Draft Bz-Guat. agreement ready to sign in Miami

As I speak negotiators from Belize and Guatemala are meeting in a final session in Miami where they are expected to sign an agreement clarifying the situation along the border. News director Stewart Krohn is just off the phone with chief Belizean negotiator, Ambassador Assad Shoman, who reports the following: A draft agreement has been agreed to, although the signing is due to take place later tonight. The agreement, called the plan of action to implement the November eighth agreement, includes the following. Most importantly it describes a specific way to identify the adjacency line and adjacency zone between the two countries. That task will be taken up by the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History based in Mexico City. Belize and Guatemala are both members of this institute. No later than fourteen days from now the institute will determine the precise location of the three major markers along the Belize/Guatemala border and will calculate the adjacency line running between them. They will deliver a map clearly showing this line and adjacency zone, and both sides have agreed to accept this map. It is also agreed that the same institute will determine if the two settlements at Machaquila and Rio Blanco, as well as a third site at Valentin Camp, lie inside or outside of the zone. The facilitators will then issue an interpretation of the status of those settlements under the November eighth agreement. The two parties have agreed to comply with that decision in good faith. Additionally, two accompanying protocols are agreed to which detail a precise method under which any settlers occupying illegal communities will be repatriated across the border. We’ll have more on tomorrow night’s newscast.