But back in the 70’s when Belize was trying to gain independence - there was no top international law firm advising Belize. It was a homegrown effort led by the PUP government - and Shoman was pivotal figure in what become known as the internationalization of the Belize question. Belize won her independence without ceding any territory to Guatemala - as the British would have wanted us to do.
We asked him to compare the difficult international campaign for Belize’s independence and the bitter domestic campaign for a yes to the ICJ:..
H.E. Assan Shoman - Belize's Agent at ICJ
"The hardest part of this was winning the referendum quite honestly; because the case itself is clear but independence was difficult not just because, least of all, I think the Guatemalans, but more because of the British insistence on so many years of saying that we must reach agreement with Guatemala before we become independent. Their refusal to grant what was called a defence guarantee. The pressures of both Britain and the United States of America for us to seed land to Guatemala. Man, that was difficult from every year, from 1975 when we went to the UN, was a year of suffering and anguish, that was hard. So that was enormously hard than what we're going through now. The case is not going to the hard, the hardest thing was getting our people to understand and agree after they were bombarded by so much false propaganda and so many - well you know the story."
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