Guyana/Venezuela closer to appointing Good Officer

Oct 04, 2009 News

…should work toward solution rather than managing dispute – AFC

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Cooperation, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, along with her Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, are expected to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later this month to formally inform him that both countries have agreed to Professor Norman Girvan as the new Good Officer and sign the official document appointing him Good Officer.

The Jamaican economist is expected to pick up where the previous Good Officer, Oliver Jackman, of Barbados to iron out the two countries’ decades old border dispute.

Soon to be Good Officer Professor Girvan

Girvan, who chaired the Association of Caribbean States from 2001 to 2005, succeeds Jackman whose death in 2007 put the Good Officer Process on hold even as Venezuela maintains a decades-old claim to the Essequibo region, which amounts to about two-thirds of Guyana’s total land area.

Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister for the People’s National Congress Reform, Aubrey Norton, said that the appointment is welcomed and that Professor Girvan was adequately qualified.

He noted too that Professor Girvan was significantly au fait with the background of the territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela.

According to Norton, he was hopeful that there be some progress made this time around and that there be an amicable solution arrived at.

Leader of the Alliance for Change Raphael Trotman said that he welcomed the move by the two countries to resolve the dispute whilst also welcoming Professor Girvan’s appointment.

He said that he was hopeful that this time around there be a solution given that for too long the issue has been dragged on.

Trotman was adamant, however, that the two countries along with this new mediator would work towards a solution rather than just managing the issue.

According to Trotman the AFC will support the process, “in the past too much effort was put into managing the conflict rather than finding a solution.”

He posited however that in a strange way he was optimistic on an amicable solution with the presence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, the British Government felt it was necessary to demarcate Guyana’s borders.

In 1840, the British Government issued a commission to Robert Schomburgk, a German surveyor, geographer and naturalist, authorizing him to survey and mark out the boundaries of British Guiana. It was the intention of that Government, when the work was completed, to communicate to the Governments of Venezuela and Brazil the views of the British Government as to the true boundary of the colony, and then to settle by negotiation any details to which these Governments might take objection.

In 1850, the British Government felt that Venezuela was making military preparations aimed at attempting to occupy Barima Point and other territory claimed by Great Britain. There was an immediate exchange of Notes between the two countries, and it was finally agreed that neither party should occupy or encroach upon the territory in dispute, but no definition of the territory was ever discussed.

The negotiations has been ongoing ever since then and paused most recently with the death of the Good Officer Jackman.