British diplomats encourages settlement

It’s getting closer to crunch time in efforts to settle the Guatemalan claim to Belize, and one sure sign is that the British are finally getting involved. According to a release from the British High Commission, Under-secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Denis MacShane, will arrive in the region Sunday to hold separate meetings with top Belizean and Guatemalan officials. The diplomat will meet with the Prime Minister, Cabinet and members of the National Advisory Commission on Monday in Belmopan before flying to Guatemala City for a similar session with President Alfonso Portillo and company. What makes Britain’s involvement crucial to the O.A.S. sponsored facilitation process is that the U.K. government is expected to be the largest contributor to a bi-national development fund that will make the bitter terms of any eventual settlement easier for both sides to swallow. Much of Guatemala’s claim to Belize is based on the assertion that London failed to live up to its side of the 1859 border treaty, by failing to finance a road from the coast to the Guatemalan capital. A large cash payment, even though one hundred and fifty years late, would do much to restore Guatemala’s wounded pride.