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Turning now to Belize's foreign policy outlook - two weeks ago - Foreign Minister Francis Fonseca discussed the visit to this Central American region by the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In his assessment, he saw it as encouraging and thrice deployed what is now considered an antiquarian, imperialist terminology - referring to Central America as America's "backyard."
We challenged him on it today. For context, first here's what he said two weeks ago:
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I think Mr. Rubio's trip to the region is good. It's important, as he has said, to really start in your own backyard. The, you know, US administrations have generally given very little, you know, attention to their own backyard, to Central America and the Caribbean, He said, let's start in your own backyard. "
Jules Vasquez:
"Do you resile yourself from those remarks or do you maintain that this is America's backyard?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"And, yeah, man, I heard that you, in your usual style, were attacking, personal attacks. And quite petty, in my view. But, yes, I mean, if anybody is uncomfortable with that, those use of words, that term, I understand that, maybe it was not the proper term to use. "Backyard", as you know, is a term that's been used for decades. "
Jules Vasquez:
"It's a neo-colonial term, sir."
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"Decades. Yeah. But it's been used over and over. So the issue, the point, I made was that."
"Not bowing down to anybody. Point was that we were making that really, we have to be optimistic. We are hopeful that, given the new Secretary of State's own words, that he has a very, very keen interest in what is taking place in our region, in our hemisphere, in the Western Hemisphere. And so we, we, we see opportunity in that. We see opportunity in that we don't look at that negatively."
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