Lindo: “I don’t trust Guatemala”
Dean Lindo, Former UDP Leader
“I think that it will be a no vote. What I think, I haven’t read the proposals yet. In fact we were supposed to have been given the proposals, and what we got was an executive summary as it were. I’ve heard what Sir Shridath Ramphal has said, and I tell you, I have a concern, which might surprise you. You see, one of the young man that asked a question here asked a very important question, and it was something like this, if everything is settled to nice, why was there a discussion anyhow? If Guatemala changes its mind because of the international community pressure, why didn’t they do that long ago? Why did they stand by and let us go through all of this thing for years when they should have taken a stand long ago. You see, I am one of those that I do not trust the Guatemalan world.
Now I find it very interesting that Guatemala starts out by wanting whole of Belize. They go to halfway, they want half of Belize, then they want Santa Rosa, then they end up getting nothing, because that’s what I understand, it’s a total victory for Belize, Guatemala has gotten nothing. Well, how can anybody expect that the Guatemalan authorities will be able to sell that to the Guatemalan people. We were told today that for example, the Foreign Secretary Orellana is it, can’t even go to Guatemala City now, because they’re already calling him traitor and all that and all that.”
Janelle Chanona
“But outside of rumours though, is your initial reaction is that…
Dean Lindo
“No, this isn’t rumours, I’m telling what I heard in an official meeting. I’m a member of the National Advisory Commission.”
Janelle Chanona
“So you’re saying this would be a very hard sell for the Guatemala government?”
Dean Lindo
“This is exactly what I see. Now look, I am the last one to be concerned with Guatemala’s problem, that’s their problem. But, if it’s rejected by the Guatemalan people, then that would undermine the whole process that we’ve gone through.”
Janelle Chanona
“But if I could play a third party to this then, wouldn’t Belize’s willingness to reach a compromise, wouldn’t that work in our favour with the international allies, if Guatemala votes no and Belize votes yes?”
Dean Lindo
“I have heard that argument and quite frankly, that doesn’t impress me, and I’ll tell you why. You know when Israelis are saying come out of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and so on and there is world pressure on them, you know what the Israeli’s say, guess what, I noh concern bout world pressure, world opinion. When they were slaughtering five million Jews, nobody jumped to our aid, where was world opinion then. So quite frankly, I don’t play too much on world opinion.”
