President Portillo calls P.M. Musa

The press release was cryptically short but the news had to be viewed as positive. At around one this afternoon the phone rang in Belmopan and the caller on the other end was Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo. We do not have a transcript of the conversation but based on our own experience, the call must have been short–if only because of the state of the phone lines between the two countries. According to the Belize Government release, President Portillo and Prime Minister Musa discussed the issue of the four Belizean security personnel now detained in Guatemala, with President Portillo giving his assurance that he would try to resolve the issue in a quick and friendly way. We were unable to get any further explication of the conversation from either Belmopan or Guatemala City.