A shooting on the city's southside could become an international diplomatic incident. We'll have that story shortly, but first: a follow up on last night's disturbing revelation that unpaid parking fines by Belize's Diplomatic Mission in New York are holding up foreign assistance from the U.S. to Belize.
As we reported last night (See US$7,895 in Unpaid Parking Tickets), on June 30th the Charge d'affairs for the New York Mission Janine Coye Felson wrote to the CEO of her Ministry in Belmopan informing him that the mission owes US$8,000 for parking fines. It may sound like a minor administrative blunder, but it's a major issue because CEO Sylvester wrote Coye Felson on the 20th June regarding, "U.S. with-holding of foreign assistance due to parking fines."
Apparently, diplomatic immunity used to ensure that those tickets never became too much of a problem, but New York City's Department of Finance has been cracking down on embassies who abuse their privileges. That word has gotten back to the U.S. Secretary of State which has sent what is called a "note verbale" to the Government of Belize, making it clear that the Government of Belize is being held accountable.
Despite numerous efforts, we were unable to reach the Minister of Foreign Affairs today to find out if the settlement fee of 60% of the fines had been paid. And we will note that while the hold-up in U.S. assistance seems like a whole lot - the U.S., though it is a superpower, is not known for lavish monetary donations on the scale of dollar diplomats like Taiwan. The superpower's last donation of (See U.S. donates boat to Belize) record to Belize was in February, when the Embassy donated a refitted Stinger vessel refurbished at a cost of US$52,000.