Who is Funding CDS?

Alexis Rosado

Citizens for the Defense of Sovereignty is a newly formed organization headed by Ambassador Assad Shoman.  The N.G.O. works closely with government in the referendum campaign and supports a YES vote. There have been questions being asked about its source of funding.  Last week, the western P.U.P. caucus issued a release seeking government’s response to who is behind the funding of the N.G.O.  Earlier today, we asked Ambassador Rosado about CDS and its partnership with the Referendum Unit.

Alexis Rosado, Belize’s Ambassador to Guatemala

“We collaborate with Assad Shoman’s CDS whenever we are doing joint presentations and when we invite him to join us, for example, we want to go somewhere and the people inviting us want him to be present as well, in which case then we would invite him to join us and so forth.  What he’s doing with the rest of the Government of Belize I don’t know, that’s not with the referendum office.  But yes, we do in certain instances, for example, we were down south this weekend and we required him to stay overnight.  So in this case, yes, we would have made sure that we make facilities available for him to stay but aside from that we don’t have any other dealings with them.”