Minister tells Opposition that G.O.B. knows what it’s doing

Wilfred Elrington

Opposition Leader Francis Fonseca issued a statement on Monday, rejecting the proposals from Guatemala but also calling on government to ensure and maintain local and international support for Belize during this critical time in the nation’s history. Elrington said that the Opposition is preaching to the choir, since the government knows what has to be done, and has been doing it with success.

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“We are doing that very effectively. Every step of the way we have been contacting our allies—both here in Belize as well as in the United States and in other centers where we have embassies. We gave that instruction out long ago so that all our allies are apprized of the situation. We are not waiting for instructions from anybody. We know what to do. This is not anything new. We have to keep our allies fully apprized of it; as a matter of fact, only last week Thursday it was that I met with the under-secretary of state for security of the United Kingdom and of course he was thanking me for the support that Belize gave them in relation to Argentina’s persistent claim against the Falklands. We have been very stoutly of the view that the people in the Falklands must determine their own future, not the Argentineans. And so they came down and we were discussing that as well as new developments with Guatemala. So we are doing that; we are doing that on every front.”

We note that approximately ten million dollars was estimated as the cost of the Belize Guatemala Referendum campaign. To date, Belize has received pledges of less than two million dollars from our international friends. While it is estimated that the campaign will cost ten million, that figure pales in comparison to what could be spent to take the claim to the International Court of Justice.