Photo: Hon. Eamon Courtenay (left), Minister of Foreign Affairs Trade and Immigrations, along with board members of FCD

by Orlando Pulido

SANTA ELENA, Cayo District, Mon. Dec. 11, 2023

In his keynote address at the Annual General Meeting of Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD) on Sunday, the Hon. Eamon Courtenay, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration stated that “the oligarchs in Guatemala are intent on undermining the will of the Guatemalan people who voted overwhelmingly for Bernardo Arevalo and Karin Herrera as their next president and vice-president. The international community is working hard to ensure that there is a transition, and that the new administration takes office on January 14th, 2024.”

Hon. Eamon Courtenay reminded that instability in Guatemala is bad for Belize and bad for FCD.

“Whilst diplomatic relations between Belize and Guatemala remain cordial, I would not describe our cooperation, in recent times, as productive. Our trade negotiations, for a deeper and wider Partial Scope Agreement, remain stalled, and we divine no political will in Guatemala to resolve the differences,” he said.

He continued, “The Sarstoon remains a flashpoint. Our efforts to agree to a protocol to avoid incidents remain unsuccessful, not for want of trying or desire on our side.”

Whilst FCD’s transboundary work with Asociacion Balam and CONAP may continue to be productive, Hon. Courtenay believes that it is fair to say that what is happening on the ground in the border areas is cause for serious concern.

“It is in this regard that we see less efforts at cross-border cooperation at the government level. So, we have significant work to do together with Guatemala,” he said.

Belize’s Foreign Minister also remarked that Gaza exemplifies “a horribly broken” international system, that “today, we are helpless and powerless in the face of a cruel genocide unfolding before our eyes. More than 17,000 civilians killed by the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces], including 7,000 children since October 7th; more than half the population is starving, and the health system is on its knees. Gazans were ordered to flee northern Gaza to enable the IDF to bomb their homes and businesses, their schools and hospitals and turn it into a wasteland. And now that millions are huddled and trapped in the south without adequate supply of basic needs, the Israelis are continuing their indiscriminate bombing. In the face of this hell on earth, a resolution to have a ceasefire was defeated by the veto of the United States of America. And no country, no international institution can do anything about this. The Israelis have been given the licence to kill with impunity. This is the world in which we live. This is the reality we face.”

As regards to what is now happening at COP28 in Dubai, Minister Courtenay shared the response from Belize’s leading negotiators as follows. He explained that the decision to operationalize and capitalize the loss and damage fund currently at $USD 755 million, with some conditional pledges is still a drop in the bucket as developing countries require about 400 billion/year. The other major priorities of SIDS are stuck in the negotiations with only a couple days to go. Getting commitment for developed countries to do more faster to cut emissions is stuck … there is little progress on the Global Stock take and the Mitigation progresses, but big disagreements still exist; blocks around fossil fuel phase out vs phase down; little progress on global goal on adaptation and finance etc.

Commenting on government’s relations with FCD, Minister Courtenay said, “… we will continue to collaborate with FCD in the work of conservation and protection. After all, the Chiquibul Forest, comprising of over 461,000 acres, is the largest water reserve in Belize, feeding clean water to the Belize River – Mopan River catchment which services over 45 percent of the population of Belize. Water is the most important environmental good obtained from this vast tropical jungle. We have a joint interest in ensuring that this catchment area will forever continue to provide an adequate supply of water to our communities.”

In Government’s view, a revised protocol would be between FCD and the Government, not just with selected ministries. That protocol needs to elaborate more clearly the functions and roles to be played by other government agencies, for example, the Ministry of Immigration and the Institute of Archaeology and the Department of the Environment. Government believes that a more developed consultative and assessment mechanism must be placed at the heart of a revised protocol so as to measure the work being done and to be done.

“Finally, we need to include a financing element so that we can scale up our joint efforts,” Hon. Courtenay said. In some good news for FCD, the Hon. Eamon Courtenay pledged, on behalf of his family, an annual grant to FCD for five years, beginning in January 2024.