In his new year's message Prime Minister Said Musa said that the Guatemalan claim to Belize will never be resolved by negotiations. Musa said "the only way of ever putting an end to the claim is by means of an independent international tribunal." That means taking it to the International Court of Justice - the ICJ.
Well today in his weekly column FlashPoint in The Belize Times, Musa's former Minister of Foreign Affairs Godfrey Smith agrees with the PM and says that the possibility of settling the dispute through negotiations is_ "nil." Smith however disagrees with his Prime Minister on the chances of Belize and Guatemala agreeing to settle the dispute in an international court. He points out that the jurisdiction of the International Court is consensual and says that because it has a weak case, Guatemala "have nothing to look forward to in agreeing to go to the ICJ."
In fact he says that, "the notion that Guatemalans should suddenly...agree to walk...with Belize through the portals of the ICJ...is a bit of a jagged little pill." And it's a pill, Smith's arguments make clear that Guatemalans have no reason or intention to swallow. So what was the Prime Minister talking about in his new year's message? The answer to that, we now guess, will have to be arrived at around the Cabinet table.
