7 News Belize

PUP Opposes Agreements
posted (December 17, 2014)

While the signatures on those 13 Bilateral Agreements are drying, the Opposition Party is expressing its concerns that the Barrow Government didn't disclose it to the public before the decision was taken to commit Belize to them.

Party Leader Francis Fonseca spoke to us at Independence Hall this evening in which he concedes that these agreements on the face of them, look like subject area Belizeans can support. He added, however, that because of Guatemala's unfounded claim to Belizean territory, the Government needed to have asked for public buy-in on principle:

Francis Fonseca - Leader of the Opposition

"Over the past few months Belize and Guatemala has been engaged in discussions and negotiations surrounded these bilateral agreements. The People's United Party, through my representative Senator Lisa Shoman has been involved in the process of discussion and negotiating those agreements. But our participation in that process has always been on the basis that those agreements would be made public and the Belizean people would be consulted and those agreements would be disclosed to the Belizean people. I believe there is 15 agreements and 13 of them will be signed today in Placencia between Belize and Guatemala and the presence of the OAS. Many of these agreements we believe are agreements we can support and the Belizean people can and should support. We believe on principle, when we're dealing with Guatemala, a country which holds an unfounded claim against our country, we believe that any agreement that is signed between Belize and Guatemala should be disclosed to the Belizean people - and that is the position of the PUP. We made that very clear to the government, if these agreements were disclosed then we would be in a position to support them but that has not been done. In fact if it was not for our release today, the Belizean people would have not known that these agreements are being signed in Placencia today between Belize and Guatemala. We believe it's a profoundly important issue and we believe we have an obligation and a duty to raise this issue and bring it to the attention of the Belizean people."

The PUP release says, quote, "We call upon the Government of Belize to… ensure that the remaining Agreements on Joint Exploitation of Hydrocarbons and an Air Transport Agreement….be fully made known to Belizeans….before (being) finalized."

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