What would happen without confidence building measures with Guatemala?

Martinez says that the absence of confidence building measures would be counter-productive to keeping peace in the area. The CBMs are renewed every year; still yet, there could be a vacuum should the dispute go before an international tribunal.

Fred Martinez, Ambassador of Belize to Guatemala

Fred Martinez

“My big worry and I think the worry of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and any government of Belize—regardless of who is in power—is what happens when there are no confidence building measures? What would happen? These measures are automatically renewed every year. Any one country could say I no longer want to be adhered to this regime. Who keeps the peace along the line? Who regulates this? Another question would be how long will the OAS be able to maintain this office at the border line? But that is the office that has to do the verifications and the reports and the implementation many times. How long will that happen? So presently there is an exercise going on between the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the various entities of government to look at well, let’s look from here onwards. What would happen between now and a supposed referendum date. And after that referendum date, suppose the people say no we don’t go to court, what’s plan B? And if the people say yes, we go to court, how do we keep the peace during that time of the court proceeding. So it’s a very complicated process.”

According to Martinez, the Belize border is referred to by the Guatemalans and in OAS discussions as an adjacency line because the Guatemalan court has ruled that since there is no longer a treaty to establish a border line, then a border does not exist.