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Hon. Wilfred: A Brief History Of Land Cession Proposals
posted (March 24, 2016)
In last night's news, we showed you excerpts of Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington's presentation on Belize Guatemala relations while he was contributing to the budget debate. He minced no words when he lambasted the local press for the coverage of the flash points related to the territorial dispute.

Well, he also went after the Opposition PUP, and their allegations that he's ceded the Sarstoon River to Guatemala during his 8 year tenure as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Elrington dug deep into the history books to revisit proposals that the PUP administration's of the distant and recent past had to discuss about handing over Belizean territory to settle the dispute:

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"The most recent myth is that the Sarstoon is gone. That Prime Minister and myself have given away the Sarstoon. Night and day I was accused of giving away to Guatemala parts of Belize and the Sarstoon. To the point where I went on the street, people looked at me and curse me. Nothing was further from the truth, but I never responded and I never responded because this issue is too important to bengaline it, and trivialized it and to make it a political football - it's too important."

"We in this party had never ever done anything to put this country in jeopardy. But we can't say the same for the other side. The British government said to the Guatemalans as early as 1939 when they came up with this idea that they were going to repudiate the boundary treaty, they said to them go to the international court of justice. We are not going to negotiate it with you at all. It was only when the nationalist started getting involved in politics. When the People's United Party got involved in politics and started make representation that we had the beginning of negotiations with Guatemala. The British refused to negotiate with Guatemala and the first incidents of negotiation Mr. Speaker occurred in as early as 1957 when the Guatemalan foreign minister Jorge Granados in London proposed to the then Premier Price, Albert Cattouse, Mr. Bowman and Mr. Jeffreys, that if they were not happy with the result of their meeting in London with the British, they should go back to Belize and advocate that Belize become an associate state of Guatemala."

"According to Assad Shoman in his "A History of Belize, in thirteen chapters," the following proposals were put to the Belize delegation in their attempt to try to settle the Belize/Guatemala dispute and to get independence. And that proposal in 1966 proposed that we gave away to Guatemala the southern portion of our country, from just below PG all the way down. Second proposal, proposal made in 1975 was that we give them piece of land from Monkey River down. See the line here. He has the line here - from Monkey River down. The third proposal, that was made in 1975 as well, that we give just above Monkey River, the Deep River area from that area down and then we have a proposal that we give them from the Orange Point, 1977 down. That is below PG and then we have proposals that we give them from the Temash River and all the Ranguana and the Sapodilla Cayes. These are proposals that in fact were made to the Belize delegation by the Guatemalans, the British and the Americans, with a view to trying to solve the dispute. I will not on this occasion called the specific names of who made what proposals, because that will be too embarrassing. But I promise that in fact unless the People's United Party, the people on the other side take steps to desist from suggesting that we in fact have lost control of the Sartsoon and in that fact that we have given it away. When I come the next time Mr. Speaker, I can promise you that I will tell the nation the specific proposals, who made them and when."

During that speech, Elrington reiterated his mantra: that the only way to peacefully resolve the dispute and keep Belizean soldiers from ever losing their lives, is to go to the ICJ.

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