Increasing contacts required for practical solution - Jackman Stabroek News March 24, 2000 Contacts at all levels between the peoples of Guyana and Venezuela must be increased further if there is going to be a practical solution to the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy, according to UN Good Officer, Oliver Jackman. Jackman, a Barbadian jurist who succeeded to the post when former UWI Vice Chancellor, Sir Alister McIntyre resigned last October, expressed this view when he spoke with journalists at a press conference he hosted at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Speaking about his impressions of his first contacts with the Guyana and Venezuelan governments, Jackman admitted that he had no idea at present what a practical solution could be. "I have not been able to put down on a piece of paper what I think I should be doing over the next two years or so because I don't yet have enough information; I don't yet have enough of a feel for the details and the trend of what has gone before." However, he said that he hoped that at the end of a meeting he expected to have with the facilitators of the two countries probably in early May, "I will be able to sketch for the Secretary General some kind of a work programme, some kind of a vision as to what may or may not be possible." He described the facilitators as the spokesmen of their two governments and a sounding board for the UN Secretary General. Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran is Guyana's facilitator to the Good Officer process. Jackman noted that during the past nine to ten years and before that "both within and outside the Good Officer procedure the contacts between the authorities and between the civil societies of the two countries have increased. "Those contacts should be increased even more if there is going to be a practical solution to the controversy." He observed during that period too because of the UN involvement "peace has been kept between Guyana and Venezuela and I don't think that is a negligible fact." He stressed, however, that it was the view of the Guyana government which he believed was supported by the text of the Geneva Agreement that the Good Offices had to do with the controversy which came about as a result of Venezuela's claim that the 1899 Arbitral Award was void. "Nothing in the Geneva Agreement puts the UN Good Office's operation up against the question of settling the border controversy. We are trying to find solutions to a controversy." Jackman responding to comments as to what his reaction would be if he perceived Venezuela's action in pursuit of its claim to the Essequibo region as threatening to this country said he would have "absolutely no hesitation [in speaking out] if I consider it was appropriate. I would bark very loud and bark in the right places." Questioned if he had perceived any flexibility on the part of Venezuela to find a peaceful solution, Jackman said that he was not prepared to comment on Venezuela's flexibility as that would require a value judgement he was not in a position to make. However, he said that all the officials he had spoken to, military and civilian, had expressed a desire for a friendly and peaceful settlement, even though pressing Venezuela's claim to the Essequibo. Commenting on reasons for taking up the assignment, Jackman said that he took the job because he felt maintaining peace was important. However, he observed that the process would take time and since he was retired time was what he had plenty of. Jackman said that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had been initially very critical of the process but that he had subsequently changed his stance after he believed he had sought and listened to the advice he had been given. Asked if he had been apprised of incursions into Guyana's territory in December 1998 and October 1999, Jackman said that he had been informed of the 1999 incident and was assured that it had not been a military exercise but an anti-drug exercise that had been conducted by the Venezuelan National Guard.