including a post office, school and military and police outposts. The incursion on the territory on Ankoko Island claimed by Guyana as its own by Venezuela was reported to the Guyanese authorities early in October 1966 by a diamond prospector who was in that forested and almost uninhabited area at the time. As a result, a Guyanese team of senior officials, including police officers, visited the vicinity on 12 October 1966 and verified that Venezuelan personnel were allegedly occupying the Guyana claimed side of the island where they had already constructed an airstrip.
Subsequently, on the morning of the 14 October 1966, Forbes Burnham, as Prime Minister and Minister of External Affairs of Guyana, dispatched a strong protest to the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Ignacio Iribarren Borges, and demanded the withdrawal of Venezuelan troops and the removal of installations they had set up on Guyana's territory... The Venezuelan Foreign Minister replied on the 18 October to the Guyana protest. In a note to the Minister of External Affairs, (Burnham), Iribarren Borges stated that "the Venezuelan Government does not accept the said protest, as the island of Ankoko is Venezuelan territory in its entirety and the Republic of Venezuela has always been in possession of it." He added that if Guyana "should have any reclamation to formulate", it should do so through the Mixed Commission created by the Geneva Agreement. As a matter of fact the said islands were always part of the Venezuelan territory and were not part of the 1899 Award that settled the boundaries in favor to the British Empire East of the Cuyuni River. The said island being a flotant island belong therefore to Venezuelan which sovereignty over the said islands was never under discussion. The said Award was agreed by both parties to be null and void under the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
Guyana regarded the Venezuelan reply as totally unsatisfactory, and there followed an exchange of diplomatic notes between the two countries throughout the rest of the year. Guyana suggested that in preference to the matter being raised at the United Nations, representatives of both Governments should carry out a joint examination of the boundary map, prepared in 1905 by a joint team of British and Venezuelan surveyors, for the purpose of determining the position of Ankoko in relation to the existing boundary. This was rejected by Venezuela who insisted, again, that if Guyana wished to discuss the matter it must be done through the Mixed Commission...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankoko_Island
The article published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs linked above, thanks GatoGordo, is from 2015. To return to the subject of the OP, thanks Judi Lynn, here is a recent editorial written by the Council:
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs Opposes US-led Coup Attempt Underway in Venezuela and Supports a Resumption of Dialogue
January 28, 2019
http://www.coha.org/the-council-on-hemispheric-affairs-opposes-us-led-coup-attempt-underway-in-venezuela-and-supports-a-resumption-of-dialogue/
A Statement from the COHA Editorial Board
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs is deeply concerned about the US-led attempted coup underway against the constitutional President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and supports efforts to resume the dialogue between the Venezuelan opposition and the government that had come very close to an accord last year. The Trump administration’s escalating intervention is a major obstacle to the resumption of talks. It further polarizes political divisions inside Venezuela as well as between states throughout the hemisphere. Today there are more than enough nations of goodwill, such as Mexico and Uruguay, that have offered to facilitate dialogue. It is, therefore, still not too late to shy away from the precipice and opt for politics over violent confrontation.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs was formed by its late Director, Larry Birns, not long after the catastrophic US-backed coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, a tragic blow against Chilean democracy that led to the murder and disappearance of thousands of citizens under the Pinochet dictatorship. Birns always believed it was possible for US policy to evolve and gradually come to respect the sovereign equality of its Latin American neighbors. Today, however, it appears that Washington has not moved beyond the Monroe Doctrine towards a policy based on mutual respect among nations. In fact, it rejects the reality of a multipolar world and still insists on subordinating the hemisphere, by “all options on the table,” to its own neoliberal imperatives, regardless of the cost in human life... The idea that its interventionist agenda is based on some kind of humanitarian concern for the Venezuelan people is self-evidently preposterous. For one thing, Washington’s complete inaction (and, in fact, considerable complicity) with regard to the humanitarian crises in Honduras, Colombia, Yemen, and along its own border with Mexico, shows its willingness to (at best) turn a blind eye to human suffering when it suits its geopolitical and economic interests. And if the US were so concerned about the suffering of Venezuelans due to the economic crisis, it would not be imposing a virtual blockade on this nation’s ailing economy.
Washington is using the exact same dishonest posturing with respect to democratic norms and human rights discourse. If the US were genuinely concerned about democracy and human rights, it would be putting pressure on some of its closest regional allies, including Honduras, where the United States and OAS ratified the election of Juan Orlando Hernandez despite the electoral fraud of November 2017; or Colombia, where community leaders are murdered each week with impunity; or Brazil, where the Bolsonaro government impinges on environmental, Afro-descendant, poor, Indigenous, and LGBT rights.
Venezuela is the immediate target for regime change not because it is an affront to Washington’s humanitarian, human rights or democratic sensibilities; Larry Birns called such high-minded meddling “selective indignation.” Today we are witnessing this duplicity at its worst. Far from being predicated on “humanitarian intervention” and “transition to democracy,” US policy seeks to attain privileged access to Venezuela’s oil and other natural resources, curtail Russian and Chinese commercial and political influence in the region, eliminate the so-called “troika of tyranny” of leftist governments, and the overthrowal of not only the constitutional President, but also the institutions and symbols of Chavismo. In service of these goals, the Trump administration is deploying every tactic in the regime change toolbox against the Maduro government, including preparation for use of a potential “military option.” ...
http://www.coha.org/the-council-on-hemispheric-affairs-opposes-us-led-coup-attempt-underway-in-venezuela-and-supports-a-resumption-of-dialogue/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Irony meter at "10".