Musa makes case for Belize
He has made himself available to the press on two occasions in as many weeks. But neither in his joint appearance with Maya leaders nor alongside the Leader of the Opposition, has Prime Minister Said Musa so succinctly expressed his views on Belize’s dispute with Guatemala as he did last night. The occasion was the Channel 5 talk show “One on One with Dickie Bradley.” And by the time he was finished, Musa had made a compelling case for Belize’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and negotiating strategy.
WHAT HAPPENED IN MIAMI
Prime Minister Said Musa
“At the Miami meeting what we our team had to work out was to get Guatemala to carry out its commitments that they made in November.”
Dickie Bradley
“These commitments being?”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Being that once we can show that the settlers are either were created after October first, wherever they are, or if they are outside the adjacency zone, outside the one kilometre, whether they were created whenever, they must be removed. And we had to tighten up if you like the provisions of the agreement to make it crystal clear that that objective should be obtained. And that was the real essence of the Miami agreement. One: to make sure we clear the borderline, the markers. And two: to make sure we can remove these settlers in an orderly fashion.”
THE ORIGINAL BORDER SURVEY
Prime Minister Said Musa
“The line as shown on our map was never disputed in those days; that survey line was accepted. Later people came and want to play smart and say “well something went wrong with the way that line was drawn.” But at the time they accepted it, and they’ve accepted it over the years, as the border between our two countries. Let us understand what has happened here, even though they accepted the frontier, Guatemala has always maintained this claim over Belize, the whole country.”
“And their argument is that Britain breached the treaty and therefore the treaty was void and was back to square one. All the experts are showing that there was no breach. But even if there was in the case of the road, it will not constitute what the lawyers call a fundamental breach that would affect the main terms of the treaty, and at its best for Guatemala they would be entitled some compensation from Britain.”
PRESSURE TO CEDE TERRITORY
Prime Minister Said Musa
“We were fighting for our independence. I can never forget the pressures that were being put, and I won’t tell you from where, but real severe pressures were being put on our government, on our then Prime Minister, Mr. Price. “Why don’t you concede from the Moho River down the Sarstoon and settle this claim?” And Guatemala was of course was quite happy to accept it. And pressures came from powerful people to say “settle this thing, give them this strip of land to the south.” And Mr. Price stood firm, and that’s when he made that famous statement “not one square centimetre.”
GUATEMALA’S USE OF THE MAYA
Prime Minister Said Musa
“It’s a very spurious argument, very deceitful argument in a way because they’re using these poor, indigenous people. And the history of Guatemala, I don’t want to go into the details, but I think our people must know it by now. They have had a very sad, very violent and very cruel history for the last thirty years in particular where their very own Maya people, that they’ve been talking about defending, have been the ones most exploited.”
THE GREATEST NEGOTIATING ACHIEVEMENT
Prime Minister Said Musa
“I think this is the greatest achievement that was made in Miami, to get them to agree for this expert to decide where the co-ordinates are.”
Dickie Bradley
“Why did Guatemala allow themselves to be boxed in a corner by Belize, making a concession they’ve never done before in two hundred years.”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Because our team insisted that to avoid tension along the border, we need to establish this line and we kept hammering away at that. It’s a tribute to the negotiating skills of our people that they say “listen, if you are saying that these people are in Guatemala, we are saying clearly they’re in Belize.” There’s only one way to categorically establish it and if you don’t go along with that, clearly you don’t want to settle this.”
BEYOND NEGOTIATIONS
Prime Minister Said Musa
“All we’re saying is Guatemala fall into line and let us settle this matter, let the claim be settled and then we can discuss how two neighbours can move towards developing life for our people. Let us not forget the bottom line in all this, we’re talking about development, there’s tremendous poverty and underdevelopment in Peten. We have the underdevelopment in many parts of our country too, particularly in the south side. We don’t to be wasting our time with this centuries old dispute, this antiquated claim, when our people are suffering. So we need to get down to the business of development.”
The full hour of Prime Minister Musa’s appearance on “One on One” will be repeated on Sunday morning at 10:00.
