Referendum April 15th, International Partners Asked to Pay

Wilfred Elrington

Guatemala is planning its referendum on the International Court of Justice question for next April fifteenth.  If a simple majority is achieved the ball moves to Belize’s court to vote later in 2018, after our municipal elections and re-registration. Minister Elrington detailed what Guatemala’s plans are at this point and how Belize is maneuvering, including the question of financing and reporting to our international partners.

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“She indicated to me that they want to have it in April, the fifteenth of April; I think the earlier date which they set was too close to Easter time, but they thought they could do it the fifteenth of April and it is set for that. And it’s being of course managed by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in Guatemala and they are doing the necessary education campaign and they hope to be able to pursue it. I indicated to her that before Carlos Raul [Morales] ceased to be foreign minister for Guatemala, we had agreed that we would have gone on a joint excursion to try to obtain funding from our supporters and partners and allied countries, particularly the Europeans, because we need funding to help us with the education campaign and the like and she said she thought yes, it was very necessary because Guatemala needs it as much as Belize. And so she said yes, she thinks we can continue with that initiative. I indicated to her that we had in fact been doing [our] education campaign for some time and in the last budget we had gotten more money than before so we were able to be doing even more [of] this continuous education. So I think we settled on the idea that we will do as much as we can to raise funds; to that end, we were going to engage the Secretary General of the O.A.S. to ask him to try to set up meetings with the Group of Friends, so that we can make our pitch for the increased funding.”