While time is running, we are getting closer to the referendum that is expected to take place on April 10, 2019. We have been listening to several Belizeans who have brought up the Anglo- Guatemala/Belize issue; each one with their own point of view, others have been trying to get more in-depth with the subject. Together they’ve offered a very interesting pool of information. Unfortunately, none of us will be the judges at The Hague.
There are those who have full confidence in the magistrates that represent the International Court of Justice. They believe that these persons are honorable, impeccable, irreproachable, etc. but regrettably, we were not taught of the things that took place in history, much less those few thinkers who sought an idea to form a method that could have been put in place to balance between the communist and capitalist system. However, after the intervention of other thinkers, in the end, greed prevailed and resulted in the introduction of the New World Order and globalization under the neo-liberal capitalist free trade system. To put these ideas into practice it could have only been through the domination of the countries of the world and for this there was no other way than through wars.
We may listen to certain persons who would say that an army was not created for war, but to make peace. However, history has shown us that it was used against its own people to achieve such so-called peace between their neighbors who serve the interest of one master. Such philosophy comes from the most powerful military and economic nation of the world. Yet, the United States has invaded 13 Islamic countries since 1980, such as, Iran, Kuwait, Bosnia, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Kosovo, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. With what intention? They say that it is in the name of democracy and liberty. But the truth behind those words is to have a full control of the black gold and to keep the communities of those countries under fear and oppression.
It takes us back to 1983, when the United States had invaded a little island on the Caribbean with 348.5 km² and 91,000 inhabitants — Grenada, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations; the Queen of England and its Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, made no fuss about it. And what was the reason for such action? According to Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the United States, Grenada was a communist island and its Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, was a leftist and a friend of Cuba.
There is no international law that says that to have leftist thinking is a mortal crime, yet, Maurice Bishop was murdered by a military death squad of 14 members because of his thoughts.
Going back to the army for peace and not for war, we can learn how the United States has spent billions of dollars and trained the militias of Latin America and the Caribbean for them to kill their own people so that the American corporations can take over the natural resources of those countries, paying meager wages to the employees and offering a very poor health service where people are dying because of the need of such services. So much so, that even in the United States of America there are forty million people who are living in extreme poverty, yet Donald Trump ordered the defense department to spend $5.6 billion on 74 more F-35 fighter planes.
Why was this decision taken? Those who analyze the situation that is taking place in the Middle East say that the Russian war plane was taken down off the Syrian Coast during the Israeli missile barrage and that a French frigate may have been involved. Going back into the past, the discovery of gold in California in 1848 brought with it the prosperity of Panama, which became a safer passage than the land routes between San Francisco and New York. Then, a year later, in 1849, the first interoceanic rail line was built across the Isthmus. Supported by the USA, which was interested in the creation of an interoceanic canal, the department of the Isthmus became independent from Colombia on November 3, 1903. On November 18 of the same year, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla agreement was formed, which created the Canal Zone. According to that agreement, this territory, which extends eight kilometers on either side of the canal, depends on the United States as if it were under its sovereignty, and shortly after, the entire country. The Treaty Hay –Bunau-Varilla was an international agreement signed by Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, representative of the French channel and the United States, on November 18, 1903, a few days after the separation of Panama from Colombia. Said treaty entailed in practice the American tutelage over Panama, and allowed the establishment of the dominion of Washington over a 10-km-wide strip on which the Panama Canal would pass and which was called the Panama Canal Zone.
On the afternoon of November 4, 1903, the provisional government formally proclaimed the Republic of Panama, since the separation from Colombia had in fact taken place the previous day. Until this date, Panama had been part of Colombia since this country achieved its independence from Spain on November 28, 1821. On November 6, the US government, through Secretary of State John M. Hay, granted recognition of the new nation, through a telegram sent to the consul of Panama.
Phillipe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, as a reward for his help in the insurrection, had insisted on his appointment as Plenipotentiary Minister of Panama in the United States, since he had fulfilled his part in the pact agreed with Manuel Amador Guerrero, later elected first president of Panama, in New York on October 20, 1903. The arguments of Bunau-Varilla to insist on the speed of his appointment were based on the impediment of acting as Plenipotentiary Minister of Panama in the absence of an official designation. On November 6, he received from the Provisional Government Board of the Republic of Panama the notification that he was appointed Extraordinary Envoy and Plenipotentiary Minister before the government of the United States with full powers for political and financial negotiations.
Some time ago, the President of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales, had said that after the ruling of the ICJ on their behalf, whoever wants to stay can do so and become a Guatemalan, and those who do not want can go to what is left of Belize. I have heard some people asking the question: what would happen to Belizeans should more than half of Belize be given to Guatemala by the judges of the International Court of Justice? Something similar to what took place in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850. Many qualified historians with knowledge of the U.S/ UK agreement of the time say that it was the United States who gave that portion of Belize to the British.
I´m not a qualified person in the subject nor will I sit as a judge at the International Court of Justice to say that it is a fact or not. However, the same United Nations has created a branch which is called the United Nations Refugee Program who help in such situations with the financial resources to acquire land and housing for those who could probably become refugees.
Apart from the rusty old Guatemalan claim, have any of you tried to seek out for more information so as to get a rational answer regarding why the Guatemalan oligarchy and international corporations are so interested precisely in that part of Belize?
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October 5, 2018
Finca Solana
Corozal Town