Guat. ambassador optimistic about settlement
As his country’s resident ambassador to Belize, he cannot be classified as a visiting dignitary…but Guatemala’s Jorge Skinner Klee keeps a low profile here. That may be changing however. Today the young diplomat, who has been posted here a little more than a year, sat down for a short interview. News 5’s Stewart Krohn asked him if twenty years ago he would have predicted that the Guatemalan claim to Belize would still remain unsettled two decades after independence.
Jorge Skinner Klee, Guatemalan Ambassador to Belize
“Yes, because in 1981 we had the Heads of Agreement, which was flouted. So we’re stuck with again with the old one-century-old, a hundred and forty-three years to be exact, question of a treaty made, a treaty that was not completed or fulfilled according to its terms. Therefore there’s no surprise in that.”
Stewart Krohn
“Out of the many attempts to solve this problem, the present track that we’re on now, the facilitation process, seems to have the solidest foundation. Do you think this path will eventually result in a settlement of the claim to Belize?”
Jorge Skinner Klee
“I sincerely hope so. We have made so many actions and so many homework as well, on both sides of the table. In a sense that this is an honest approach, a new approach never tried before, and definitely one that has the support of all the nations that are both friends to Belize and to Guatemala. But certainly politics is an element that somehow not only permits, but debases at many instances and at many historical points, the discussion as to what is the claim all about.”
Stewart Krohn
“Does the political situation in Guatemala allow for a settlement of the dispute on anything but territorial terms at this time?”
Jorge Skinner Klee
“I think so. And I think that hinges upon the maturity of the parties. And that question can be very well turned around, but are the political conditions or the situation in Belize allows for an understanding. I think the big issue is our leaders reckon that we cannot live to each other’s back. We share the same region, the same population, same interests.”
Stewart Krohn
“Ambassador on the twentieth anniversary of Belize’s independence, is there any message that you would like to convey to the people of Belize?”
Jorge Skinner Klee
“I think first of all that we’re the same people, it doesn’t matter where our origins are from. We share the same land, we share the same interests, whether tourism, archaeology, ecology, even politics. We are married by geography and we were separated by history. And I just hope that history will prove that we are the same and we can do it together. And therefore, and I think I can speak for my generation, there is a new way of feeling, of not being so distorted from what actually politics and history have done all along a century and a half; separate us.”
Skinner Klee has been an active participant in the current set of negotiations under the auspices of the OAS.
