New UN Good Officer chosen
by Rickey Singh
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (CANA) - Barbadian diplomat, lawyer and columnist, Oliver Jackman has been chosen to replace Sir Alister McIntyre as the new United Nations Good Officer in the longstanding border controversy between Venezuela and Guyana. Venezuela, which has refused to abide by the Award of an 1899 international arbitration tribunal, is claiming some two-thirds of Guyana's 83,000 square miles of territory. Currently a judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Jackman has been accepted by the governments of Guyana and Venezuela as the new mediator of the "Good Offices of the United Nations Secretary General". Shortly after being officially informed by the office of UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, Jackman told CANA yesterday: "I am very honoured to have been chosen to do something as complicated as this dispute." "It is extremely pleasing and flattering to succeed the distinguished Alister McIntyre", he said. McIntyre, former Caribbean Community Secretary General and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, was appointed in 1989 by then UN Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, with the required mutual consent of the parties to the territorial row to act on his behalf as a Good Officer. Early this month it was disclosed that McIntyre had asked to be relieved of his responsibility due to the pressures of other commitments and for health reasons. That disclosure came amid renewed diplomatic exchanges between Caracas and Georgetown following reports of troop movements by Venezuela along the border with Guyana. The Guyana Government had called for a clarification about the troop movements against the background of a statement attributed to President Hugo Chavez urging new negotiations on the territorial controversy since, as he said, his government did not accept as just the 1899 Award. The statement was made on October 3 on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of the tribunal's award. The tribunal, which met in Paris, France, had ruled to be "a full, perfect and final settlement" the demarcation of boundaries - as currently exist. Both Venezuela and Britain, as the then colonising power of British Guiana, had pledged to honour the award. But controversies have persisted down the years with Guyana complaining that the dispute is negatively impacting on its economic development. In recent statements, the Foreign Ministers of Guyana and Venezuela have reaffirmed a commitment to a peaceful resolution to the controversy and have spoken of the desire for continuing friendship between the two countries. Jackman, as the new the UN Good Officer, is expected to meet representatives of Guyana and Venezuela following a meeting soon with the UN Secretary General. The 70-year-old Jackman, a practising lawyer in his native Barbados from 1986, has a long and distinguished career in the Barbados diplomatic service. This includes serving as ambassador to the European Community, the UN, the United States, the Organisation of American States and High Commissioner to Canada. A former Chief Information Officer of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and subsequently Political Affairs Officer of the United Nations Operations in the Congo, the multi-lingual speaking Jackman is a former President of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. Within the past five years he has served as a member of Haiti's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Barbados Social Justice Commission and the Barbados Constitution Review Commission. In 1995 he was elected for a six-year term as Judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. A former journalist and public information officer for a number of years, Jackman is a weekly columnist of the 'Nation' newspaper of Barbados and an occasional consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on human rights and diplomatic training.
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