Historian and intellectual Assad Shoman is well known for his book 13 Chapters of a History of Belize - if you haven't read it, you have certainly heard of it. It is considered foundational reading on Belize's history. Well, Shoman has published another book that should also be required reading. It's on the Belize Guatemalan dispute and today we found out what makes Shoman's publication stand out from existing works on the claim. Courtney Weatherburne has more.
Courtney Weatherburne reporting
The mountain of books stacked on this image factory table is the product of Assad Shoman's new project. After 3 years of intense reading, in-depth researching and compiling, it is ready for distribution.
Assad Shoman, Author
"Yeah, I feel like Wow, like a mother must feel after she delivers."
And he sure did deliver with this exclusive publication: "Guatemala's Claim to Belize. The Definitive History." It features a wealth of untapped information from Shoman's personal files and archival records.
Assad Shoman, Author
"It gives a lot of information that no other book gives. Nobody has gone, and anybody could have done it, but nobody else did it: go into the archives of all these places and get the facts. So, I have exposed things here in fact even going back to the Webster proposal which would have been available in the 90's. But all this time, nobody went and checked it out, so I did and I found out some things that I published here which would give you a new light about what actually happened."
"The first thing I had to be careful about was to be as objective as possible, to be as factual as possible since I was involved in the work it is easy to have bias one way or the other and I had to try very hard to make sure that didn't happen. So I try to be as fair as possible to everybody including to the Guatemalans and to just state the facts."
A factual account on Guatemala's claim to Belize. It sounds simple enough, but the history of this claim is long and complex.
Shoman isn't trying to dissolve the claim with his work, but to provide a fresh and uniquely involved perspective on an ongoing cross border issue - one that has plagued the Belizean psyche for generations.
Assad Shoman, Author
"I don't want this to be seem as anything to do with the ICJ. This has to do with Guatemala's claim to Belize…began in and continues up to now which was particularly important in terms of our independence, because it was that claim that delayed and could have made impossible our independence. And so one of the biggest things to learn or get from this book is how was it possible that a little country like Belize under pressure from the United States of America, from the United Kingdom - not just from Guatemala - was able to overcome those pressures and become independent without any ties to Guatemala and with all its territory."
The official launch is tomorrow night at 7:00 at the Image Factory. Copies of the book will be on sale for $30 dollars.
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