Georgetown : Brigadier David Granger, Leader of the Opposition and Mr Khemraj Ramjattan of the Alliance for Change met Professor Norman Girvan, the Good Officer in the Guyana-Venezuela territorial controversy, at the Parliament Building on today.
Professor Girvan was in the country to meet President Donald Ramotar and took the opportunity to brief the opposition parties in the National Assembly on his duties. He was appointed by Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon as his Personal Representative to support him (the Secretary General) in his role as Good Officer.
Brigadier Granger proposed to Professor Girvan two measures which he should recommend to the Government of Guyana to strengthen the process. The first was the establishment of a permanent National Borders Commission which can continue to accumulate data and documents. The second was the reactivation of the Foreign Service Institute which could conduct seminars and workshops to help to demystify the controversy especially for Foreign Service officers and international relations students.
Professor Girvan – a renowned Caribbean economist, academic, international civil servant and a former Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States – has been employed in the search for a practical settlement of the controversy that emerged from the Venezuelan contention that the Arbitral Award of 3rd October 1899 which definitively established the territorial boundary between Guyana and Venezuela, is null and void.
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