By Odeen IshmaelThe Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mesa de la Unidad Democr?tica, MUD), the opposition coalition whichDr. Odeen Ishmaelnow holds a huge majority in the Venezuelan National Assembly, feels that mediation should be applied to solve the problem surrounding the controversy over the arbitral award that delimited the boundary between Guyana and Venezuela in 1899.This position is highlighted in a document prepared by the coalition’s International Affairs Committee in September last year immediately after the short meeting at the UN headquarters between Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Guyana’s President David Granger and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. The document, entitled “The intransigent position of Guyana is a consequence of the wrong foreign policy of the Government of Venezuela” denounces the meeting, claiming that Venezuela lost the initiative to push for bilateral negotiation on the issue.PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE MUDBack on September 28, 2015, Timoteo Zambrano, the coordinator of the International Affairs Committee of the MUD, at a press conference regretted that “the accumulation of errors” by the governments of Venezuela and Guyana through the UN meeting “caused the loss of the bilateral control of the border negotiation, transferring the decision to a third party: the United Nations (UN).”This declaration by the MUD about the involvement of a United Nations remains somewhat confusing since the world body has been involved in the process since 1982—an involvement specified by the Geneva Agreement reached by the British, Guyanese and Venezuelan governments in February 1966. Further, Zambrano failed to specify the “errors” of the Venezuelan and Guyanese governments.The MUD document, publicized in the run-up to the December parliamentary elections, remains as the main policy statement by the Venezuelan opposition on the border issue with Guyana. No doubt, mediation will be the method it intends to suggest to the Venezuelan government, and will raise with the UN Secretary General if it wins the presidential elections in three years’ time.GUYANA WANTS ICJ INVOLVEMENTIn fact, mediation is one of many choices at the disposal of the UN Secretary General who is mandated by the Geneva Agreement to select a method of finding a solution to the controversy. Even though it is believed that he can unilaterally decide on a particular method as listed in Article 33 of the UN Charter, he will no doubt want to have both parties having consensus on his selection.Both Guyana and Venezuela initially agreed on his decision to apply the Good Office methodology, by which a representative of the Secretary General met with both governments separately or together to hear their ideas of reaching a solution. But after twenty-five years, that method has not produced any tangible result. Subsequently, Guyana announced in early 2015 that it would opt out of the Good Office process and proposed that the UN Secretary General should now involve of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to help solve the issue.The MUD opposition, in its statement, wants the Venezuelan government to “clarify publicly” that the nation does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ in the effort to find a solution to the existing controversy. It insists that Venezuela cannot accept that jurisdiction since that would contravene the protocol of Bogota, which it sees as “keeping our tradition of resolving border disputes bilaterally.”The Bogota protocol of 1948 formally established the Organization of American States, but no reference is made to it on the 1966 Geneva Agreement. And, in any case, Guyana’s position is that the dispute was already settled in 1899 by the arbitration tribunal, which was itself a form of “mediation.”“OSTRICH DIPLOMACY”The Maduro administration also objects to the involvement of the ICJ and, in what can be described as “ostrich diplomacy,Cheap Jerseys Free Shipping,” insists that the UN Good Office should be retained, despite its ineffectiveness over the past twenty-five years. From time to time, too, successive Venezuelan administrations have suggested bilateral negotiations on the issue, a position that Guyana does not support. Furthermore,Cheap Baseball Jerseys China, Venezuela feels that a solution to the controversy entails the ceding of territory by Guyana; on the other hand, Guyana maintains that Venezuela should withdraw its spurious claim and accept the finality of the 1899 award as it did up to 1962.At a press conference, Zambrano, who was accompanied by former Foreign Minister Fernando Ochoa Antich and the executive secretary of the MUD, Jesus Torrealba, said “mediation” should be applied, as was first suggested by the government of Hugo Chavez, in 1998. This method, he insisted, would “allow the establishment of a more effective negotiation to find a satisfactory solution for the practical settlement of t