News blackout descends over Guatemala talks

It has descended like dusk in the rainforest. What I’m talking about is a news blackout now in effect over the talks with Guatemala being held in Washington. Both the Belizean and Guatemalan delegates, along with their OAS facilitators, have agreed not to release anything to the media until they have decided exactly what they want to say. Reasons for the silence have not been given, other than that the talks are covering some very delicate ground. Speculation by those journalists present in Washington centres around the report given by OAS appointed cartographer Paul Peeler. It is believed that the report Peeler presented behind closed doors confirmed everything that Belize had been saying about the location of the border and the illegal Guatemalan settlements on the Belize side of it. The problem is that the Guatemalans are said to have taken the news badly… and negotiators are now figuring out how to spin the details in such a way that the Guatemalans will not do anything rash. The talks were originally scheduled to end today, but there is speculation that they will be extended through Thursday. At newstime the gag order was still being scrupulously observed.