Carrera speaks on the referendum

Fernando Carrera

The issue of official documents, including Guatemalan passports, being printed with Belize adjoined as part of its territory, has raised the ire of many Belizeans since a date for simultaneous referenda on the territorial claim remains to be set.  In an interview with News Five today, Guatemalan Foreign Minister, Fernando Carrera, said that discussions on the claim and its possible resolution have been reserved for a time and place outside of the OAS General Assembly.  The inclusion of Belize on official documents, he said, was not sanctioned by the Guatemalan government.

Marleni Cuellar

“One of the issues obviously that is most important for Belizeans is when Guatemala will be able to resolve or define a date for the referendum. what can you say to that?”

Fernando Carrera, Guatemalan Foreign Minister

“Yeah, well this is something that hasn’t been discussed this week because I was in a conference and then press conference. Our position—when I say our, it is both Belize and Guatemala, we’ve always agreed that the General Assembly of the O.A.S. is not a place to discuss our differences. So we have always agreed that whatever issues we discuss about that is outside of the general assembly. So we haven’t talked about that really.”

Marleni Cuellar

“Given the fact that we do have the opportunity to ask you…Guatemala has made a couple of actions in terms of the use of the map including Belize—the ordering of the passports with the dotted line; things that have caused a severe reaction in Belize. How do you justify those kinds of actions given the fact that there are still the arrangements being made through the O.A.S.?”

Fernando Carrera

“The map, to make it very clear, has never included Belize on our, or the same color as the rest of…”

Marleni Cuellar

“It’s been used in presentations in international forums.”

Fernando Carrera

“Yes, but we have criticized those Guatemalans who have done that because that’s not authorized at all. Our official position is that between the Guatemalan territory and Belize there is no border recognized, but we have what we call the “zona de adjacencia”—I’m sorry about hat in English, the Adjacency Zone. So within that, we put something that is a dotted line. A dotted line indicates it is not a border, but it is something that we had both agreed is more or less what we call the adjacency zone that is it. And so the map expresses that in it.”