Negotiators tour Belize and Guatemala

The timing of the visit was a coincidence, but the mid celebration arrival of a high level Guatemalan delegation along with two facilitators for the peace process had the Ministry of Foreign Affairs–not to mention the press corps–working overtime today. The first piece of news to emerge from the airport’s VIP lounge was that of a no-show. Guatemalan Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabriel Orellana was supposed to lead his team on a brief tour of Belize, but at the last minute begged off due to fatigue and an aching back. Both Guatemalan and Belizean officials were quick to play down any political significance to the sickout and said they fully expect Orellana to recover by Wednesday night when the tour crosses the border into Guatemala. Taking Orellana’s place was one of his two deputy ministers, Ramiro Ordonez, accompanied by former ambassador to Belize Rafael Salazar and Efrain Aguilera. With the roll call out of the way the head Belizean negotiator, Senior Ambassador Assad Shoman, told News Five why the current diplomatic effort is different from so many which have failed in the past.

Assad Shoman, Senior Ambassador

“I think what has changed it is that we have put in place a process that can be a little bit more secure in terms of how both of us feel, than we have had in the past. For example, we have the umbrella of the OAS, we have two facilitators, appointed one by each side, we have the role of the Secretary General of the OAS as honour witness. Everything that is said and every agreement that is made is recorded, but not only recorded as between ourselves, but in the international community, so it’s harder for either side to slip away from the agreements that we have reached, which is part of the history that we have suffered in the past. It is no guarantee of course that we will succeed, far from it. We have to be guardedly optimistic about the whole process, but I think we have a process in place that gives us a better chance than we have had in the past.”