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Former Foreign Affairs Ministers set the record straight on Confidence Building Measures

By on July 30, 2015
Former Foreign Affairs Ministers of Belize

Former Foreign Affairs Ministers of Belize

Belize City, Belize. Thursday, July 30, 2015. Four former Foreign Ministers of Belize today issued a joint press release on recent pronouncements made by the Foreign Affairs minister of Guatemala Carlos Raul Morales during his recent visit to Belize.

And while Said Musa, Godfrey Smith, Eamon Courtenay and Lisa Shoman chose to diplomatically point out that Morales may have misspoken when he talked about the Confidence Building Measures between Belize and Guatemala, our interpretation of the four points made in the joint release is that the Guatemalan Foreign Minister just plain got it wrong when he spoke on Tuesday during a joint press conference that, a decision was taken to not increase military bases in the vicinity of the borders of both nations.

The points made by Musa, who is a former two-time Prime Minister, Smith, Courtenay and Shoman, read as follows:

1. Neither the 2000, nor the 2005 instruments on the Confidence Building Measures between Belize and Guatemala contain or state anything at all about military bases in either country;
2. No decision or agreement was ever made with Guatemala, in the years
1998 to February 2008 by the Government of Belize with regard to increasing or removing military bases in either Belize or Guatemala;
3. The mechanism to “avoid incidents” in the CBMs included the undertaking by Guatemala to dissuade its citizens from trying to settle
in Belize, a mechanism to remove all illegal Guatemalan settlers in Belize, and a protocol for OAS verification where necessary. It never included any decision or directive in respect of any military base, or any other manner of Operation Post, Conservation Post or Forward Operating Base;
4. There never was, any commitment made between 1998 and 2008 by Guatemala, to Belize in respect of its own military bases, and any decisions made by them with respect to the same, were made unilaterally.

It is a stunning development in the public discourse in the wake of the recent visit of the Guatemalan foreign minister and the apparent public relations campaign on taking Guatemala’s unfounded claim to half of Belize’s territory to the International Court of Justice for final resolution.

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