Caribbean & Central America - June 2021

*** BELIZE-GUATEMALA BORDER TENSIONS REPORTED. In late May there were reports of attempts by the Belize Defence Force (BDF) to evict Guatemalan squatters in the area of Santa Cruz, San Luis municipality. It is not thought that there is any threat of a serious escalation, but it is a reminder of the unresolved nature of the Belize-Guatemala dispute. The dispute is now in front of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but a definitive ruling is still some years away. Guatemala submitted its ‘memorial’ to the ICJ in December and Belize now has until mid-2022 to submit its response. There will then be another chance for Guatemala to rebut Belize’s counter arguments with a ‘rejoinder’, which in turn will be followed by a further submission from Belize.

It is thought that the best that Guatemala can hope for is compensation for a never-built railway line from the coast that the British promised in the 1850s in return for Guatemalan recognition of British sovereignty over the territory that is now Belize. The treaty was signed in 1859, but in 1940 Guatemala declared the treaty null and void due to the failure of Britain to build the railway line. Guatemala’s 1945 constitution declared Belize to be an inseparable part of Guatemalan territory. Belize became independent in 1981 and was admitted to the United Nations as a member state.

In March 2021, the foreign ministers of Belize and Guatemala (respectively Eamon Courtenay and Pedro Brolo Villa) met in person on the shared border and agreed to reopen the Belize-Guatemala Joint Commission to manage relations between the two countries. They also agreed to abide by the 2005 confidence building measures and to implement the Partial Scope Trade Agreement (PSA) to boost bilateral trade.

On 9 May, the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (Cofcor) of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) issued a statement saying: “The Cofcor urged Belize, Guatemala and the OAS [Organisation of American States] to respect and implement fully the Confidence Building Measures as agreed under their Framework Agreement of 2005, pending a resolution of the case before the ICJ. They further urged both countries and the OAS to reinvigorate their efforts to engage in the design and development of a mechanism of cooperation for the Sarstoon River, which remains outstanding…The Cofcor recognises and supports the OAS’ crucial role in the process aimed at resolving the dispute, arising from Guatemala’s claims on Belize, and called on the international community to continue supporting the OAS Office in the Adjacency Zone.”

In a timely development for Belize, Caricom has appointed Dr Carla Barnett, a Belizean, to be its new secretary-general from August this year. She will serve for five years.

*** GUYANA PROPOSES REGIONAL ENERGY CORRIDOR. On 22 May, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali told a conference of expatriates that “the strategy of Guyana is to become a major player in the energy corridor of Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname”. Expounding on the idea, Ali said: “Our own demand locally and the spinoff of our own investment that will see more export, would require greater logistics planning. The integration of Suriname and Brazil, creation of that new corridor, making Guyana an important shipping hub for the region, requires careful planning and development of a logistics hub and industry. And that by itself brings a stream of benefits. It’s not only what is happening in Guyana.”

At a press conference on 28 April, Ali had talked about Guyana and Suriname supplying energy to northern Brazil and French Guiana. The concept for such an integration was explored in two Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) studies on the Arco Norte Electrical Interconnection in 2016 and 2017.