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Cracks in the façade

FeaturesCracks in the façade

I listened with interest to the departing British High Commissioner’s Monday morning interview on Love FM and must say that I am in total agreement with his position on the benefits that an ICJ decision on the validity of the international border established by the 1859 Treaty would confer on Belize.

However, I consider it disingenuous of him to purport that this is what the Special Agreement seeks to accomplish. I also take exception to his contention that a “No” vote in the upcoming referendum would necessarily make us lose the moral high ground with the international community.

Let me be clear, I am positively convinced that Belize should eventually take the border dispute to the ICJ for judgment on the validity of the 1859 Treaty, but definitely not under the present circumstances, and categorically not by using this 2008 Special Agreement with Guatemala as the terms of reference.

Simply asking the ICJ to rule on the validity of our borders with Guatemala and receiving an affirmation of this, as might be still possible, would take the wind out of Guatemala’s sail, and we would still enjoy the same added security without risking the devastation that this insidious document would expose us to.

It is immaterial if Guatemala would then not agree to accept the court’s decision; we would still derive the same defensive international support enhancement, and I further believe, that any country whose morality is above reproach, would respect and not condemn us for making the right decision. Now let us proceed with the topic of this correspondence.

Should the voters of Belize decide not to go to ICJ in the upcoming referendum scheduled for April next year, then our elected leaders will be obliged to make a political decision whether or not to respect the will of the people. This is so because under the deformed democracy which exists in Belize, the will of the people is not necessarily the policy of the Government.

Under our present referendum laws, results do not compel the Government to act in accordance with the decision of the voters. A case in point was the referendum to have an elected Senate. The people spoke, but their decision has so far been disrespected, and now, if the hands of those who are hell-bent on dismembering The Jewel are as heavy as I suspect them to be, who knows what course of action our Government will then pursue?

It therefore behooves us to realistically consider the profound implications of our collective decision in the existential crisis that confronts us and to prepare as best we can for what may aptly be described as an imminent cataclysmic storm, lest we be blindly led, by those of questionable motives and deep pockets, but whose leadership track record to date has been less than stellar, down a path where even angels may fear to tread.

Pursuing this objective, the first and most urgent task to perform in anticipation of the coming storm is to assess the structural soundness of our shelter. This may best be ascertained by locating the cracks in the façade, in order that we may properly evaluate their severity. So let us begin by sedulously analyzing the litigation risk that could contribute to a catastrophic failure by Belize to secure a favorable judgment against Guatemala at the ICJ, should we be forced to swallow this repugnant OAS-brewed ICJ medicine, prescribed, endorsed, and cogently promoted by our Government as the panacea to our long standing territorial dispute with Guatemala.

This being the case, the ICJ will be tasked to determine, as specified in the 2008 compromis, the legality of the Guatemalan claim to Belizean territory. Belize’s foremost and most convincing argument for lawful ownership of its 8867 square miles will be the Convention between Her Britannic Majesty and the Republic of Guatemala relative to the boundaries of British Honduras signed on the 30th of April, 1859. Of paramount significance here are the following two articles of that document in which our borders with Guatemala were clearly delineated.

Article I: It is agreed between Her Britannic Majesty and the Republic of Guatemala that the Boundary between the Republic and the British Settlement and possessions in the Bay of Honduras, as they existed previous to and on the 1st day of January, 1850 and have continued to exist up to the time, was and is as follows: Beginning at the mouth of the River Sarstoon in the Bay of Honduras, and proceeding up the mid-channel thereof to Gracias a Dios Falls; then turning to the right and continuing by a line drawn direct from Gracias a Dios Falls due North until it strikes the Mexican Border: It is agreed and declared between the High Contracting Parties that all the territory to the North and East of the line of Boundary above described belongs to Her Britannic Majesty, and that all the territory to the South and West of the same belongs to the Republic of Guatemala.

Article VI: It is further agreed that the channels in the waterline of the boundary described in Article I of the present convention shall be equally free and open to the vessels and boats of both parties; and that any islands which may be found therein shall belong to that party on whose side of the main navigable channel they are situated.

Now, it has been concluded by the legal experts who studied the claim, that this document is a valid Border Treaty with Guatemala which cannot be unilaterally invalidated by Guatemala for any reason, and certainly not as they contend, because of the British failure to honor, to their satisfaction, Article 7 of the Convention.

Nevertheless, it stands to reason that the one and only sure way this treaty, or any agreement between two parties for that matter, can be indisputably  invalidated is if, and only if, both parties to the agreement mutually affirm that it is now longer valid. So when Guatemala announced at the beginning of the Second World War, that they had unilaterally nullified the treaty, the British, knowing that they could not legally do so, challenged them to have the international court decide on the legal validity of their contention.

Knowing that they would invariable lose, they declined. In continuation of our analysis, it should be noted that of significance here is the fact that when Belize attained independence in 1981, it replaced Great Britain as the second party to this border convention.

Fast forward to the present and the burning question arises, why is Guatemala now willing to take the matter to court? One reason may be that they know that they will no longer have to contend with the astute British diplomats who had successfully outwitted them into signing the border treaty in the first place.

More pointedly, however, is the fact that there are now very compelling new circumstances that will virtually guarantee them success at the ICJ, some of which I will now identify. Simultaneously, these are also the most severe cracks in the façade of our defense against the anticipated legal arguments that Guatemala will make to the ICJ.

1. Our government, presently being the second party to the border treaty, has in effect inexplicable joined Guatemala in affirming the invalidity of both the 1859 Treaty and the international boundary it established. This is irrefutable so because, logically speaking, anyone who understands the English language will be forced to admit, that Article One conjointly with Article Six of this 1859 Treaty before written, clearly and unambiguously define our Western and Southern borders with Guatemala. Hence logic dictates that the Government’s assertion that our borders with Guatemala are “undefined” can be true if and only if the 1859 Treaty and the specific international boundary it established are both invalid, as Guatemala contends. So it follows that since both substantive parties to the convention are now in concerted agreement that the 1859 Treaty is invalid, the only circumstance, mutual agreement by both parties as was stated before, which can confer legal invalidity to the treaty, is duly satisfied. Axiomatically, even though the ICJ has ruled that an international boundary once established, survives the demise of the treaty that created it, this does not imply, as the legal experts who studied the Guatemalan claim pointed out, that it cannot be removed to another location with the mutual consent of both countries. And that consent is precisely what this cunningly OAS drafted ICJ  Belize/Guatemala Compromis gives in Article 5 of the Special Agreement which reads, “The Parties shall accept the decision of the Court as final and binding, and undertake to comply with and implement it in full and in good faith. In particular, the Parties agree that, within three months of the date of the Judgment of the Court, they will agree on the composition and terms of reference of a Bi-national Commission to carry out the demarcation of their boundaries in accordance with the decision of the Court. It therefore follows that should we go before the ICJ under this agreement, the court will have already been given prior consent by both countries to alter the 1859 internationally established boundary. …”  But even more shocking is the report that in 1992 Guatemala and Belize issued a joint statement suspending the borders of Belize! This is tantamount to the confirmed abrogation of the 1859 border convention!! Consequently our major and strongest arguments for the ownership of the 8867 square miles have been effectively emasculated! Such insidiously engineered cracks speak to the brilliance and hypocrisy of our adversaries and constitute lethal flaws in our defense.

2. Additional credence to contention that the 1859 Treaty has been abrogated and that the international boundary it had established have been conjointly dissolved by Belize and Guatemala may also be derived from our Government’s acceptance of an imaginary line where our hitherto internationally recognized border used to be and their failure, to date, to internationalize Guatemala’s violation of our sovereignty and to formally protest to the United Nations and to the Organization of American States their blatant aggression in the Sarstoon. Additionally the Government’s failure to satisfactorily defend our Southern border and to formally repeal the Maritime Areas Act will most likely also be viewed by the ICJ as a tacit admission to the authenticity of Guatemala’s claim.

3. Having effectively proven the invalidity of the 1859 border treaty and successfully suspending  the international boundary it had established, Guatemala will then be free to convince the ICJ judges to award them Belizean territory by simply presenting their “any and all legal claims” for compensation to satisfy the debt owed to them by the Brits. This is especially true since their terms of reference will be the artfully worded compromis, which empowers the judges to irrevocably establish our “undefined” borders in accordance with the portion of Belize they determine to be Guatemala’s just entitlement since there is no provision made in the compromis for monetary compensation to Guatemala.

Other significant cracks can also be inferred from the formidable geopolitical power of our heavy handed and duplicitous “friends”, who are in reality backing Guatemala in their covetous attempt to dismember the Jewel. Additionally, other cracks might also arise from the fact that the physical demarcation of our Western border by Britain and Guatemala in 1931 was never properly completed since it was jointly preformed only from the Gracias a Dios Falls in the Sarstoon to the monument near Benque Viejo, because Guatemala recalled their personnel when they realized that the Brits did not intend to compensate them as they had expected, for their endorsement of the 1859 border convention.

So, in view of the before mentioned lethal and other cracks in our defensive façade, one may realistically conclude that the remaining legal arguments against Guatemala for our lawful ownership of the 8867 square miles will be far too tenuous to successfully withstand the devastatingly powerful perfect storm we will undoubtedly be confronted with, if we are obliged to go to the ICJ under the present circumstances, using this artfully worded compromis as the terms of reference.

We should also be cognizant of the fact that despite the contention of our Foreign Minister and security forces leaders that we virtually cannot lose at the ICJ, the truth is that the judgments courts make are unpredictable and even when the playing field is level, which is certainly not the case here, there is always the possibility that one may lose when going to court, and especially to one whose judgments have been described as politically biased.

Those of us who have bought the Government’s heavily financed propaganda campaign line, and naïvely believe that there are no litigation risks involved, and that going to the ICJ with this compromis is the one and only definitive way to get the Guatemalan monkey off our backs, and forestall a military takeover by Guatemala, have been misinformed and tragically misled.

Also, to those of you who think that you are safe because you live North of the Sibun, let me remind you of Mexico’s stated position on claiming their share of Belize if Guatemala should at any time acquire a portion of its territory, especially since the principle of adverse prescription does not apply to your section of the country. Hopefully, those of the “yes” to the ICJ persuasion will realize before it is too late, that it is better to keep and defend at all cost The Jewel that is rightfully yours, than to be deceived and coerced with fear tactics and disingenuous arguments purporting spurious outcomes, into giving it away to covetous and avaricious adversaries. Do not be persuaded and misled by the specious arguments of those who are sadly obliged to promulgate the propaganda of their deceitful masters. Wake up and see the light before the approaching storm reduces us all to the status of refugees, as the Foreign Minister so aptly attested, which will transpire if Guatemala et al were to achieve their horrific objective.

As our analysis has revealed, even before we encounter the fury of the impending ICJ storm, our cunning enemies have deviously erased our formally internationally recognized borders with Guatemala and successfully removed the iron cladding from the 1859 border treaty. Facing the perfect legal storm that would assail us at the International Court of Justice with our primary and most potent defenses already demolished, is a sure recipe for our demise as a sovereign nation with its territory intact. Let us pray that the damage already done is not irreparable!

Once the ICJ decides, there shall be no recourse, and Guatemala will simply walk in with impunity and the blessing of the world, to take possession of what we will have so stupidly given to them. As it now stands, we may still enjoy the support of the United Nations and of all those countries who voted for our independence and territorial integrity in 1981. This has so far served as an effective deterrent to the Guatemalan oligarchy’s expansionist ambition. Let it continue to do so until the deck is more favorably reshuffled.

Finally, having been made aware of the alarming fragility of our defense, should we still unwisely decide, of our own volition, to follow the course our Government and their surrogates advocate, and in consequence find ourselves looking for a foreign tree under which to flourish, then, it is what it is, as our Rt. Hon. Prime Minister likes to say. However, if this unsavory, OAS-concocted, ICJ medicine is forced down our throats against our will, then we may justifiably be forced to regurgitate. I think that our Government, having been advised by those with the heavy hands and bottomless pockets, know this, and are making appropriate security arrangements.

In conclusion, I am here reminded of an experience I had in 1981 while I was employed as the supervisor of operations by Texaco Belize Limited in Belize City. During the Heads of Agreement riots, activists entered our office on New Road and militantly demanded that we close down. I was quite distraught and very angry at the time. In retrospect, I now understand their motivation in doing this. However a generation has since passed and the Belizeans of today are different.

May God protect and preserve the 8867 square miles of our precious Jewel against all those internal and external predators whose diabolical mission is its dismemberment.

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