Email

Print

On last night's news, we had extensive coverage of the press conference held by the Foreign Affairs Ministers of both Belize and Guatemala.

Both Ministers spent plenty of their speaking time about how friendly the relations are between both countries - but that never made it to air because of all the pressing divisive issues. But here's what they had to say about friendly neighbors:

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs - Belize
"The Guatemalan government, certainly those that I met have been very respectful of Belize and have been very insistent that they don't want any violence. They don't want any disharmony between us. They want us to live in peace and harmony and they want to go to the ICJ. That is the official position of the Guatemalan government. That is the official position of Belize government. But both of us understand that we don't speak as a government unless we speak with the authority of our people. So, us officials believe that that is the right course to take and we are advocating it and we are educating our people, but we understand that only our people can give us the authority to do that."

"In the case of Belize, the decision that we must go to the people was taken deliberately during the early days, because of suspicion on the part of the Belizean electorate, with respect to the motives of the then Belizean government."

H. E. Carlos Raul Morales - Guatemalan Foreign Minister
"The ICJ will define in the future our bilateral differendum. But today, he most important thing is to be friends, is to build the base between both countries, is to avoid the fighting one country to the other one, because this is not going to take us to nowhere. Minister Elrington mentioned in other regions they have critical problems and we do not have this problem in this area. Because we have a region of peace and this is very important to understand. Central American countries are trying to build our future. We are trying to build a very good future with opportunities, economical opportunities for everybody."

And you can hear more from the Foreign Ministers tonight at a public forum which will be held at 8:00 pm at the Bliss Center. It will be aired live on Channel 7 starting at 8:00.