Guatemala pulls out of Belize border dispute referendum date
The prime minister of Belize, Dean Barrow, has confirmed
that Guatemala has unilaterally withdrawn from holding a referendum on October
6, 2013 – to be held simultaneously with a similar referendum in Belize – over
the question of referring the territorial dispute between the two countries to
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for arbitration.
A special agreement between Belize and Guatemala on
submitting the issue to the ICJ was signed on December 8, 2008.
In Belize, voters were to be asked:
“Do you agree that any legal claim of Guatemala against
Belize relating to land and insular territories and to any maritime areas
pertaining to these territories should be submitted to the International Court
of Justice for final settlement and that it determine finally the boundaries of
the respective territories and areas of the parties?”
Barrow said following a meeting with United Nations
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the issue in New York last week, “We needed to
record our objection to the fact that the Guatemalans as it appeared were
unilaterally withdrawing from the agreed date -- the mutually agreed date for
the holding of the referendum. I signaled that in our view that unilateral
withdrawal quite possibly constituted a breach of the special agreement."
Nevertheless, Barrow went on to indicate that he did not
consider it to be in the best interests of Belize to treat the agreement with
Guatemala as being terminated, arguing that the special agreement provided only
for a referendum to be held on a date to be mutually agreed, not the specific
date itself.
“A date was mutually agreed from which the Guatemalans
are unilaterally withdrawing. I don't think it violates the fundamentals, their
withdrawal is from the date,” he said.
“Remember the fixing of the date was not done under the
special agreement. They make clear that it is not a withdrawal from the
agreement to hold the referendum still. I genuinely do not see any other
option. I don't know what we do if we declare the special agreement at an
end," Barrow noted.
Meanwhile, Barrow also raised another recent controversy
with the UN secretary general concerning the reported issue by Guatemala of
passports containing a map that effectively annexes Belizean territory and
separates it from Guatemala with only a dotted line.
It was subsequently discovered that Guatemala obtains
its passports through the UN Office of Procurement and Barrow urged Ban not to
sanction the printing of the offending version.
"I wanted to reinforce the message myself to the UN
Secretary General that we would expect that the UN Procurement Services office
would not in fact facilitate the obtaining of any passports by Guatemala that
would contain a map that purported to show Belize as part of the national
territory of Guatemala. I also received the assurance from SG Ban Ki-moon that
that would not happen and I said to him that we hoped that the he would
particularly use his good offices to try to prevail the Guatemalans to act in a
fashion that was not in consistent with and in fact reflect their respect for
Belize's sovereignty and separate identity,” Barrow said.
By Cristal Romo
Caribbean News Now contributor
By Cristal Romo
Caribbean News Now contributor
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