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Foreign Minister’s Trial In The Court of Public Opinion
posted (April 15, 2016)
And just before that motorcade to the Benque/Melchor Border, the forum closed with a question and answer section. The teachers were allowed to ask the two Panelists, Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington, and Ambassador Assad Shoman, about any and everything pertaining to the Belize - Guatemala issue.

And the "maestros" seized upon the opportunity. In fact, it got to a point where the teachers more or less put Elrington's handling of the Foreign Affairs portfolio on trial in the court of public opinion. Here are some of the tough questions that they put to Belize's top diplomat:

Teacher
"I a lot a lot to say."

Organizer
"Excuse me, one minutes please. Let's not forget the rule."

Teacher
"I will speak. It's my turn. We are bullied by our neighbor and we can't stand up. We are living in a abusive relationship here and we are afraid… as our minister said. I don't know why, but this is not a relationship that is working. We have to stand up to our bullies. The bullies will be there as long as we do not make a stand sir. People, you try to plant a corn field at the border and you will see what will happen to you. There are so much milpas there. They are there and we leave them there. You see how aggressive we are with each other here? In the house of representative, that's a pit right there, how the opposition and the government hate each other. But when they have these meetings our minister is so kind to them - that's good. But when we protest - remember when Clown Morales came to Belize after what he said, they beat our friends... and when we find one little gram of cannabis, they send all the soldiers to beat them up."

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Getting to the point now where there is one state, one Jewish state - they have no space for Palestinians. That can happen. Why would you fight? You have weapons to fight, you have monies to fight them with? Is it war you want? Is your children prepared to fight? When the war start, do you know what will happen to tourism? The tourists are going to go you know."

Teacher
"In light of all that, I do agree that we are taking a stance, simply by being here we are educating ourselves whether we should go to the ICJ or not. That is a stance. I agree one hundred percent as well that the pen is mightier than the sword and having said that, just a worse case scenario that okay, we go to the ICJ and they rule against us or they rule for us and Guatemala we know like everybody says is a bully, where will we get the military support from to defend our country in case that happens? I know that Mr. Elrington just mentioned that we have support from Central America and all those other areas. But, is there an international campaign going on to educate the international community to support our caused?"

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Every single year it is at the CARICOM meeting, I have raised it over and over in the United Nations. We have it on the forefront. The difficulty we have so far is that we can't get an agreed position on going to the ICJ, to the point where our European friends and our other friends are if you can't get your act together, then how do you want to come to us for money. If you want 2 million, five hundred thousand from us, you mean you can't get your act together. You want us to finance that border project, but you can't agree. You don't know if you want to go to the ICJ or you don't want to go to the ICJ. And the irony of it is that it was under the PUP a decision was made to go to the ICJ. We simply follow it through."

Teacher
"The minister mentioned earlier about trying to make us feel safe. Sir, with all due respect ask the Belizean people if we feel safe right now? and lastly, a while back there was a report that came on the air with the BDF making a report about 2006, the encounters that they've been having with the Guatemalan Navy and what was said from our minister in response to that was 'I was not aware of such a report' and then he made a statement that really broke my heart sir. The statement you made was 'if what is being reported or what has been reported in that report was so, then why haven't we been receiving deaths'."

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"As societies, societies have violent confrontation for years. If you listen to the international news, you will know that over the last 2 years, the amount of people who died in Syria alone are more than the population of Belize. Only in 2 years' time. The amount of people who have died in Palestine are thousands and thousands of people, died at the hands of the military."

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