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Hon. Courtenay: ICJ, All The Way! The Age of The Acrobat or the Period of the Patriot?
posted (May 21, 2019)
On the heels of yesterday's house meeting, today was Senate day in Belmopan - a meeting convened for the sole purpose of quickly pushing through the amendments to the Maritime Areas Act.

And just like his party leader John Briceno yesterday, today the PUP's Senior Senator Eamon Courtenay pledged full support for the amendments and for going to the ICJ - where, he is fully confident, Belize will see victory. Yes, that's the same Eamon Courtenay who fought and won in court to have the referendum delayed, and the same Senator Courtenay who, five weeks ago, said the risks of going to the ICJ are real and known…for context, here are those remarks from April 15th:

Hon. Eamon Courtney- PUP Senator
"Let us sitdown as Belizeans, analyse the risk identified by persons like Senator Hulse, Mr. Ghandi, Sir Eli - assess it and provide not an absolute guarantee that Belize will not lose any territory, because we cannot honestly do that, but tell Belizeans what is the measurement of that risk so that people can make an informed decision."

But, at today's senate meeting - he expressed no such reservation - he said we should "assure ourselves of the victory at the ICJ which is rightfully ours."

If you're a cynic, you might want to call it the age of the acrobat, but if you're a patriot then you'll call it true bi-partisanship - that rarest of occurrences in politics. Courtenay said the Guatemalans are to blame for both sides ending up at the ICJ:...

Hon. Eamon Courtney- PUP Senator
"The people of Belize have decided that this matter will be resolved by the decision of the International Court of Justice. we should not forget that more than 5 decades were spent attempting to resolve this issue by negotiations and I make no apology for saying that it has not been resolved, because of the fault of the Republic of Guatemala. The last serious effort was the facilitation exercise which Guatemala participated in fully. They were the one with the proposals made by Ramphal and Richler after fully participating in it and after fully saying that they will accept the recommendations given by the facilitators. We could have solved this issue by negotiations and by facilitations. We could have been living as good neighbours from way back in the early part of 2000's. It is the fault of Guatemala that we are now being forced both the people of Belize and the people of Guatemala to spend millions of dollars of scarce resources going to the ICJ."

"We as Belizeans expect Guatemala to behave with maturity and respect for Belize whilst we conduct the litigation. It will take anywhere from 3-5 years and during that time we expect them to recognize and respect our right in the Sarstoon river, in the Bay of Honduras, in Chiquibul and in deed along the entire border between Belize and Guatemala. The message to Guatemala is clear: 8,867 sq. miles is Belizean territory and the territorial waters that go along with it and the exclusive economic zone and make no mistake about it, when the international court of justice delivers its decision we expect and we are confident that the result will remain as it is today and therefore we call on Guatemala from now, since you have force us to go to court to accept the judgment against you that is just years away. We fully support this amendment to the bill and we call on the government and all partners to let's move forward together, confront the enemy that is before us and let us assure ourselves of the victory that is rightfully ours."

Hon. Michael Peyrefitte, UDP Senator
"I was sitting there and saying to myself "wow" (laughing) if only Senator would have made that speech a couple months ago in the senate, we would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble, a lot of time and expense, but I am glad to see that the PUP is finally on the right side of history and we appreciate that."

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