And while the volunteers are working the borderline – last week, the Prime Minister was working the diplomatic channels on the same border dispute. The Prime Minister went to New York to meet the UN Secretary General and he went to Haiti for the fifth meeting of the Association of Caribbean states where meetings were held with the Guatemalan Foreign Minister. Today, the Prime Minister spoke about both sets of meetings, dealing first with the Secretary General. The issue there was the report of that offensive Guatemalan passport which annexes Belizean territory and separates it with only a dotted line. Well, it turns out that Guatemala gets its passports through the UN Office of Procurement and the PM wanted to urge Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon not to sanction the printing of that offensive version:…
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"I wanted to reinforce the message from myself to the UN Secretary General that we would expect that the UN Procurement Services office would not in fact facilitate the obtaining of any passports by Guatemala that would contain a map that purported to show Belize as part of the national territory of Guatemala. I also received the assurance from SG Ban Ki-moon that that would not happen, and I said to him that we hoped that the he would particularly use his good offices to try to prevail the Guatemalans to act in a fashion that was not in consistent with and in fact reflect their respect for Belize's sovereignty and separate identity. I made clear that for us we needed to record our objection to the fact that the Guatemalans as it appeared were unilaterally withdrawing from the agreed date - the mutually agreed date for the holding of the referendum. I signaled that in our view that unilateral withdrawal quite possibly constituted a breach of the special agreement."
And while Guatemala has gone rogue on the spirit and letter of the Special Agreement – the agreement still stands. That's what Foreign Ministers Elrington and Carerra spoke about in Haiti – where the Guatemalans made it official that they have pulled out of the October sixth referendum.
Hon. Dean Barrow
"Just as clearly - there will be no referendum on October 6th. There's been a suggestion in some quarters that Belize could still proceed to hold its referendum. That is not on - the Cabinet has rejected that suggestion. The referendum is off in both countries. This does not bring the special agreement to an end. Remember the fixing of the date was not done under the Special Agreement. The Special Agreement committed us to go under a referendum on a date to be mutually agreed. Thereafter, a date was mutually agreed which Guatemalans are unilaterally withdrawing. I don't think it violates the fundaments, they're withdrawal is from the date. They make clear is not a withdrawal from the agreement to hold the referendum still. I believe it is not in Belize's interest to say 'Well, we will treat what we regard as a breach as fundaments and we will declare the Special Agreement at an end.' I think the special agreement has to be kept in place. I genuinely do not see any other option. I don't know what we do if we declare the special agreement at an end."
The PM says he wants the OAS Adjacency Zone office to remain open.
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