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UN Good Officer Process “pretty much abandoned”- Gov’t mulls alternatives to address Venezuela’s latest claims
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, at his weekly post-Cabinet briefing yesterday,
Dr Roger Luncheon
said that government is actively considering alternatives to put the issue of the Venezuelan territorial claims to rest, once and for all.
This follows the neighbouring country’s writing to the head of the Exxon Petroleum Company, voicing its objection to any drilling operations, in what it views as disputed maritime territory, a claim that Guyana soundly rejects.
Dr. Luncheon explained that government “has not really been getting very far with the Good Offices and its facility. Indeed if I follow the line, we have pretty much, and this is a conclusion, we have pretty much exhausted, what could indeed come from the good offices and as Somerset Maugham says, ‘We have laboured, but produced a mouse”. He added that a significant impact has not been made on addressing the controversy.
The Geneva Accord of 1966, it was explained, does provide a range of mechanisms, one of which the Cabinet Secretary said was agreed to, the aforementioned Good Offices Process.
Government is now “combing those sections of the accord” to examine and identify alternatives that will allow Guyana to “move along this continuum that at one end, where we are, which has a predominance of the bilateral ties, we and our Venezuelan counterpart under the auspices of the UN Secretary General and over to the other extreme, where we surrender to a process; a judicial process, where we present our case and you present your case and an impartial tribunal, jurist, legal system considers our mutual submissions and makes a ruling, hopefully a binding ruling.”
According to Dr. Luncheon, despite the passing of Dr. Norman Girvan, who oversaw the Good Officer Process, government has not abandoned it, but is “realistic” about its outcome.
He noted that if after all of the years and an apparent lack of progress, it may be time to “think outside of the box” and look at other options.
This is the current position being advanced by the Foreign Affairs ministry, he added.
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