…Baroness Patricia Scotland Talks OAS and Belize and Guatemala Issues
Baroness Patricia Scotland
During her stay, the Secretary General will also be visiting the Office of the O.A.S. in the Adjacency Zone, where she will be received by the Chief of the O.A.S. Fund for Peace. Today, Baroness Scotland also spoke about Belize’s role as a CARICOM member state.
Baroness Patricia Scotland, Commonwealth Secretary General
“As you know Belize host CARICOM;S Climate Change Center, one of the things we have been looking at is how we can enhance to take care of the small island states to get access to the nine hundred million dollars there are in terms of help to mitigate and to adapt our environment to meet the new climatic challenges. What we are hoping is to create a hub and I spoke in relation to financial access and have specialist we are going to create a hub in Malaysia they have been very gracious. But of course Belize has the Climate Change center here already on behalf of CARICAOM. So what we are hoping is that so we can enhance that service which is for the whole region by putting in financial service advisors to help us here in the Caribbean to better understand how we access the money that is being made available to help mitigate an adaptation for climate change. And I think that Belize is doing the whole of the Caribbean region a great service by hosting the Caribbean Climate Change Center right here and I am very great to the PM and all the Belize people for doing that.”
Reporter
“How has your visit been going so far?”
Baroness Patricia Scotland
“It’s been a wonderful visit, I’ve been welcomed and I had a great visit with the children at the Methodist school who were just delightful. I saw the richness which is here in Belize and if those children have anything to go by, Belize has a very rich and happy future ahead of it.”
Reporter
“Would you be able to give us your overview or your opinion on the border tensions that is going on in Belize?”
Baroness Patricia Scotland
“Well I had the opportunity to go to the border, I also had the opportunity to speak to O.A.S. who describe the peace building work that they have been undertaking particularly with children on both sides of the border and that gave me hug hope because it looks as if the young people of Belize and the young people of Guatemalan are working really happily together. So that work that the O.A.S. is doing is very important work. I also 8understand the tensions and the worry and the anxiety that is now starting to arise as a result of recent incidents and it’s clear that the integrity of and sovereignty of Belize is something which must be upheld. You know that the ACP has just made a very clear declaration in relation to their position and the Commonwealths position on the integrity and sovereignty of Belize remains absolutely unchanged.”
Baroness Scotland has a distinguished career as an attorney, educator, and public officer. At the age of thirty-five she was the first black woman to become a Queen’s Counsel.
