UN Good Officer meets with Ramotar, opposition leaders

Professor Norman Girvan, the Good Officer in the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy, met this week with President Donald Ramotar as well as APNU leader David Granger and AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan.

Professor Girvan, during a courtesy visit to Guyana, met with Ramotar at Office of the President on Monday, and Granger and Ramjattan at Parliament Buildings on Tuesday, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He was appointed by Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon as his Personal Representative to support him in his role as UN Good Officer.

Norman Girvan

According to a press statement from APNU, during the meeting with professor Girvan, Granger proposed two measures which he should recommend to the Government of Guyana to strengthen the process. The first proposal 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 is a renowned Caribbean economist, academic, international civil servant and a former Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States. He 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, the statement concluded.