Guatemala invited to observe squatter evictions

Ambassador Assad Shoman has completed a visit to Guatemala where he held
talks with the President and senior officials. In a joint press release
it was announced that in his meetings with President Alfonso Portillo,
Vice President Juan Francisco Reyes and Foreign Minister Gabriel
Orellana, Shoman discussed the progress of establishing
confidence-building measures between the two countries. It was agreed
that possible solutions to some difficult points will be submitted to
the panel of facilitators and that various working groups will meet this
month in Guatemala and Belize. In the meantime, the government of Belize
has invited Guatemala to participate in the verification and removal of
two illegal Guatemalan settlements on the Belize side of the border. Two
hundred and twenty-one Guatemalans were discovered on New Year’s Day
living in the Columbia Forest Reserve near Machaquila, one point eight
kilometres inside Belize, while an additional one hundred and four
settlers were found on December nineteenth at Rio Blanco in the
Chiquibul Forest Reserve. A seventy-two hour period has been declared
beginning today at three p.m., after which an expulsion order will be
given to the Guatemalans. The Guatemalan government, as well as
observers from the two countries’ human rights commissions have been
invited to participate in the process. Although the November eighth
Washington agreement on confidence building measures applies only to
settlements within one kilometre of the border, the government of Belize
has invited the Guatemalan participation as a gesture of goodwill.