Now in the 200 years of the Anglo-Guatemalan dispute, no one, not the British, not the Belizeans, no one has ever suggested that Belize should even contemplate invading Guatemala. It's literally unthinkable.
And clearly a verbal slip by the PM - but not a minor one. Today, for perspective we asked the former Prime Minister Dean Barrow - who was also a Foreign Minister for 10 years - about his perspective on it:
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"I was to some extent befuddled at a loss for words. And then I said to myself, Well, without wanting to be unkind to the Prime Minister, it is a well-established facts, a well-established fact that he always mixes up his words, that he doesn't speak with the kind of not talk about elegance, straightforward clarity, that one would want to see in a Prime Minister, and that I think the nation has a right to expect."
"And so while it is a terrible blunder, in a sense, that given these well-known shortcomings of the Prime Minister, I will acquit him, certainly of any kind of malign intent. The Prime Minister is not a fool, but that he is well capable of saying some very foolish things, I repeat is a matter of established fact."
Jules Vasquez:
"But just from your experience as a diplomat, how are these things finessed at the highest level in terms of saying, but without being unkind to your head of government, but saying to your counterparts in Guatemala or at the diplomatic level or at the official level, it's not that you misheard, it's that he misspoke."
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"Well, that's precisely that. You are answering your own question there? That is all that the diplomats our diplomats in Guatemala and elsewhere, because there are people who have a watching brief and we've asked the international community to maintain a watching brief and this sort of thing would have to be explained. And that's the only possible explanation that our diplomats can offer. Prime minister simply misspoke. He meant no harm. He just tripped all over himself and was undone by his words. But there was no bad intention."
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