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DPM Faber Says FM Elrington Was Too Harsh
posted (July 16, 2018)
And in other news spanning from D.C. to Belmopan, on last week Wednesday's news, we told you that the Belize Territorial Volunteers announced plan to write to the US Congress to complain about Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington.

That was after Elrington said, "you've got to be crazy", if you don't support going to the ICJ to settle Guatemala's territorial claim over Belize. He added that the education campaign would also support this view - which, as he sees it, is the only rational view to take.

The BTV said that it would write to the US Secretary of State and the US Congress to inform them that US taxpayers' dollars are being used by the Belize Government to, quote, "subvert the democratic right of the people of Belize to be properly educated in preparation for the upcoming ICJ referendum".

Now taking it to Washington - which is helping to fund the education campaign - is not a trvial complaint, and today we asked Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber about Elrington's choice of words - and the aftermath. He told us that he would have handled this issue differently:

Hon. Patrick Faber, Deputy Prime Minister
"The government's position is that we ought to be gunning for yes vote. Nobody can fault the foreign minister for wanting to go there. Now If I would have been as extreme as he was, then I'd say no. But nobody can fault anybody on the government side. That is the duty of the foreign minister in my opinion to try to say to the Belizean people this is a good idea to go for a yes vote, given that that is the government's position. But in terms of condemning those who believe that it is their right to go in a different direction."

Reporter
"Would you have chosen his words?"

Hon. Patrick Faber, Deputy Prime Minister
"I said I would have done it differently, yes."

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