Despite repeated attempts, Amandala was unable to get comment today from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Belize on a statement posted on the website of the Mexico Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claiming that Belize and Mexico are renegotiating a border treaty of July 1893.
What this all means for Belizeans and Mexicans on the two sides of the Rio Hondo is uncertain to us, since Mexican officials here were also unable to provide full details when we contacted them today.
This evening Mexico’s Ambassador to Belize, H.E. Arturo Trejo, said that he is aware that negotiations to redraft the treaty have been ongoing, but in his opinion, the press release was premature and the media has been misinterpreting the matter.
We note that the Government of Belize has not issued a public statement, but the ruling party newspaper, The Belize Times, got the scoop Wednesday, as the story, dated December 3, appears on their front page.
Titled “Mexico to return lands to Belize,” the article claims that, “The Government of Mexico today announced that it will return land to Belize which had been wrongfully delimitated over 1,000 years ago.
“In principle, an initial agreement has been reached,” says the release from the Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry. “Only Belize’s observations regarding several points on the border are missing; for example, the Chetumal Bay, where the treaty currently in force, that was signed in July 1893 with important errors, considers land that has always belonged to Belize, as Mexican territory.”
Ambassador Trejo told our newspaper that the changes to the treaty will change nothing on the ground, however, and no land would change hands.
He said the objective is to make some corrections in the coordinates in the treaty.
According to the Mexican MFA, Belizean Government officials have been meeting with officials of the Mexico-Belize International Boundary and Water Commission, the Mexican Navy, and the National Institute of Statistics.