Sedi in Washington Too – Will Meet with O.A.S., Guats on Wednesday

Wilfred Elrington

While Denea Joseph will sit tonight at the State of the Union, Foreign Minister Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington is also in Washington, D.C., but for a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States to be held on Wednesday morning. Also headed there is Guatemalan counterpart Sandra Jovel Polanco, and the two are expected to meet on the sidelines. It will be the second such meeting since Polanco’s appointment and following a first meeting at a SICA conference in December in Panama.  While it is not confirmed what the two ministers will discuss, there are many outstanding issues, including the Sarstoon protocol which Guatemala has consistently refused; the recent situation at the western border where soldiers walked into Belize to talk about a showdown involving a Guatemalan reporter; as well as plans for the April referendum by Guatemala on taking the territorial dispute to the International Court of Justice.

Sandra Jovel Polanco

It is not clear whether the O.A.S. may name a replacement for Magdalena Talamas, the representative who was ousted on Guatemala’s insistence at the end of last year following the report exonerating the B.D.F. in the killing of a Guatemalan youth in the Chiquibul in April of 2016.