A comment made by Belize Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Attorney General Wilfred “Sedi” Elrington, calling Belize’s border “artificial” and saying that the aspirations of Belize and Guatemala – a country with a standing territorial claim over Belize, are the same, has sparked public outrage over the airwaves in Belize.
However, Elrington, who we were unable to reach last Friday before we ran our story on the matter, in an extensive interview with Amandala Monday afternoon, defended his view, but went further to say that he is being persecuted by his own.
Specifically, the OAS report, in a report issued electronically by the Organization of American States and published on its website last Thursday, said: “The Minister of Foreign Relations and Commerce of Belize said that ‘a cordial relationship between neighbors is based on trust and confidence. It is as a consequence of interaction that you develop confidence. We have to interact to emphasize the view that we are not different from each other; the fact of this artificial border does not make us different. We are still the same people, with the same aspirations and desires.’”
Adele: What exactly did you mean?
Elrington: I thought it was clear. What aspect of it you found difficult to understand?
Adele: It’s not what I find difficult to understand, but I’m asking you what you meant when you said what you said.
Elrington: What is it specifically that you want me to address my response to?
Adele: Well, it talks about the whole framework of, first of all, expanding these confidence building measures beyond the adjacency zone, areas of dispute and what have you. There are some people who take issue with the use of the term “adjacency line” with regards to the Belize-Guatemala border, that’s one thing. And then in this document you are quoted as referring to the border as being an artificial border, as saying that the people are basically the same and the aspirations and desires are the same, and I find that hard to digest in the context of the ongoing territorial claim and what’s been happening in terms of the invasions by the xateros and so on, coming across the border as if there is no border.
Elrington: No, I just wanted to get it clear from you… Let me start with the last aspect of it. I had gone to Punta Gorda two months ago to look at the border situation down there.
Adele: When you say Punta Gorda, you mean Jalacte?
Elrington: I went to Punta Gorda and I went to Barranco. You are fully aware that fully one-half the Garifuna population in the region lives in Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. So that there is a constant interaction between the Garinagu in PG and those in Guatemala and Honduras. They come back for all the ceremonies and they [inaudible] as they’ve always done.
Adele: But they respect borders.
Elrington: No, no, no. You asked me to explain and I am explaining to you. Sounds like you want to argue with me.
Adele: No, I don’t want to argue.
Elrington: You have difficulty with that?
Adele: You’re saying they go back and forth; that is true, but they respect borders…
Elrington: The Garinagu people go and come, they are kit and kin. They are related. Not true? Sometimes you have half the family lives here and half live in Guatemala. Not true? Am I lying?
Adele: I’m not saying you’re lying, Mr. Elrington.
Elrington: In the Jalacte area, Indians over this side, indigenous, Maya, Ketcki… Maya, Ketcki live over that side. Kit and kin again. Brother, sisters, mothers, fathers. And they come and go every day. Not true?
The children from Guatemala, from that area there come to school in Jalacte. Every day and then they go back, just going across the river there. Children in Benque, come from Guatemala every day. They are same kit and kin, aren’t they?
Adele: Some.
Elrington: The president of Guatemala is married to the sister of Narda Garcia, who was the head of our [Social Security Board]. Very many Belizeans trace their ancestry to Guatemala and Honduras, like Mexico. So the people, you find us to be different?
Adele: “We have the same aspirations and desires.”
Elrington: Don’t we? They don’t want to have a good life?
Adele: Miss Emma says they want Belizean territory; that’s one of their aspirations that we do not share.
Elrington: But I don’t think you’re going to look for guidance to Miss Emma?
Adele: How do you respond to that?
Elrington: Are you going to look to guidance from Miss Emma?
Adele: She is a Belizean.
Elrington: It’s only one person who has an opinion.
Adele: …Well, it could equally be said you’re only one person.
Elrington, Right.
Adele: So her opinion is important.
E
lrington: As far as I know, the ordinary Guatemalan, all they want is a living. Just like you and I. We want a nice job, we want a nice home, we want to have education for our children, we want to have health facilities. You have asked Miss Emma what she meant, but you didn’t ask me. You wrote it even before.
Adele: I called, several times actually…
Elrington: I don’t know that the Guatemalan people want more than a good living. We have to live together, we have to work together. That is to my mind the aspirations.
Adele: How do you feel about the border?
Elrington: I have got to defend it. And I will tell you this. Perhaps even before you were born, I was arrested, charged and convicted [fined $15] for opposing the Webster proposals and any suggestion of Belize for association with Guatemala….
On my program at Exposure here [at KREM], I have tried to educate our people on the [Guatemalan] claim, over and over. With respect to the compromis, I signed it — special agreement, all kinds of fancy interpretations were put on it. All kinds of ridiculous statements from people who you would have thought knew better. It was a simple agreement, to allow [the dispute] to go to the ICJ subject a referendum…
And same thing when I signed that thing [the visa waiver agreement] with the Israelis. I sign it all the time, because English is not the only language, so when I sign an agreement with the Spaniards, it has to be in their language; the Mexicans, the French, the Chinese. It is not strange for me to sign a document that is not in the Belize language…you find that strange and that is so heretical, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s done every day…
I make a statement to a press officer [at the OAS last week] and the most obvious interpretation of the word artificial is manmade, which is what it is. But nobody seemed to even check the dictionary. And then the suggestion is that I am being a traitor, because I said that the border is artificial. How that could make me a traitor? Only God knows! But it certainly does not reflect well on those people who take it upon themselves to speak for the nation. If in fact they don’t want to look in the dictionary or at least call me and find out. I am here every Sunday, you know that. And incidentally, I pay for it out of my pocket. Just paid them $3,200.
Adele: Like I said, I did call [for you] several times…
Elrington: And let me tell you why I do my program here at Kremandala. You are not asking me but I will tell you. I want to see the empire succeed. I know how difficult it is financially. And I want to see them continue to grow. The people who they employ look like me and you. Without the little assistance, that $3,000 a month they might not be able to continue to employ everybody and continue to provide for people…and I get the sense that I am being persecuted here…
How a statement as innocuous as that – look at the [Amandala] headlines that they put in. Belize and Guatemala the same or something. I never said that. The Belizean people have the same aspirations as the Guatemalan people.
But going wider than that, Miss Adele, going wider than that, our main rivers start in Guatemala, so if we don’t work with them and they decide to take unilateral action to prevent the waters from coming through, we could find ourselves in problems.
They are 14 million people with an army of 20,000; we are 350,000 people with an army of 800 to 900. We can’t patrol the border ourselves. They have got to ask the government to keep their people in. They have not succeeded even with their own people because when their forest guards and others try to protect the border, and the border area with the forest and the like, they are shot at, looking to be killed and assassinated.
As a consequence of that, their side of the border is decimated. All the trees are cut down. The Guatemalan army and the government couldn’t stop them. So we have to work with them.
When that side of the border is decimated and the Belize side of the border is decimated, we will have tremendous floods followed by tremendous desert, and we in Belize will not be able to survive. They are already destroying the reef.
One of the issues that came up was what’s happening along the border, particularly in the Chiquibul.
Adele: Was this an issue that was raised in Washington?
Elrington: What was raised in Washington, why we went there really, was because we were having some problem that developed recently. The Guatemalans were very, very upset, because of some measures that we took; they were demanding that we take certain action and we thought that we could not resolve it outside of [going to the meeting].
Adele: This happened when?
Elrington: Sometime last month…. They are coming in, but we don’t have the manpower, we don’t have the resources, despite all the noise on the radio and the TV and all this talk of bravado and what the government should do, as you well know, the resources are so limited that they have problem even securing the internal borders, the cities and the like – Belize City, because the resources are limited… So we are very limited in what we can do on the border and how we’re working to solve that now?
The OAS is helping us as they are bound to do because we are members of the OAS, to keep the peace on the border, to try to keep down tensions. Whenever Guatemalans come and we believe they are trespassing in an area, we call them. They come in, verify and tell the Guatemalans they are trespassing, move out, and to be fair to them, they have moved out. Since we [UDP] got into office, we got almost all the settlers to come out.
Adele: You have a number, a figure? A tally?
Elrington: You could always call the CEO. But that was not done under the PUP; we did that. But nothing was said about that. No big noise was made about that. That was a tremendous achievement we did with the OAS and between then and now we’ve had no real problems. Nobody arrested our BDF or locked them up. Between 2008, when we got elected, and now, we’ve had pretty good relations.
Adele: When you said we’ve had no real problems between then and now what you mean by that?
Elrington: No Guatemalan military coming in and arresting our defense force people and the like. We have had the people dealing with the xate and the like coming in and cutting, farming, but whenever we can catch them, we are able to catch them and send them back.
Adele: So you’re saying civilian rather than military.
Elrington: Exclusively civilian, and unauthorized civilians.
Adele: What’s the status of the process in Guatemala with regards to the compromis [ICJ special agreement]?
Elrington: They have got to get it through their Congress… I think the Constitutional Committee has agreed to it, but the other two have not. There is a body in Guatemala called the Comision de Belice [Commission of Belize], who are rabid, who would really want to send their armed forces over and raze Belize down [flatten/demolish it]. There are those who are of that mind.
Fortunately, the president, the foreign minister and others are not of that mind. They want to have it settled in a peaceful, dignified manner, and so they are prepared to go to the ICJ. If the administration changes, we don’t know what kind of [position] they will take.
If you follow the history of Belize, there were presidents who sent troops to the border with a view to invade. That’s the reason why the British had to stay so long. There are still those with that mentality [in Guatemala]. That is why we need the international community to help to contain that.
That is one of the reasons why the other administration, the PUP administration, had agreed to the adjacency zone. Doesn’t mean that we are giving up any right, as exemplified by the fact that we have agreed to go to the ICJ, to determine what is the situation with respect to our boundaries.
But if we don’t do that, as some people are advocating, if we don’t do that, Guatemalans will continue to come over and, of course, come further in, and if you think that that won’t happen, all you have to do is to refer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When the Israelis started out, they only had a little piece of Palestine. Now they have most of it.
Adele: Well, what guarantee would there be if we decide, well let’s go to court and there is a ruling but it’s not in Guatemala’s favor?
Elrington: There’s no guarantee? I can’t give you none. But if we don’t do anything, what is going to happen? You tell me. Tell me what is going to happen, Miss Adele, if we sit down and behave like nothing is going to happen?
Adele: We can’t predict the future.
Elrington: But we know what is happening now…they are coming over more and more; they are cutting down the forests, they are killing the animals. That is the present.
Adele: Is it your information that more civilians are coming across the border?
Elrington: It’s the information we have. That is why Jules went and showed more and more incursions…it’s not staying still.
We have more than 600,000 people living in the Peten area. They don’t have any land. They don’t have any place to farm. They don’t have any food. There are 600,000 Guatemalans living in the Peten area alone, and more are coming as their country suffers from climate change and desertification, so they are coming east; so they are coming across [to Belize].
Adele: So Belize is not in a position to do anything?
Elrington: You tell me. You are the journalist.
Adele: You are the minister. In your view, Belize is not in the position to do anything, given you’ve outlined the situation with the debt, the challenges with the armed forces and so on…
Elrington: You now could make your inference. You see, make your inference. You tell me…
Adele: So now you’re permitting me to comment!
Elrington: You tell me what we should do. You are a journalist; you are the fourth arm of government. You tell us now, what is our position. You tell us what we should do, how we should handle it, because we are trying our best, and I am inviting you, the media, I am inviting all those who have criticisms, come up with concrete ideas as to how you solve the problem.
Adele: For the record, your position on the Belize-Guatemala border.
Elrington: The Belize-Guatemala border is as stated in the Constitution. In my view, it is futile for me to be commenting on that, at this point in time, because we [the politicians] have decided… we will go to the ICJ to resolve [the matter]…
Adele: Has Guatemala formally stated its claim?
Elrington: The formal claim is going to be made if and when we decide to go to the ICJ.
Adele: Where is Belize in this process?
Elrington: I think we have one formality whereby we have to take it to the National Assembly.
Adele: You’re not sure?
Elrington: That is my instruction on what needs to be done.
Adele: These are your instructions from where?
Elrington: That is the legal advice we get. So we are going to be following that. In everything that we do, we take legal advice and it’s not from one. It’s from at least three sources… Nothing that I do is without legal advice.
Adele: So you wait until Guatemala completes its process in Congress before taking it to the National Assembly?
Elrington: Yeah, because they have tremendous problems. I don’t know whether they will be able to do it within this administration…
Adele: So following last week’s meeting, what changes on the ground in either Belize or Guatemala?
Elrington: There are no changes on the ground. We held our ground. We are not committing ourselves to do anything. What we did agree upon is that we’ll have a fact-finding mission to look at the situation on the ground, try to do an assessment as to how the confidence-building measures are working out… No decision like this is taken unilaterally by the Foreign Minister. Everything goes to the Cabinet, so there is a formal report made to the Cabinet, through our Ambassadors…
Adele: The high level working group – any names?
Elrington: The suggestion came from the Secretary-General. It’s not quite accurate there [in the OAS report published] because we had made it exceedingly clear to them that any movement with that will be subject to what our Cabinet says…
This whole OAS initiative, the suggestions they are making are all with a view to see if we can prevent any kind of need for the Guatemalans from even come over here…if we can agree on a series of activities of an economic nature funded by Friends of Belize and Guatemala…for example, a classic example would be a reforestation program for the Guatemalan side as well as our side.
Adele: That’s been talked about for years.
Elrington: Now if you could get financing for that! But that would have to be agreed upon by the Belize government, and then the Belize people will have to know of it. They might not want it because the Belize people don’t want to hear the word Guatemala. So we might have problems with that.
Adele: Are you not concerned about the way these statements [you made regarding the border] are perceived by Belizeans, in general, or by the international community, given the current state of affairs between Belize and Guatemala?
Elrington: What concerned me is the spin that you all put on it. The most obvious interpretation of artificial is manmade. You all didn’t say that. You didn’t make reference to that….
I will tell you this, another thing which you need to bear in mind: I just came back from Europe. In Europe, they have virtually downplayed the importance of borders. Once you get a visa to enter the United Kingdom, you can go freely through the 27 countries, without attending or appearing at any border point.
Adele: So you see that as what, a global trend?
Elrington: Well, I will tell you this: More than that, because you may not know it. The People’s United Party caused us to enter into the SICA [Central American Integration System] agreement, some time ago. The logical outcome of that would be an integration of Belize with the rest of Central America. Read it and you will see it. [He left us with a copy of the document.]
So that is the movement! The same thing that will happen in CARICOM. Now I can go to CARICOM and the intention is that ultimately we will be able to travel freely.
Adele: So why go to the ICJ then? If that is the direction that things are headed?
Elrington: You see, because the claim is outstanding and because the Guatemalans have it in their Constitution, the argument they are raising is that no politician in that country can take it out of the Constitution on their own. They believe that they would either be assassinated or [inaudible]…
Adele: Do you believe that argument, Mr. Elrington?
Elrington: That is the argument…
The British were prepared to give us Independence from the sixties, but feared that the Guatemalans, especially around the 70s, and just going up to Independence, they were deathly afraid. It was even thought that the Guatemalans were going to attack us from the P.G. [Punta Gorda] area, which is the shortest area is coming over from the sea. In that endeavor, they were supported very strongly by the Salvadorans, who believed that Guatemala was entitled to Belize.
If you read the history, it unnerves you because you see that they have their armed forces flying over Belize, their military amassing, and it’s really a frightening situation. That’s the reason why the British stayed so long. So it’s a real problem we have with them. It is not an imaginary one. It is a real one that the Belizeans need to know.
The present problem we are having now is not with the [Guatemalan] government itself. They seem to be resigned to go to the ICJ to get rid of it. They want to get more involved with CARICOM; they want to become more involved with the whole of Central America.
They want to work more closely with the entire region, just how the people in Europe have come to together – these 27 countries – that’s the move that is being made with respect to the 33 countries in this part of the world, from Mexico down, and then the Caribbean countries. That is presently being discussed almost on a monthly basis. We’re going to have our next meeting in Cancun…
Historically, when the Europeans came, they split up the place [with] borders… But that has not stopped the movement of people, because wherever you go, they have the same desires; they have the same interests; they have the same aspirations – looking for a living.
So Mr. Ashcroft comes to Belize and he makes money here. He does very well here. Our borders don’t stop him. The Chinese are coming. The Taiwanese are coming. The Guatemalans, the Mexicans, the Hondurans. The borders have not stopped them…. Yes, it demarcates you. It’s manmade or artificial…
Adele: Man by nature isn’t territorial?
Elrington: Yes, we’re territorial, but we are getting out of that now. Yes this is our space in a way, but there are those who have gone beyond that and have said the world is my playground.
Adele: So with regards to territoriality, where you stood several years ago, before I was born, compared to where you stand now, how would you describe your evolution as a thinker?
Elrington: Good question you have raised, because when I was your age and younger, I had the same kind of reaction. You mention Guatemala and I go ballistic… But after living in Belize for 61 years, when I go down south, they are cutting the banana. When I go to Dangriga, they are the ones that are reaping the citrus and the like. When I go to the market, they are the ones that are selling me the pineapple and things there. When I go to the Biltmore Plaza, they own it, or own part of it. When I go to the caye, they own part of it. They own much more than we know…yes they own Publics [Supermarket], and they are taking over more and more, and we are not telling our people that the way to make sure you deal with that is to make sure you get: Get yourself educated; get yourself informed. Rather than doing that, we give them excitement. Guatemala will come and take it over.
The truth is that they have already despoiled so many of our places. They have been using it and enjoying it and we do nothing about it. They’re coming more and more into the country.
I have a responsibility to try and do something about it. I can do two things, keep the peace and at the same time try to get a situation so that to move the integration process forward, we have to settle the borders. We can’t go in there [to the greater integration] without the settling of the border.