Post on 09-Apr-2019
Punta Gorda Town Hall Meeting. 8 December
2018
Beautiful people of Punta Gorda and Toledo,
arguably tied with Cayo for the most beautiful
district of Belize. To come here is to see the light, to
breathe the air of struggle and resistance, to be in the
tricontinental meeting place, where the Maya of the
Americas co-mingle with the peoples of Africa and
Asia to form a strong and resilient pillar for the
unbreakable unity of our country Belize, ONE AND
INDIVISIBLE. To come here is to see the
mountains that stand as sentinels to protect our
sovereignty, the River that marks the dividing line,
but also the point of contact and friendship, between
Belize and Guatemala.
1
As the states surrounding Apartheid South Africa
were called the front-line states, so too are you at the
front line of our confrontation with the European
elite that rules Guatemala and oppresses your Maya
and Garifuna brothers and sisters across the border,
brothers and sisters to whom you constantly stretch
out the hands of friendship and solidarity as we
resist the common enemy that seeks to reduce us in
one way or another.
2
Our peoples suffered many decades of colonialism
and slavery, of exploitation and oppression, and just
when we were bound for freedom that elite in
Guatemala sought to rob us of our goal and impose a
new colonialism or grab a piece of our territory, but
with the help of our friends in the Americas, Africa
and Asia, and, yes, inside Guatemala itself, we
achieved our freedom and independence, only to
find that the Guatemalan elite and its tool, the
military, continues to salivate over chunks of our
territory, ready to swallow us up at the least
slackening of our will to live as ONE nation, ONE
people in ONE territory.
3
And now, after decades of fruitless negotiations and
resisting pressures from most powerful countries to
give up this or give up that, we are at the threshold
of an opportunity to GIVE UP NOTHING—NO
RETREAT, NO SURRENDER, but rather fight for
our RIGHTS with weapons and in a forum that
guarantee victory: the evidence and the law, in the
International Court of Justice.
If we refuse to grasp this opportunity and free
ourselves forever from this stifling threat, and
expose future generations to the unpredictable
effects of its continuance, history will not be kind to
those who for petty political reasons bamboozled our
people into voting no and miss the opportunity to
FREE ourselves from this claim, from this threat,
from this real and present danger. Hope is here!
4
But let us imagine for a moment that you the people
will resist those blandishments, resist the peddled
fiction, examine the facts, and vote YES to freedom
on 10 April 2019. What will happen? Within a
month we will inform the Secretariat of the ICJ that
our people are READY TO FIGHT FOR
FREEDOM. Within twelve months Guatemala must
state its claim, and within 12 months after that we
will reply and rubbish their claim, AND RUBBISH
IT WE WILL. Guatemala will then have 6 months to
seek to reply to our conclusive rebuttal, but they will
have no new facts, no new evidence, no supporting
law, to bolster their reply. They gave their best shot
to one of the best lawyers of his generation, Manley
Hudson, in 1950, and he told them: you have no
case.
5
They gave their best shot in 2001 to the OAS and the
Facilitators, and they said: you can’t get any piece of
Belize, not a grain of sand. They gave their best shot
to the European lawyer Eric Suy in 1999, asking him
for an Opinion that would validate their claim, and
he told them, sorry, you paid me well to give you an
Opinion, but I have to say: you ain’t got no claim.
And so, as much as some Belizean patriots are trying
hard to give Guatemala arguments that would make
them beat us at the ICJ, the truth is they ain’t got
poop. In any case, we will have another six months
to reply to their reply, the last word, and then the ICJ
Judges, our judges that we have voted for in several
General Assembly elections, will say: LET THE
GAMES BEGIN.
6
And then 15 Judges, who we elect for a period of
nine years, will try our case. Some of them will be
different from those who are there now, as new ones
will have been elected by that time, but these are the
present judges of the Court. As you can see, they are
not all old white men.
What are the Judges allowed to decide, what scope
do they have for making decisions? Can they do as
they please or try in some way to show sympathy for
Guatemala?
NO. They must follow their terms of reference,
which are as stated in the Special Agreement: this is
what we are mandating the Judges to consider:
[Article 2 on Screen emboldened as follows]
7
The Parties request the Court to determine in
accordance with applicable rules of international
law as specified in Article 38(1) of the Statute of
the Court ANY AND ALL LEGAL claims of
Guatemala against Belize to land and insular
territories and to any maritime areas pertaining
to these territories, to DECLARE THE RIGHTS
THEREIN OF BOTH PARTIES, and to
DETERMINE THE BOUNDARIES between
their respective territories and areas.
Since you have been told otherwise, you have the
right to know WHY these words are there, WHAT
they mean and HOW they will affect our case.
8
All those highlighted words are there because we
put them there. We negotiated the Special
Agreement over several months in 2008 in close
consultation with a team of international lawyers
who collectively have spent thousands of hours
before the ICJ fighting and winning dozens of cases,
and they advised us on the best wording possible to
protect our rights and interests.
You have a RIGHT TO KNOW that when
Guatemala presented its draft of the Special
Agreement in early July 2008, they did not have the
word LEGAL before claims, and did not want to put
it in, because they know they cannot sustain a
LEGAL claim, and wanted the Court to decide on
the basis of fairness and sympathy for the devil.
9
WE insisted on putting the word LEGAL, and won.
And now some patriots, believe it or not, are
wanting to take out that word; ask them who would
benefit from that.
You have a RIGHT TO KNOW why the words
ANY AND ALL are there. Again, we insisted on
putting those words in, to prevent Guatemala from
claiming something in this case and when they lose
come back and claim something else. This way, they
must present EVERY claim they can imagine or
invent, and when they lose, THAT’S IT, they can’t
come back for another bite of the cherry. CHERRY
GONE! And now some patriots, believe it or not,
are wanting to take out those words; ask them who
would benefit from that.
10
Likewise, our international lawyers advised us that
since we will be asking the Court not only to
confirm the borders set in the 1859 Treaty but also to
determine our maritime boundaries, we should insert
the words to declare the rights therein of both
Parties, to enable the Court to say what rights both
parties have in the several maritime areas, IN
STRICT ACCORDANCE WITH THE UN
CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF THE SEA.
And, crucially most importantly, we would ask the
Court to DETERMINE the boundaries between the
two countries, because although the 1859 Treaty
already determined those borders, we need the
International court to confirm that, since it is the
only organ under the UN Charter with the power to
do that and have the Security Council give effect to
its ruling. 11
Ah, but you are worried because some patriots have
been shouting that the government of Belize sold out
or was fooled into giving the Court blanket powers
to determine the borders, which means they can
throw away the 1859 Treaty and just draw a line
wherever they wish, at the Sibun, or at the Monkey
River, and say that is the new border which Belize
allows us to determine.
12
You have the RIGHT TO KNOW that that is not
true, you have the right to know the truth:
The Judges, are forced, yes, obliged, in the sense
that THEY HAVE NO CHOICE but to determine
the borders in accordance with applicable rules of
international law as specified in Article 38(1) of the
Statute of the Court, which states that they must
apply the law of treaties, international customary
law, general principles of law and previous judicial
decisions. They have NO CHOICE. They must
apply those and determine the boundaries
accordingly.
13
No time to go into them all, I only have 20 minutes
and Dickie 30, but just the first will suffice. What
Treaty can Guatemala present signed by itself and
Britain or Belize that shows any agreed border other
than that stated in the 1859 and 1931 treaties?
NONE, unless those patriots know of any, in which
case they have an obligation to tell and show. Let’s
see it please. But we do have those treaties
mentioned, and we will show them, and once the
Court declares them binding, based on the evidence
and the law, it MUST DETERMINE THE
BOUNDARIES ACCORDINGLY.
14
YES BUT, say those patriots, but the Special
Agreement is a treaty too, and it is newer and more
binding than 1859, and that Special Agreement
annuls the 1859 treaty, because we give the Court
the right to draw boundaries as they have a mind,
change our borders and create new borders, they say
that’s what DETERMINE means, and that’s why we
should say no to ICJ.
What evidence and what law do they have to support
that false contention?
15
We are not experts in international law, but we
consulted such experts, and they assured us, and you
have the RIGHT TO KNOW that the Special
Agreement in no conceivable way annuls the 1859
and 1931 treaties, but rather PRIVILEGES THEM
AS PRIME SOURCES OF EVIDENCE which the
Court MUST consider and upon which it MUST
apply the LAW AND THE EVIDENCE and come
to the only conclusion possible in the circumstances:
the boundaries that exist are those agreed by both
parties, agreed by both parties, in the two binding
and living Treaties of 1859 and 1931.
16
And with the joint demarcation that follows that
ruling, we shall at last have a line on the ground that
both countries must respect, with clear maritime
borders that will enable us to benefit without fear
from our resources, we will be better able to control
our borders to prevent deforestation and the pillage
of our land and water resources, etc.
That means going physically on the ground and
marking the border with monuments and clearing all
the way along the line, so that everybody, at last and
for the very first time in history, can see clearly
where the border is, demarcated by both countries,
and know that it cannot be crossed without
permission. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? A time to
shout HALLELUIAH?
17
And, most especially, ending the claim will bring
legal certainty, which is what motivated the
Guatemalan government to seek a judicial
settlement, and this will bring peace dividends:
security and stability, the promotion of investment,
trade and development, and leave us freer to combat
those ills which are pressing and essential to
confront for the good of the country and its people:
rampant and broad-based corruption in the body
politic, unacceptable levels of poverty and
inequality, inadequate provision of health, education
and other social services.
18
Do not be misled by faux patriots; they say
Guatemala has a strong case, never yet revealed, but
carefully hidden for decades under their sleeve,
which will make the Court give them a piece of our
land, and SO ARE THEY ALL, ALL
PATRIOTIC MEN. And they say we set aside the
1859 Treaty with the Special Agreement, putting
false arguments in the hands of Guatemala, but
patriots they all are, all patriotic men.
And those patriots say “the Sarstoon has been taken
over by Guatemala and it is no longer our southern
border”. And I, and you, say, SAY WHAT? The
Sarstoon is no longer our border? Go tell the people
of Toledo that! But we can’t criticize them for they
are patriots, all patriotic men.
19
And we have patriots who try to give Guatemala the
argument that in a treaty in 1992 we agreed to vary
our borders, and so the Court will give them land.
Thankfully, though, Guatemala will not be able to
use it, because that document, which you now have
in your hands, says that Belize and Guatemala have
not yet signed a treaty to define our land and
maritime boundaries, but that in the meantime they
agree that any mention of our territories “WILL BE
MADE BASED ON THE EXISTING REFERENCE
MONUMENTS”.
20
And they even say that we owe compensation to
Guatemala, and say how unfair Britain was to
Guatemala, and we must have sympathy for them,
and one patriot even argues that we must give them a
huge chunk of our territorial seas in compensation
for Britain not building a cart road— but
PATRIOTS THEY ARE, ALL PATRIOTIC
MEN.
Well you can ride with them, but I prefer to ride with
a true patriot, a young woman at Toledo
Community College, who asked us yesterday: if we
go to the ICJ and we win, will we claim
compensation from Guatemala for all the damage
they have caused us over the years, for the
21
deforestation, for all the resources stolen, for
polluting the waters in the Chiquibul Forest, waters
that almost half of Belizeans depend on for their
supply of clear, pure water?
Now, there’s a patriot! And I say: YES WE WILL!
AFTER WE WIN, WE WILL DEMAND
COMPENSATION! And just like Costa Rica won
compensation for the damage caused by Nicaragua
in an ICJ judgment of 2 February 2018 (and which
Nicaragua has already paid), we shall fight and we
shall win!
Let us not doubt the justice or legal strength of our
cause and our case. IF WE FIGHT, WE SHALL
WIN.
VENCEREMOS.
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