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Joined: Oct 1999
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Marty Offline OP
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Belize and Guatemala have been in territorial talks under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS) since 2000, and while OAS officials said in the Tuesday night forum, dubbed "Culture of Peace Forum", that we are very close to solving the age-old dispute, the extent of Guatemala's claim-deemed by all Belizeans to be unfounded and unjust-has still not been clearly defined.

We understand from Foreign Affairs officials that Guatemala's last written communication staking claim to half of Belize, from the Sarstoon to the Belize River, said in another breath that Guatemala is reserving the right to resurrect its claim to "all of Belize." In fact, this is reflected in the country's new passport, which has a dotted line along the full length of the country's western border with Belize.

When we probed our sources within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the matter, we were told that they do not know exactly what claim Guatemala will bring, if the matter is voted for adjudication at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Voters who are expected to endorse the ICJ process in national referenda to be held in Belize and Guatemala on dates yet to be announced will also not have this clear in their minds when they go to cast their ballots-a point of concern raised by some persons who flatly reject the ICJ mode of resolution.

When Belize and Guatemala signed the special agreement (or compromis) to have the claim adjudicated at the ICJ, the parties agreed, under Article 2, that they would ask the ICJ "to determine� any and all legal claims of Guatemala against Belize to land and insular territories and to any maritime areas pertaining to these territories, to declare the rights therein of both Parties, and to determine the boundaries between their respective territories and areas." (Emphasis ours.)

The uncertainty as to exactly what claim Guatemala would bring is reflected in the referendum question, outlined in the compromis:

"Do you agree that any legal claim of Guatemala against Belize relating to land and insular territories and to any maritime areas pertaining to these territories should be submitted to the International Court of Justice for final settlement and that it determine finally the boundaries of the respective territories and areas of the Parties?" (Emphasis ours.)

We note that while the special agreement says that putting the matter before the ICJ would mean that the ICJ would "determine finally the boundaries of the respective territories and areas of the Parties�" Belize continues to insist that its borders, as set out in its national constitution, are defined in the 1859 Boundary Treaty.

Meanwhile, Belize's Foreign Affairs Minister Wilfred "Sedi" Elrington, said at the Tuesday night forum that Guatemala sought to repudiate the 1859 Treaty "and the boundary line it created�"

However, the very first article of that treaty makes it clear - that the boundaries of the country now known as Belize did not originate in 1859. The boundaries were established at least a decade earlier, and the document speaks of the existence of those boundaries even before the year 1850 began.

In the treaty, Britain and Guatemala declared that, "�the boundary between the Republic and the British Settlement and Possessions in the Bay of Honduras, as they existed previous to and on the 1st of January 1850, and have continued to exist up to the present time, was and is as follows�" (Emphasis ours.)

It went on to detail where the border between the countries lies:

"Beginning at the mouth of the River Sarstoon in the Bay of Honduras, and proceeding up the mid channel thereof to Gracias a Dios Falls; then turning to the right and continuing by a line drawn direct from Gracias a Dios Falls to Garbutt's Falls on the River Belize, and from Garbutt's Falls due north until it strikes the Mexican frontier."

In the treaty, Britain and Guatemala both "agreed and declared" that all the territory to the north and east of the line of boundary belonged to Britain and the territory to the south and west to Guatemala.

It has been widely argued that Britain's failure to build an access road for Guatemala is the reason why Guatemala no longer accepts the treaty.

Article VII speaks of an agreement between the countries to "�conjointly to use their best efforts, by taking adequate means for establishing the easiest communication (either by means of a cart-road, or employing the rivers, or both united, according to the opinion of the surveying engineers), between the fittest place on the Atlantic coast, near the settlement of Belize and the Capital of Guatemala�" for commerce by both parties, and added that "�the limits of the two countries being now clearly defined, all further encroachments by either party on the territory of the other will be effectually checked and prevented for the future."

Of course, the treaty did not stop incursions. Ironically, Elrington told the media on Monday that it was Guatemala that had complained of incessant incursions by the British back then, due to the expanding logwood trade. We note that today, it is Belize that is complaining of incessant incursions, linked to illegal logging, xate extraction, gold panning, illegal fishing, and the looting of archaeological artifacts.

In November 1980, in the months before Belize received its independence from Britain, the United Nations passed a resolution on the Question of Belize in relation to its ensuing independence.

Clause 5 of that resolution "urges the Government of the United Kingdom, acting in close consultation with the Government of Belize, and the Government of Guatemala, to continue their efforts to reach agreement without prejudice to the exercise by the people of Belize of their inalienable rights and in furtherance of peace and stability of the region and in this connexion, to consult as appropriate with other specially interested."

Clause 9 of the resolution "calls upon Guatemala and independent Belize to work out arrangements for post-independence cooperation on matters of mutual concern�"

In November 2012, Amandala had a chance to interview UK Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Hugo Swire. We told the minister that there are some Belizeans who say that it is the British who left Belize with this problem and that Guatemala should settle its issues with the British-not with Belize.

We live in 2012 and the only ones that can solve the problem, he said, are Guatemala and Belize - not the UK, he insisted.

A report titled, Background and Study of the Special Agreement between Guatemala and Belize to Submit Guatemala's Territorial, Insular and Maritime Claim to the International Court of Justice, by Gustavo Adolfo Orellana Portillo, and appearing on the website of Guatemala's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says, "The compensation mentioned in article VII of the 1859 Convention was not carried out, and on 5 August 1863, a Convention was signed whereas: '�Her British Majesty undertakes to request that her Parliament authorizes the payment of FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING to fulfill the obligation entered into according to article VII of the Convention of 30 April 1859�'"

Portillo wrote that Britain argued that Guatemala did not ratify the supplementary convention of 5 August 1863, and so Britain "unilaterally resolved that the government itself was absolutely exonerated of obligations."

He added that, "The Guatemalan Constitution of 1945 declared that Belize formed part of Guatemalan territory, and that negotiations leaning to its reincorporation were of general interest. This resulted in an immediate British protest, in the sense that Belize was British territory and that its boundaries had been established by the 1859 treaty."

See pertinent web links:

Compromis: https://www.oas.org/sap/peacefund/PeaceMissions/SpecialAgreementBetweenBelizeandGuatemala.pdf

Text of the 1859 Treaty: http://amandala.com.bz/news/1859-boundary-treaty/

Amandala


Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
Marty Offline OP
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I agree with the Guatemalan president elect

By Wellington C. Ramos

According to Guatemalan president elect Carlos Morales, Belize is entrenched as part of Guatemala in the constitution and so the country should not give up even a centimeter.

I agree with the Guatemalan president elect because he cannot give up what does not belong to him or his country.

Centuries before Belize and Guatemala were colonized as new colonies in Central America by the British and the Spanish, the indigenous Maya people had several nation states in the region. When Christopher Columbus landed in this part of the world in 1492 everything changed.

The Catholic Pope Alexander in 1493 granted the Caribbean and the Americas to the Spanish, with the exception of Brazil to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Guatemala was colonized by the Conquistador Alvarado who was sent there by Cortez from Mexico. At that time Mexico City was the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which was the first and largest claimed by the Spanish crown.

Colonization is when a country takes over another country and people for no justifiable reason or reasons. Then in the case of Spain, their colonization included genocide where they used all the means necessary available to them to eliminate the native people from their land and this planet earth. This is stealing because they were taking something from a group of people that did not belong to them.

Anthropological evidence is confirming that there are over a hundred Maya sites found in Belize, with some autonomous communities. The nations of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and many others in the world today derived through unlawful means and as such their legitimacy is questionable. Today, in Guatemala the native Maya people are still experiencing human rights abuses by the Guatemalan government in their native land.

Who is Carlos Morales? Is he a pure descendant of the colonizers that came from Spain along with Alvarado to take away the land of the Maya people back in the 1600s? Or, is he a mixture of the Spanish that came with Alvarado and the native Maya Indians that were there before the Spanish came. This is an important question for him to answer himself.

If he fails to answer this question or does not know how to answer it, he will not be able to govern Guatemala because the people that own Guatemala will remove him from power. The root of the Guatemalan claim to Belize is based on the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean and the Americas based on the landing of Christopher Columbus in this part of the world. The Catholic Church with its Pope Alexander legalized this criminal act of genocide that should be reversed by our current Pope Francis.

Let us look at all the human rights violations and genocide that have and continue to be committed against the native people of the Caribbean and the Americas since the Spanish people and the other Europeans arrived in this part of the world. If the president of Guatemala did not study the history of the colonization of the Caribbean and the Americas, he still has plenty of time to join us to get the facts.

Guatemala needs to stop claiming Belize and be satisfied with all the vast amount of land they took away from the indigenous Maya people that they are denying them the right to own for themselves.


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