UN Secretary General steps in to help resolve Guyana/Venezuela border spat
President David Granger with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon  
President David Granger with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon  

THE UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, has offered to mediate the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela, but President David Granger has signalled that Guyana wants more than protracted talks.“If agreeable, I may be dispatching a mission to both countries to find out how and in what way they are interested in UN Good Officer’s role,” Ban Ki-Moon said at a press conference shortly after meeting President David Granger in Barbados. His chief of staff was due to meet with the Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez to get her agreement.
President Granger appeared wary of the Good Officers process, which was started in 1989, providing for the UN Secretary General to appoint an envoy to mediate a settlement of the border controversy; it also provides for Venezuela to haul off on any claim to the Essequibo region.
“We have informed him (Ban Ki-Moon) that the process is more or less exhausted and he has indicated his willingness to appoint a mission to come to Guyana,” Granger told reporters at the Barbados Hilton Hotel.
The last Good Officer, Professor Norman Girvan, died a year ago, but Mr Ban Ki-Moon did not appoint someone to replace him.
In October 2013, a ship contracted by Texas-based company Anadarko Petroleum, which was exploring for oil in the offshore Roraima block, was evicted by the Venezuelan navy. Guyana’s efforts to resolve that issue has borne no fruit, with Guyana saying Venezuelan has resisted talks.
Venezuela renewed its claim over Guyanese territory in February when Exxon Mobil announced its rig was moving into an area 120 miles off the coast to begin drilling for oil. A warning letter from the Venezuelan Government to the oil firm was followed up by Maduro’s decree in May.
President Granger said with the Maduro decree, the controversy has gone beyond Guyana and Venezuela; “it has now contaminated relations with the entire Eastern Caribbean.”
While Guyana pursues a definitive legal settlement to the case, in the interim, he wants the UN’s intervention in having Nicolas Maduro withdraw his May 26 decree which sought to annex Guyanese waters, including an area where the American firm ExxonMobil recently reported a significant oil find.
Maduro’s directive that the military enforce the decree was seen as a threat to evict ExxonMobil, but the company is proceeding with its operations to determine the commercial viability of the find. The Minister responsible for the energy sector, Raphael Trotman, has been reported as saying ExxonMobil could be looking at some 1.5 billion barrels.
“We expect the UN Secretary General to play an important role in helping to reduce the level of tension and to support Guyana in having that obnoxious decree withdrawn,” Granger stated.
Mr Ban Ki-Moon did not say when he would send a mission to Guyana, but President Granger said he expected in Ban Ki-Moon’s “line of work he will be moving very quickly.”
Last evening, Granger addressed leaders of the 15-nation regional trade and integration bloc CARICOM, calling for them to support Guyana, and the arbitral award that settled Guyana’s border with Venezuela 116 years ago.
“It was determined, defined, delineated and demarcated by international arbitration. Maps were drawn. Atlases were adjusted. Border markers were cast in stone. Any state that systematically, cynically and sedulously seeks to repudiate solemn international agreements and to undermine the security and sovereignty of another state must be condemned,” he said to loud applause. The audience included the Venezuelan Ambassador to Barbados.
“Naval superiority cannot be allowed to supplant the supremacy of the law.  Gunboat diplomacy has no place in the 21st century Caribbean and must be condemned where ever it occurs,” Granger stated.
The Venezuelan President aborted a planned visit to Barbados and sent his deputy instead. Granger was not interested in meeting Maduro’s deputy unless it was to say Venezuela was withdrawing the decree.
Venezuela calls the region over the west bank of the Essequibo river a “reclamation zone,” believing that a controversy could lead to Venezuela “regaining” sovereignty over the region.  As far as Guyana is concerned, the 1899 arbitral award that defined the borders was final and legally binding.

By Neil Marks in Barbados

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