And moving on to the subject that’s been quite the buzz recently,
the PM discussed his meeting with US President Barack Obama and the possibility
– however remote – that he could come to Belize. The two leader
shared a table at the official summit dinner on Saturday night in Port of Spain
and Barrow says it was Obama who asked him about Belize.
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“He was extremely friendly, it is not just what he said but the body
language that accompanied his pronouncements, suggested this is somebody serious
about a fresh start in terms of hemispheric relations. He appeared genuinely
interested in Belize. He didn’t know about Belize and when he said that
he would like to visit and that he is recording an intention to visit, I took
him seriously. As I said to Adele in Trinidad and Tobago, he told me that he
proposes within the next month to six weeks to nominate an Ambassador to Belize.
The person he has in mind is, I think he described him as an old college
buddy, and we all know of the sorts of friendships that are formed between and
among college buddies. But my sense that he was choosing his pick for Belize
very carefully, that it was deliberate that this was somebody personally close
to him and that it would be a question of good looking out for Belize under
the watch of the new Ambassador. Of course the nomination has to go to Congress
and nobody can be certain that Congress will approve. The President also made
the point that once the new Ambassador is in place, that would make it even
easier or certainly less difficult to arrange the logistics of his visit to
Belize. So I took him very seriously.”