Belmopan. May 9, 2016. The Government of Belize (GOB) rejects the demand made by the People’s United Party for the immediate rescission of the Sarstoon Prohibition Regulation.
At the time of passage Government gave two rationales for the Regulation. One was to avoid the possibility of any harm coming to Belizeans going to the Sarstoon in organized numbers to make a political point, given that tensions had reached a fever pitch with Guatemala. The latter’s armed forces, especially its navy at the Sarstoon, were on a declared hair-trigger mobilization.
The second reason for GOB’s position was to allow an opportunity for Belizean diplomacy to work. We felt confident that Guatemala would be obliged, under the confidence building measures, to change its stance and negotiate with us over the Sarstoon on the basis of respect for our rights.
We believe that we have now obtained objective 2, and we expect formal bilateral negotiations, in which we invite the Opposition to participate as equal partners, to start shortly.
As a result, we also believe that the military tensions regarding the Sarstoon are no longer as explosive as they were when we passed the Regulation. But until the negotiations actually begin, we are not comfortable enough to conclude that all danger has been eliminated regarding large-scale, civilian political expeditions to the Sarstoon.
We are satisfied, though, that in view of the progress already made we can operationalize the stance we took at the press conference on Tuesday, May 3, 2016. Therefore, all non-political, legitimate Belizean civilian traffic into the restricted area will immediately be given lawful authority, under the Regulation, to proceed. The only requirement for this is that they check in at our Sarstoon Forward Operating Base (FOB) so that our military can confirm the legitimate nature of their use of the river.
GOB notes that the BDF not only remains permanently at the Sarstoon FOB, but continues to go upriver to effectuate the rotation at Cadenas, as was done last Tuesday.
We also make clear that while there will be no immediate rescission of the Regulation, we do reserve the right to repeal it before it expires if no sufficient further progress is made with the bilateral Belize/Guatemala diplomatic engagement.
