7 News Belize

Why Then Would Guate Go to Court?
posted (March 28, 2019)
So, if Guatemala has no cards hidden up its sleeve, and if Belize has such an airtight case, then, why are they going to court at all? After all, no one goes to court to lose, do they? That's what we asked today:...

Reporter
"There is concern in the public that there is no way these people are going to court with manifestly as you all claimed no prospect of success. They must have a secret weapon or some document of some type that has been lost to history which Belize is unaware of which would sink the Belize case irrevocably."

H.E. Alexis Rosado, Belize Ambassador to Guatemala
"You know I've heard a lot of talks about secret documents and nobody has been able to produce one."

Reporter
"Well that's why its secret, it will be produced in court."

H.E. Alexis Rosado
"So we would be guessing that something is out there. But even if something is out there we have to bear in mind that under the special agreement what Belize and Guatemala had agreed to is for the court to hear the case on the basis of article 38-1 of the statute of the court and article 38-1 provides that the only things the court would look at are treaties, customary law, principles of law and their own past judicial decisions and the writings of the most highly qualified publicists. On that basis, one, there cannot be a treaty, because if there was a valid treaty then we would have known about it, because it would have had to go to our senate for ratification."

Senator Lisa Shoman
"I understand that there is always a fear of the unknown, but the fear has to be a fear based on something and in this case the dog that doesn't bike or that doesn't bark in the night is not going to be the determining factor."

Reporter
"Ambassador Alexis, perhaps you could illuminate if the care for Belize is as Ironclad as it is claimed? Why then would the other side even waste its time going to court if defeat as you all claimed or a non-victory is foretold?"

H.E. Alexis Rosado
"You know we had asked Guatemala the same question. For a while the court option was not on the table. We thought that the nest way to resolve this thing was amicably through negotiations. Let promote some cooperative relationships and then put this thing behind us. But Guatemala's position under their law is such that negotiators of Guatemala cannot agree to anything other than getting a slice of our territory. That is their problem. Anything else that they would take home would be rejected."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"I have spoken to a number of high ranking Guatemalan officials, including an ex-president and they have made the point that as Alexis says nobody in Guatemala can affordto be seen as the politician or leader who lost Belize. When people hear say no, forget the ICJ, lets go back to negotiations. The moment you are talking about negotiations, you are talking about the possibility of having to make some kind of concession in order to reach agreement, otherwise you are wasting time. No Belizean politician can ever afford to make any concession in any kind of negotiations with Guatemala and it is the same on their side. So these high ranking Guatemalan officials that I spoke to said this is their way out."

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