Caribbean & Central America - May 2018 (ISSN 1741-4458)

On 15 April Guatemala held a referendum in which voters were asked whether they wanted the International Court of Justice (ICJ), based at The Hague, to settle Guatemala’s claim over half of Belize’s territory. After the ‘yes’ vote won in Guatemala with 95.88% of the vote, Belize announced it will hold its own referendum in a year’s time. If another ‘yes’ vote is secured, the border dispute will be taken to The Hague. While an ICJ resolution will be a lengthy and costly procedure, it could be the only way to ease tensions between the two neighbours, especially in the unmarked border area known as the ‘adjacency zone’, where the incursion of Guatemalan peasants into Belizean territory regularly leads to clashes with the Belizean border patrol.

In the referendum held on 15 April, a total of 1.78m Guatemalans (24% of the 7.52m registered to vote) marked ‘yes’ on the ballot when asked: “Do you agree that any legal reclaim taken by Guatemala against Belize over continental and island territories and any maritime areas corresponding to said territories be submitted to the International Court of Justice for definitive resolution and that it also determine the borders of the respective territories and the area of each part?”

Five days after the referendum, Guatemala presented the official result to the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), which has acted as a mediator in a dispute that has claimed the lives of ten Guatemalan peasants in the adjacency zone between the two countries since 1999. On 30 April, the Belizean government led by Prime Minister Dean Barrow set a date for its own referendum: 10 April 2019. Now Belize will have to carry out its own referendum and if another ‘yes’ vote is secured, the dispute will be taken to the ICJ, a United Nations (UN) tribunal created to resolve territorial or boundary disputes between countries whose rulings are irrevocable and unappealable.

Although voter turnout for the Guatemalan referendum was low – seven out of ten Guatemalans who are enrolled to vote did not do so – it was slightly higher than the turnout for the two previous referenda that Guatemala has held, where voter turnout didn’t exceed 20%. Mario Fuentes Destarac, former president of the Centre for the Defence of the Constitution (Cedecon), a Guatemalan association of legal experts that focuses on constitutional issues, argued that “the referendum should have been carried out during an election. An isolated referendum was likely to lead a low voter turnout because (the border dispute) is an abstract issue that’s difficult to explain in a civic campaign”.

A long-standing dispute

Whereas polling stations in most parts of the country remained empty, long queues of voters could be seen in polling stations in the area known as the adjacency zone (an area extending one kilometre on either side of the 1859 treaty line). The 42 peasant villages located on the Guatemalan side of the adjacency zone, mostly from the Qeqchí Mayan ethnic group, have borne the brunt of a border dispute that has left ten peasants dead and hope an ICJ resolution will bring them land rights as well as an improvement in their living conditions.

The long-standing dispute between the two countries dates back to the late 18^th century when the territory that today comprises Guatemala and Belize belonged to the Spanish crown. Guatemala argues that between 1783 and 1786, Spain allowed British settlers to engage in timber logging in a small portion of Belizean territory but the British crown used this as a means to gradually encroach on Spanish territory and by the time Guatemala declared its independence in 1821, British settlers had invaded the whole of Belize.

During the 19^th century, Guatemala would repeatedly accuse Britain of breaking the terms of the agreements between the two countries. Under the terms of the Wyke-Aycinena Treaty of 1859, signed by Guatemala and Britain, Guatemala agreed to recognise British Honduras and Britain promised to build a road from Guatemala to the town of Punta Gorda. However, in 1940, Guatemala claimed the treaty was void because the British government had failed to build the promised road and after declaring its independence in 1981, Belize claimed it was not bound by the treaty because it had not signed it.

Guatemala recognised Belize’s independence in 1991 but didn’t accept the borders and continued to stake a claim over 11,000 kilometres of Belizean territory, including several islands (approximately half of Belize’s current territory).

In November 2000, Guatemala and Belize signed the first Agreement of Confidence Building Measures which established the adjacency zone between the two countries but tensions between the two countries continue to flare up every time a Guatemalan peasant is killed by Belizean border patrol agents after straying into Belizean territory.

The most recent confrontation occurred in April 2016, when 13-year-old Julio René Alvarado, the son of a Guatemalan peasant, was gunned down by wardens of the Chiquibul Nature Reserve, on the Belizean side of the adjacency zone. Alvarado’s death led to a series of angry exchanges between the two countries and tensions peaked when Guatemala sent 3,000 troops to the border.

Edgar Gutiérrez, who served as Guatemala’s foreign minister under the Alfonso Portillo administration (2000-2004), says an ICJ resolution is the only way to protect vulnerable peasant communities. “We hope that clearly defining the border will ease tensions on the Belizean side of the border so that peasants are no longer seen as enemies or invaders and shot before questions are asked. An effective resolution to the dispute would have to include cooperation programmes that allow those living in the adjacency zone to live and mobilise within the area in peace,” says Gutiérrez.

The long and costly road to peace

After several failed attempts to reach a consensus, in 2008 Guatemala and Belize signed a special agreement to take the territorial dispute to the ICJ. But while the agreement was being negotiated, Belize modified its Referendum Law, increasing the minimum voter turnout needed for a referendum to be valid to 60% of enrolled voters, which would be hardly feasible given that no election in Belize has ever had such a high turnout.

Guatemala accused Belize of acting in bad faith and suspended its referendum, slated for October 2013, until Belize repealed the amendment to the Referendum Law and a new date was set for the referendum: 15 April 2018.

The Belizean government says it has already launched a public awareness campaign under the slogan “ICJ, be informed”, in order to secure a ‘yes’ vote on 10 April 2019. If another ‘yes’ vote is secured and the dispute is taken to The Hague, Guatemala and Belize will each face legal costs totalling approximately US$11m, a heavy cost for two countries hampered by serious development issues (59% of Guatemalans live below the poverty line). Nevertheless, Fuentes Destarac is adamant that an ICJ resolution is the only way forward. “The dispute is a permanent source of uncertainty for the two states and has led to serious border issues. Once the dispute has been resolved it will be possible to establish a normal trade relationship between the two countries,” he says.