BTV Condemns Statements Made by Foreign Minister
Wilfred Elrington
The Belize Territorial Volunteers is not happy with Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington for comments he made in an interview last Thursday, July fifth, while speaking at a ceremony where the United Nation Development Programme and the US Government announced technical and financial support towards the I.C.J. campaign. When asked about the I.C.J. campaign, Elrington said that the people have to be crazy not to support a yes vote. The BTV interprets Elrington’s remarks to mean that Government is not conducting a neutral and impartial public education campaign. For context, here is what the Foreign Minister said six days ago.
Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs [File: July 5th, 2018]
“In my view, and here I am not going to be politically correct. But if you are threatened by a huge neighbour for over a hundred years and you do not think that that threat should be put behind you once and for all in a peaceful way and in the most acceptable way known to humanity, then something has got to be crazy with you. If you do not understand the importance of a yes vote in this kind of circumstance especially given the fact that this is an existential issue, this is not a game that we are playing. This is not an issue where we have a second or third chance; this is one chance. You know how long it took us to get to this point? Almost a hundred years. Are we going to blow it and is there anybody who is offering any rational, valid reason why we should want to blow it? You gotta be crazy. That’s how I see it. Now I am not speaking as Foreign Minister as I am speaking as Wilfred Elrington who has spent the better part of six decades fighting to have this Belize/Guatemala issue resolved. The British invited them to go to the I.C.J. from the 1930’s. We never waivered from that position; I never one day thought that we had any better solution than going to the I.C.J. so I have always supported that position. And so it is for that reason that as soon as we got into office in 2008 where we discovered here was an opportunity to go to the I.C.J., we did not hesitate at all, at all, at all.”
BTV says that Elrington’s comments “constitute an attack on the people of Belize who are entitled to exercise their constitutional and democratic right to vote yes or no to the ICJ.” The BTV also states that given the bizarre behaviour of the Foreign Minister, it will write the U.S. Secretary of State and members of the U.S. Congress telling them that U.S. taxpayer’s dollars are being used to allow the Belize government to subvert the democratic right of the people to be properly educated in preparation for the upcoming ICJ referendum. The BTV also calls on the diaspora to write to their Congress representatives with the same message.
