But in the meantime, has there been too much focus of the Belize Guatemala Territorial Dispute to the exclusion of other equally pressing, national issues?
Earlier this week, we told you how the Guatemalan Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales, accused his Government of using the territorial claim as a distraction from the real problems facing that country. Well today, the press asked Opposition Leader John Briceño about the possibility that the territorial dispute is distracting the Belizean public in a similar way. He told us that he certainly thinks so:
Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"You can make the case that, I am not suggesting in any way that the government is happy for what's taking place there, but it certainly has afforded them an opportunity to divert attention from the real, the other pressing problems that we have in this country and we in the Opposition have not forgotten those issues. We bring it up in the Belize Times, we bring it up in our talk show and pretty soon we are going to have a full press conference where we are going to talk about these issues. We have the issue of BTL, where because of the folly of this government or their arrogance or their pride, it's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to the Belizean tax payers. Monies that we can't afford. Let's not forget they blew away 325 million dollars in two years. In the last month of the election it was 44.7 million dollars that they just blew away for them to win the election. So now the treasury is broke and now we have to find hundreds of millions of dollars to pay, because the agreement that the Prime Minister sign on behalf of the country was pretty much that whatever the courts decides, he is going to live up by that. So we have that. We have the issue of crime where once again it's rearing its ugly head where our people are shooting one another, killing one another. It's really a major concern in this country. We have the issue of the economy, that it is slowing down. All that Petro Caribe money that was just thrown on a wild party before the elections. Now that money has been working its way through the economy. So that money is drying up. So now the economy is starting to contract."
Later on in the news, we'll have a little more from that interview with the Opposition Leader when he speaks about Government's handling of Mennonite Farmer Roger Plett's story of abduction in Belize and detention in Guatemala.
Email
Print