Our understanding of these battleships of the Royal Navy is that they have the ability to lob artillery shells from their anchorage at English Caye directly into the presidential palace in Guatemala City. The British are masters of the art of understatement. They do not normally indulge in gunboat diplomacy. That is not the British style. The British do not flex their muscles for flexing?s sake. John Bull does not suffer from the American Rambo complex. But, a battleship of the Royal Navy is a battleship of the Royal Navy, and the announcement of the visit came out of nowhere. We see this as a statement by John Bull: deal me back into this game.
Since last year the British have been spending a lot of money (for them) on various initiatives aimed at creating goodwill, trade and interaction between Belizean businessmen, bureaucrats and academics, on the one hand, and their Guatemalan counterparts, on the other. To tell you the truth, the initiatives are a bit too sophisticated for us to analyze, but we have been told that the initiatives are in pursuance of the free trade clauses of the Ramphal/Reichler proposals of 2002.
The ?discovery? of oil in Belize in what appears to be commercial quantities, changes the game somewhat, we think. The actual pumping of oil in Spanish Lookout will have raised the anxiety level amongst the Guatemalan business, military and government oligarchs who have traditionally orchestrated and manipulated the Guatemalan claim to British Honduras/Belize. The actual pumping of the oil immediately raises, in a dramatic way, the value and potential value of the Belize territory.
Our sources say that this is a matter of the Chiapas/Peten/Belize oilfields, which, taken together, may be as large as the Saudi Arabian oilfields, the largest petroleum deposits in the world. But Chiapas is in southwestern Mexico, Peten is in northeastern Guatemala, and Belize is Belize. In other words, national boundaries separate the oilfields above ground level. Beneath the ground, however, the oil is one big bubble. Because of the national boundaries, the regional and international politicians are more important than they would normally be.
The international politicians we are talking about here are, firstly, the British. A world power with nuclear capability, the British used to rule the world. So they had various territories they controlled which should, all things being equal, have fallen within the jurisdiction of other nation states. The classic example, which caused a war almost 25 years ago, is that of the Falkland Islands. The Falkland Islands are British but, geographically speaking, they would have belonged to Argentina if the British Empire had not ruled the world. (Similarly, Belize would have belonged to Mexico or Guatemala if the British had not been in effect.) Argentina and Great Britain actually went to war over the Falkland Islands in the early 1980?s. The whole of Latin America, in principle and in rhetoric, supported Argentina. Britain ended up defeating Argentina, but this type of war hurts Britain in her trade and public relations in this region.
So now we Belizeans need to monitor and analyze British operations here. Belize?s political independence is not complete, which is to say, we give allegiance as Belizeans to the Queen of England, Elizabeth II. Our head of state is the Governor General, who represents the Queen of England. The portrait of Elizabeth II is on our currency. The Queen?s soldiers, sailors and airmen are based in Belize on what appears to be a permanent ?training? mission. Belizeans are not normally uncomfortable with the relationship with Mother England, but sometimes you have to wonder.
Take the matter of our telecommunications company, the most profitable and strategically important company in Belize. Seen from a certain perspective, the recent battle between Ashcroft and Prosser is a tug of war between the United Kingdom and the United States ? John Bull versus Uncle Sam with Belize in the middle. Think about it.
The United Kingdom and the United States are very good friends and close allies, but their interests and modus operandi are not always the same. Take Cuba and take Guatemala, republics which are a part of the game in Belize. The Americans have maintained a crippling trade embargo against Cuba for more than 40 years, but the British interact and trade freely with Cuba. Guatemala is, in real terms, as much a surrogate state of the United States as Israel is, but because of the age old Guatemalan claim to British Honduras/Belize, Guatemala?s foreign policy is antagonistic to British foreign policy where the Belize question is concerned.
John Bull was supposed to have cashed in his chips and departed from the poker game in Belize in 1993, presumably leaving the dilemma for the Americans to deal with. You know about the Monroe Doctrine and all that. But oil remains the most important commodity in the world. In fact, oil just continues to increase in importance. Belize finds oil. John Bull says, deal me back in right now. I need a piece of that oil action. The prospects for Belize are great. So is the danger. Get real.