Sedi Elrington Says Recall of Ambassador Alexis Rosado is Most Ridiculous

Wilfred Elrington

The Foreign Minister also responds to a call from the P.U.P. for the recall of Ambassador Alexis Rosado.  Elrington scoffs at the notion calling it ridiculous.  A recall, he says, would only serve to breakdown existing dialogue between both countries.  He cites an existing territorial dispute in the South China Sea where several countries, including the United States, lay claim over the waters.  According to Elrington, notwithstanding the hostilities, dialogue between all parties must continue.

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“I mean it’s got to be a most ridiculous call.  Why you will bring him back?  So what, you don’t want to continue to talk to the Guatemalans?  How are you going to solve the problem unless you talk to them?  You have to talk to them and you will send your protest notes; the United States, you know, and Vietnam and Thailand and all the other countries that are in the South China seas, they continue to do business with China.  As a matter of fact, they are forming now an Asian alliance with China.  You don’t, because you have a dispute over territory you don’t stop talking to people.  You don’t hold malice and that kind of thing, that is the kind of immature behavior.  Mature people and mature governments use the official medium to deal with these things.  What is the official medium?  The International Court of Justice and as I’ve said before and I say again, when we got into office we simply continued what the last administration had embarked upon to get the Guatemalans to agree to go to the ICJ and from refusing to go to the ICJ from the 1940s, when we got into office they agreed to go unconditionally, unprecedented.  It was the biggest move that was made in terms of solving this dispute.”

Late this evening, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a tepid release, stating that Belize authorities observed, “an increased state of alertness by the Guatemalan Armed Forces in the Sarstoon River.”The release ends by informing that the matter will be brought to the attention of the Republic of Guatemala and the Organization of American States.