At today's press conference, the press got a chance to ask Assad Shoman about what he knows about the full contents of Guatemala's territorial Claim to Belize.
During these last few months leading up to the referendum, there is still uncertainty as to just how much of the country that Guatemala is claiming. One school of thought is that it is the entire territory that belongs to Belize, while the other is that it is only from the Sibun to the Sarstoon.
Shoman, the Belizean diplomat and scholar with the possibly the most learning on all things Guatemala, told the press today that not even the Guatemalans themselves are sure as to exactly how much of the country they are claiming:
Assad Shoman, Former Foreign Minister
"There was a problem about getting Guatemala to be precise "What are you claiming?" because obviously it would be nice to know that. They were in a difficult position, because first of all remember that historically they have claimed the entire country. Saying oh we inherited that from Spain, which is rubbish and I could tell you why very quickly. Because for example Spain did not recognized Guatemala at all until 1863. Years after the 1859 treaty. So how could they inherit anything from a country that didn't even recognize it. That was their problem. That was their position - they inherited all hat territory. So how are they going to say with anything less than that? They got into a worse when Belize became independent and the whole world recognize Belize. How you are not going to say that it has any territory. Even worse when Guatemala itself recognized Belize. How can they say that a state has no territory and they have recognized that state? So what did they do? In 1989, they kind of reformulated their claim and they said from the Hondo to the Sibun - Spain had given Britain certain treaty rights to cut wood etc. We can look at that a little differently. We are not withdrawing our claim to that. We are just putting that aside for now. But for the rest of it from the Sibun to the Sarstoon Britain just stole that, so they have to give that back. That was their position."
"So that's why a lot of people feel they are claiming from the Sibun down. But no. Remember they did not give up the claim to the rest. So what does a negotiator from Guatemala say in 2008 when you ask him what are you claiming? He can't say the whole of the country, because that would be ridiculous. They recognize Belize. They can't say from the Sibun to the Sarstoon, because then it's violating what its own people have said and what their constitution said. They have not given up the claim to the rest. They still claim it, but they put it to one side. So what can they say? Nothing. They choose to say nothing and they wait to see if the Belizean people agree to go to court, then they have to say what they are claiming. But that's why we couldn't get them to state particularly what the claim is and so we had to do something about that and what we did was we included the words "any and all legal claims" to ensure that they cannot claim something now, like say Sibun to Sarstoon. Lose that and then come back and claim Ambergris Caye or one of the other cayes or something else. That was the trick, that if hadn't put those words in it would have left the door open for them to come back again."
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