The Belize Territorial Volunteers (BTV), a steadfast group of Belizeans led by present Belize Progressive Party leader, Mr. Wil Maheia, recently declared that they would be manning our Forward Operating Base (FOB) near the mouth of the Sarstoon River. The base has been abandoned by Belize’s security forces for over a year now because the structure had been deemed unfit for human occupation. But the BTV says it is still habitable, and because Belize must keep an eye on what’s going on in the Sarstoon, must protect our marine space and prevent illegal logging on our land, they would take on the job. Top brass in our security forces spurned the BTV’s offer, and publicly ordered the organization to stay away from the FOB.
In 2022 the Minister of National Defence and Border Security, Hon. Florencio Marin, Jr., announced that funds had been set aside to rehabilitate the dilapidated base, which had been deteriorating for years, and that the work would be done over a two-month period. Thereafter our security forces would return to the FOB fulltime. Additionally, Belizeans were told that funds were being sought to construct a new and better base. (In 2018, a BDF soldier lost an eye when a section of the bridge at the then relatively new FOB, caved in.)
The mid-channel of the Sarstoon River has officially formed the southern border of our country since 1859. Disturbingly, Guatemala’s armed forces (GAF) have been acting belligerently, not respecting the border in the Sarstoon. Both at the groundbreaking ceremony for the FOB in 2015, and on its completion and inauguration in 2016, drones, which were believed to have originated in Guatemala, flew over the base.
The BTV has been insistent that Guatemala respects the territorial integrity of Belize, and yearly the group organizes trips up the river, to the southwestern-most part of our country, Gracias á Dios Falls, to plant trees; and visits the Sarstoon Island, which is north of the Sarstoon mid-channel, to plant our national flag. Without fail, the BTV is harassed by the GAF on these excursions, except when they are under escort of our security forces.
Belize and Guatemala are not the only countries in Central America where there are contentions over a river. The Better Evidence Project (BEP), which is “housed in the Center for Peacemaking Practice within the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University” and serves to address “gaps in the knowledge base in the field of conflict resolution and brings existing evidence to those working to prevent war,” reported on a dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua over the San Juan River which runs between the two countries.
The report, titled “Resolving The Militarised Territorial Dispute Between Costa Rica and Nicaragua”, said differing interpretations of the 1858 Treaty of Cañas-Jerez, which established the border between the countries, had arisen. In 2010 Nicaragua began dredging a portion of the river, an action which Costa Rica claimed was altering the border and damaging its territory. Costa Rica deployed 200 armed police to the area, to counter Nicaraguan troops.
The OAS ordered the two countries to stand down, and when Nicaragua refused to do so, Costa Rica took the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In 2011 the ICJ ruled that both countries should stop sending personnel to the area, and in a 2018 ruling it declared “much of the disputed territory to be Costa Rican (although a 3-km strip of beach was awarded to Nicaragua).” The ruling “finalised the mutual maritime border, and stipulated that the Government of Nicaragua must pay compensation for environmental damage.”
It’s hard to see how any part of the 1859 Treaty between Belize and Guatemala could be misinterpreted. The BTV sees Guatemalan belligerence in the Sarstoon as an attempt to lay claim to the area based on occupation. GAF behavior in the area could be considered strategic, because the farther north Guatemala can push its border, the more territorial seas it will be entitled to. It could be that Guatemala just wants to kick dirt in our faces. Whatever, the GAF is, embarrassingly, presently preventing free access of civilian Belizeans to a part of our country.
Belize’s governments have preferred to ignore Guatemala’s incursions into our waters. The BTV doesn’t believe it wise for our government to even appear to be okay with that. At the least, the BTV, all Belizeans, expect our security forces to maintain a presence at the Sarstoon. The BTV points out that the presence of our security services serve to stop pillaging of our resources on sea and land in the area, and it affords Belizeans who will not stand down to the illegality of the GAF, the opportunity to enjoy our country.
In the face of the much larger and militarily more powerful Guatemalans, Belizeans felt pressured to have Guatemala’s claim to our country adjudicated at the ICJ in The Hague, and with the presentations of the case between us and Guatemala winding down, Belizeans are becoming more on edge. Belizeans rejected The Webster Proposals in 1968, the Heads of Agreement in 1981, and the Ramphal/Reichler Proposals in 2002 because, while none gave Guatemala a square centimeter of Belize, they gave Guatemala rights that infringed on our sovereignty. Some Guatemalan leaders have said that none of the treaties were satisfactory to them, because they didn’t get any land.
Belizeans’ belief that Belize is ours, from the Hondo to the Sarstoon, is based on the Treaty of 1859, occupation, and self-determination. Guatemala holds on to a “colonial” argument that Belize, whose territory it never occupied, is hers as an inheritance from Spain in Europe, and claims that a clause in the 1859 treaty had not been fulfilled. The United Nations has overwhelmingly supported Belize’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Guatemala’s leaders have argued that our geographic location stymies the development of its Petén region. In a case with some similarity, in 2018 the ICJ ruled that Bolivia, one of two landlocked countries in our hemisphere, could not claim sovereign access to the ocean through Chile, and urged the two countries, “in a spirit of good neighbourliness”, to work on a solution to a matter “which both had recognized to be…of mutual interest.” In 1992 Belize, with the passing of the Maritime Areas Act (MAA), assured unimpeded access to the ocean for Guatemala from its deep-water port in Puerto Barrios, a city which the Guatemalan government founded in 1895. (The MAA was repealed in 2019, after Belizeans voted to go to the ICJ)
The 1859 Treaty states that north of the mid-channel of the Sarstoon is Belizean territory. The BTV is reportedly planning a trip to the Sarstoon Island in September. Guatemala needs to develop the “spirit of good neighborliness.” If the BTV happens to drift over to the Guatemalan side because of the currents in the river, the GAF should greet them with handshakes, not hostility. Hopefully, the BTV won’t need to be escorted by our security forces.