(Studies of The Americas) Assad Shoman - Belize's Independence and Decolonization in Latin America - Guatemala, Britain, and The UN (Studies of The Americas) - Palgrave Macmillan (2010) PDF

STUDIES OF THE A MERICAS
edited by
Maxine Molyneux
Institute for the Study of the Americas
University of London
School of Advanced Study
Titles in this series are multidisciplinary studies of aspects of the societies of the hemi-
sphere, particularly in the areas of politics, economics, history, anthropology, sociology,
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Latin America: A New Interpretation
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America and Enlightenment Constitutionalism
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Vargas and Brazil: New Perspectives
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When Was Latin America Modern?
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Debating Cuban Exceptionalism
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The Origins of Mercosur
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Belize’s Independence and Decolonization in Latin America: Guatemala, Britain,
and the UN
By Assad Shoman
Belize’s Independence and Decolonization in Latin America
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORKS BY ASSAD SHOMAN
Land in Belize, 1765–1871 (with Nigel Bolland), 1977
Party Politics in Belize, 1950–1986, 1987
Thirteen Chapters of a History of Belize, 1994
Backtalking Belize, 1995
Belize’s Independence and
Decolonization in Latin America
Guatemala, Britain, and the UN
Assad Shoman
BELIZE’S INDEPENDENCE AND DECOLONIZATION IN LATIN AMERICA
Copyright © Assad Shoman, 2010.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–0–230–62066–7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shoman, Assad.
Belize’s independence & decolonization in Latin America : Guatemala,
Britain, and the UN / by Assad Shoman.
p. cm. — (Studies of the Americas)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–230–62066–7 (alk. paper)
1. Belize—History—Autonomy and independence movements.
2. Decolonization—Belize—History. 3. Globalization—Belize—
History—20th century. 4. Belize—Foreign relations—Guatemala.
5. Belize—Foreign relations—Great Britain. 6. United Nations—
History—20th century. 7. Guatemala—Foreign relations—Belize.
8. Great Britain—Foreign relations—Belize. I. Title. II. Title: Belize’s
independence and decolonization in Latin America.
F1446.3.S56 2010
972.82—dc22 2009039966
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: April 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
Contents
List of Table and Maps ix

Foreword by Victor Bulmer-Thomas xi
Preface xv
Note on Sources xix
List of Abbreviations xxi
1 Introduction: Decolonization by Internationalization 1

2 The Guatemalan Claim and Decolonization 23
3 Negotiation and Mediation (1962–1972) 49
4 Heavy Lobbying, Hard Bargaining (1938–1975) 77
5 Internationalization Emergent (1975) 101
6 Internationalization Ascendant (1976–1977) 121
7 Internationalization Triumphant (1978–1981) 149
8 Conclusions: The Power of the Conjuncture 187
Appendix 199
Notes 203
Select Bibliography 237
Index 243
This page intentionally left blank
Table and Maps
Table
Population of Belize, 1790–1980. 199
Maps
1. Map showing the areas defined by border treaties
affecting Belize. 200
2. Map showing Guatemalan demands during 1975–1981
negotiations. 201
3. Map Showing main UK and U.S. proposals during
1975–1981 negotiations. 202
Foreword
Belize is today an independent and sovereign country, playing its

part as a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and the Sistema de Integración
Centroamericana (SICA). Yet its path to independence was anything
but smooth. Occupied by the British in the seventeenth century in
defiance of Spanish territorial claims, it was not until 1862 that it
became the colony of British Honduras following the 1859 Anglo-
Guatemalan Treaty that temporarily put an end to its ambiguous
status. It gained independence in 1981, backed by a British defense
guarantee that ended only in 1993.
Today the biggest threat to Belize’s status as a sovereign and inde-
pendent country is the still unresolved Guatemalan territorial claim.
However, it was not always so. The independence movement, born on
New Year’s Eve 1949/1950 when the colonial authorities devalued
the British Honduran dollar in the dead of night, saw as its principal
obstacle the British determination to hang on to the remains of its
Empire following the end of the British Raj on the Indian subconti-
nent. Yet within a decade, British attitudes would change. The winds
of change that swept Africa in the late 1950s, following a series of
disastrous colonial wars, had drifted across the Atlantic by the early
1960s. Independence for British colonies in the Caribbean was no
longer resisted and decolonization followed swiftly.
Belize, still called British Honduras until 1973, had to settle for a
more limited arrangement that gave it home rule in 1964. The reason
was partly the slow pace of democratization under colonialism, but
more importantly the Guatemalan territorial claim which had been
revived in the 1940s and which had led Britain to dispatch troops
to its mainland colony in order to repel a possible invasion. The UK
accepted the right of the Belizean people to self-determination, but
the presence of British troops appeared to rule out a move to full
independence.
xii FOREWORD
This was the stalemate that lasted for nearly 20 years until inde-
pendence finally was achieved on September 21, 1981. Yet the basic
dilemma had still not been resolved. Guatemala claimed the territory
and the UK defended it. How independence came about despite these
inauspicious circumstances is the story of this remarkable book writ-
ten by one of the dramatis personae.
The Guatemalan claim rests on the interpretation of the 1859
treaty, the British and Belizeans asserting it was a boundary treaty and
the Guatemalans that it was a treaty of cession that was invalidated by
the failure of the British government to carry through one of the arti-
cles. Although for many people today the right of self-determination
trumps these seemingly arcane issues of international law, it is impos-
sible to understand the complexity of the Belize situation without a
proper understanding of the legal framework. Assad Shoman, who
has worked for years on the dispute for the Belize government, treats
us to a full and dispassionate account of the different interpretations.
If the dispute ends up in the International Court of Justice, as now
seems possible, this part of the book will prove to be indispensable for
all those involved in the judicial proceedings.
The main part of the book, however, deals with the dilemma
referred to above—a dilemma that other countries such as Western
Sahara have signally failed to resolve. That Belize appears to be a
unique case of a country that in recent decades has peacefully achieved
independence despite a major territorial claim requires an elucidation
and we find the answer in this book. The explanation is partly a mat-
ter of asymmetry, partly of hemispheric geopolitics but above all of
individual leadership. However much as social scientists we recognize
the “forces of change” and “drivers of circumstance,” we learn from
this perspicacious book that individuals do matter.
The key individual in the Belize story was George Price, who was
the dominant figure in the nationalist movement up to and beyond
independence. Loathed by the colonial authorities and accused of
being a secret agent for Guatemala, he eventually not only secured
British support but also steered a path to independence that involved
the Commonwealth, CARICOM, Latin America, the nonaligned
countries and the UN. In this he was helped by a dedicated group of
young nationalists including Assad Shoman, the author of this book.
Even today there is no satisfactory biography of George Price, but this
book goes a long way to understand this complicated man.
The support of the UN turned out to be crucial. Guatemala
could dismiss the Commonwealth and even CARICOM as institu-
tions that were prejudiced in Belize’s favor through their connection
FOREWORD xiii
with Britain. It could not do so in the case of the UN General

Assembly. Furthermore, Argentine complaints about the (ab)use of
self-determination for the Falkland Islanders may have had some
resonance in the UN Committee on Decolonization, but it made
little sense in the case of Belize whose population (only 300,000 even
today) had all the characteristics of a nation despite its size.
Belize, a nation that sits comfortably in both Central America and
the Caribbean, has always been conscious of the geopolitical realities
of the region. As early as the 1850s the United States had challenged
the UK on its interpretation of the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
that Britain had assumed allowed it to keep a foothold in Central
America at Belize (but not the Bay Islands or the Caribbean coast of
Nicaragua). Reluctantly, the United States eventually accepted this
interpretation but Guatemala’s staunch anticommunism under a suc-
cession of military governments from 1954 onward created a poten-
tially risky situation for Belize’s nationalist movement. Here George
Price and other leaders were relatively powerless, hoping that Britain
would at least be able to ensure that the United States remained neu-
tral in the dispute. Yet it was the Belizean people, demonstrating their
fury on more than one occasion at U.S.-inspired proposals designed
to compromise their sovereignty, who may have saved the day.
No one is better placed than Assad Shoman to write this book. He
has known almost all the actors involved inside and outside Belize for
the past 40 years. He has played a leading part in both the national-
ist movement and in party politics. He is respected on all sides of
the political divide and has negotiated at the highest level with the
Guatemalan authorities. These attributes alone would make him more
than qualified. However, he brings something else as well: a knowl-
edge of the primary and secondary sources and a scholarly devotion
to accuracy that makes this book a pleasure to read. And his wide
vision makes this a book not just about Belize, but also about a world
in which small nations struggle to have their voices heard.
Victor Bulmer-Thomas
Institute for the Study of the Americas
Preface
T his book is based on a thesis done for my Ph.D. degree at the

University of London in 2008, where I was privileged to have as my
supervisor the Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas,
James Dunkerley. His predecessor, Victor Bulmer-Thomas, first
urged me to undertake that course, knowing that my real purpose
was to publish a book that would tell the dramatic story of Belize and
its unlikely success, against all odds, in achieving its secure indepen-
dence with all its territory.
London was an ideal place for writing this story—apart from
the fact that almost all of the original material, involving the
facts as seen by British officials, was available only at the National
Archives at Kew Gardens, the city hosts many institutions related
to Britain’s colonial past and its history of decolonization, such as
the Commonwealth Institute, the Royal Institute for International
Affairs, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and, of course, the Houses
of Parliament. Besides, some of the key players were still alive and
around, and I was able to interview them.
Although I had a hunch before I started writing that the Belize
story represented a unique case in the annals of decolonization, it
was not until I had delved into numerous works on the subject that
I became convinced that this story was significant for many reasons.
Most accounts of the decolonization process emphasize the influ-
ence of indigenous independence movements that colonial powers
eventually accommodate, sometimes only after armed struggle. The
Belizean case is different because years after the colonial power was
ready to grant independence, a territorial claim from a neighboring
state considered by the United States as a crucial ally became the only
obstacle. The Cold War was a fundamental backdrop to the ensuing
struggle, from the beginning of the independence movement in 1950
until its culmination in 1981.
xvi P R E FA C E
When I went to the UN in 1975 to seek support for Belize’s early

and secure independence, two other similar cases had landed on the
UN plate at about the same time—East Timor and Western Sahara.
In both cases, the colonial power—Portugal and Spain respectively—
was leaving a colonial territory and a neighboring country—Indonesia
and Morocco respectively—was intent on claiming the entire terri-
tory as its own. Of the three cases, Belize was the only one to gain its
objective within a reasonable time and without bloodshed. This may
have been due not only to the fact of the difference in the attitudes
and actions of the colonial powers involved, but more likely because
of how each of the territories was viewed at the time by the U.S.
government in terms of Cold War politics. East Timor, after suffering
several massacres that cost it thousands of lives, eventually achieved
independence in 1999. And the people of Western Sahara are still
struggling to exercise their right to self-determination.
I thought it was worthwhile to tell the story of how and why Belize
succeeded where others failed: how it was possible for a tiny country
to defy both the UK and the United States, who tried for years to
convince Belize’s leaders to cede land to Guatemala and allow that
country to have a decisive say in its economic development, its foreign
relations, and, incredibly, its defense.
In the course of my research, it became clear that the Belizean
leaders had given a new meaning to “negotiation,” and that they
had evolved a strategy that they called “internationalization,” their
effective use of which made Belize the only country to win its inde-
pendence by this means, with all its territory and with its security
guaranteed by a major power as well as by the UN. Clearly, in order
to succeed they had to take advantage of the shifting conjuncture,
including the fact that the “Third World” and the UN were at the
apex of their influence in the 1970s.
I have included enough background on the origins and evolu-
tion of Belize and of the Guatemalan claim, including details never
before revealed of the U.S. mediation and subsequent negotiations,
to make the story meaningful, and I believe the book will be useful
for students of dispute resolution as well as for those interested in
decolonization, international relations, and the role of international
organizations.
Guatemala’s claim did not end with Belize’s independence, although
it never again threatened force to pursue it. In 1991 the Guatemalan
government recognized the independent state of Belize, but main-
tained its territorial claim, although in 2008 the two countries signed
an agreement that could result in the dispute being submitted for
P R E FA C E xvii
final resolution to the International Court of Justice, provided that

referendums in both countries approve such action. From 1981 until
the present time, the two countries have engaged in frequent and
often imaginative, perhaps unique, attempts to settle their differences.
That story is the subject of my forthcoming book, The Resolution of
Territorial Disputes: Belize/Guatemala, a case study.
I need to declare that for the critical period that forms the sub-
stance of this book, I was part of the Belizean team dealing with the
dispute—from 1971 to 1974 as head of the Belizean Independence
Secretariat, and from 1974 to 1978 and in 1980–1981 as one of
Belize’s negotiators and head of the missions to the UN. I have made
every effort to ensure that, while enriching the content of the work,
this fact does not militate against its objectivity and fairness.
I express my sincere gratitude to those who helped me with the
thesis: James Dunkerley, Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Orlando Nigel
Bolland, and David Hamilton McKay. I am most grateful to all those
who allowed me to interview them; their views have enriched the pre-
sentation. Special thanks to Kiren Shoman, who acted as my editorial
adviser for both the thesis and this book, and especially to Orisel
Sierra Santiesteban, who assisted me in many ways, not least in the
technical computer-related work of which I am incapable. I am grate-
ful to my editor Julia Cohen and her assistant Samantha Hasey, and
to Erin Ivy and Robyn Curtis at Palgrave Macmillan, as well as to
Rohini Krishnan, who were very encouraging and helpful in bring-
ing the book to publication. My thanks also to Charles Lloyd, jazz
composer and musician extraordinaire, whose music accompanied me
throughout.
La Habana, Cuba Assad Shoman

February 2010
Note on Sources
Manuscript sources on which this book is based include the

following:
• The National Archives, London. The major relevant items were found
at Foreign Office, Colonial Office, and Foreign and Commonwealth
Office files. These are referred to in the notes section as FO, CO
and FCO respectively, followed by the number of the file. At the
time of completing my research in 2007, FCO files were available
only for dates up to 1976. Fortunately, however, there was informa-
tion in the Ministry of Defense files that reproduced material from
the FCO for the period 1977–1978. These are referred to in the
notes as DEFE. There are also some files from the Prime Minister’s
Office and from the Cabinet Office, referred to respectively as
PREM and CAB. It should be noted that certain documents, some
as far back as 1957, well outside the normal 30-year rule, were not
included in the files. Requests to gain access to these documents by
applications under the Freedom of Information Act were, without
exception, refused.
• The National Archives and Records Administration, Washington.
References are in the notes by the number of the file followed by
the acronym NARA.
• Commonwealth Secretariat Library, London. The references to these
are cited by the file number followed by the acronym CSL.
• United Nations documents are written with reference numbers of
documents, followed by the acronym UN.
• The Belize Archives, Belmopan, for the earlier periods, as nothing
in the modern period relating to official correspondence on the
Guatemalan claim is currently available. References to this source
are signified in the notes with the acronym BA. For many of
these records, references in the book are made to earlier works of
the author.
xx NOTE ON SOURCES
• Personal Files. Manuscript references up to 1981 were made pos-

sible by the fact that the author was a participant in the events of
the modern period, and that he had access to the relevant docu-
ments of the period. In addition, he was provided with documents
by George Price, as a result of which he has in his possession papers
covering the period 1948–1981, including some papers in the mod-
ern period before 1976 that are not available for viewing at the
National Archives in London. References to these privately held
papers are indicated in the notes as PF.
Major printed collections of documents are as follows:
• Sir John Burdon’s (ed.) Archives of British Honduras (3 vols.,

London, Sifton Praed, 1931–1935) is a collection of documents in
the archives at Belize in 1930 that were extracted, some incomplete,
by public officers in Belize and later printed in London. Its value is
enhanced by the destruction of archival documents in subsequent
hurricanes in Belize. Cited as ABH.
• The White Book. Controversy between Guatemala and Great Britain
relative to the Convention of 1859 on Territorial Matters. Belize
Question, published by the Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in 1938, is a useful volume containing a large number of docu-
ments. It must be used with care because it was compiled specifi-
cally to further Guatemala’s cause and omits certain documents;
also, the translations are not always accurate. Cited as White Book.
• British Documents on the End of Empire, Series B Volume 6, edited
by SR Ashton and David Killingray, London, The Stationery
Office, 1999 (1948–1966), and Series A Volume 4, Parts I and II,
edited by Ronald Hyam and Roger Louis, London, The Stationery
Office, 2000 (1957–1964), cited as BDEE.
• Parliamentary Debates in the House of Commons are cited as
Hansard.
Abbreviations
BEC Belize Estate and Produce Company

BDF Belize Defense Force
BIS Belizean Independence Secretariat
CABEI Central American Bank for Economic Integration
CACM Central American Common Market
CARICOM Caribbean Community
CDC Colonial Development Corporation
CHOGM Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
CMCB Commonwealth Ministerial Committee on Belize
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CO Colonial Office
CONDECA Consejo de Defensa Centroamericano
CSL Commonwealth Secretariat Library
C24 Committee of 24
DC Christian Democrats
EAC External Affairs Committee
ECLA Economic Commission for Latin America
EEC European Economic Community
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office
FO Foreign Office
HIP Honduran Independence Party
HM Her Majesty
HMG Her Majesty’s Government
HMS Her Majesty’s Service
ICJ International Court of Justice
IR International Relations
MOD Ministry of Defense
MOU Memorandum of Understanding
NAM Non-Aligned Movement
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
xxii A B B R E V I AT I O N S
NIP National Independence Party

NP National Party
OAS Organization of American States
OAU Organization of African Unity
ODECA Organización de Estados Centroamericanos
OEA Organización de Estados Americanos
PPP People’s Progressive Party
PUP People’s United Party
RAF Royal Air Force
RDC Regional Development Corporation
SIECA Sistema de Integración Económica Centroamericana
SOSC Secretary of State for the Colonies
TOC Treaty of Cooperation
TOR Treaty of Recognition
UDI Unilateral Declaration of Independence
UDP United Democratic Party
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNCLOS United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNSC United Nations Security Council
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
WIAD West Indies and American Department
Chapter 1
Introduction: Decolonization by
Internationalization
T he country of Belize, officially called British Honduras from 1862

until 1973, was at the time of its quest for independence a ministate
faced with the militant territorial claim of a more powerful neighbor,
Guatemala. Belize’s independence movement started in 1950, when
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (hereaf-
ter referred to as UK or Britain) still wanted to hold on to parts of
its empire. By the early 1960s, however, Britain was committed to
Belize’s independence and the only obstacle then was the Guatemalan
claim.
Belize’s struggle for independence, although influenced by the
worldwide phenomenon of decolonization, was unique in that Belize
was the only British colony whose entire territory was actively claimed
by another country and whose people wanted independence.1 This
meant that its nationalist leaders, after a decade of fighting the colo-
nial power, had to cooperate with it to seek a negotiated solution to
the claim, while bearing in mind the proprietary interest assumed by
the United States in its “backyard.” Britain was anxious to rid itself
of this irritating remnant of its empire, and it sought, with U.S. help,
to arrange a spurious independence for Belize while actually making
it subservient to Guatemala. Public opinion in Belize, however, was
opposed to the exchange of one colonial master for another and to
British pressure to cede land to Guatemala. The only option for Belize,
faced with the military power of Guatemala and pressures from the
UK and the United States, was to internationalize its struggle.
Belizeans were able to take advantage of the international con-
juncture, where key organizations like the United Nations (UN), the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Commonwealth, and the
2 B E L I Z E’ S I N D E P E N D EN C E
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) were at the apex of their influence in

decolonization matters and in which important countries like Mexico
and Panama had strong motivations of self-interest for supporting
Belize’s cause.
Decolonization
“Decolonization” is the established term in scholarly literature and
it is retained here; in this volume, the preferred definition is “the
historical process by which the European powers who had established
empires in the non-European world ceased to rule those regions.”2
The seeds of the post-1945 process of decolonization began to
grow during the First World War and were nourished by the Great
Depression and its effects on standards of living in the colonies. The
British response was to make generally ineffective attempts to improve
living conditions and to concede varying degrees of administrative
autonomy, depending on the circumstances. Also, the British govern-
ment did not decide to end colonialism immediately after the Second
World War. Winston Churchill’s sentiment expressed in his famous
statement that he did “not become the King’s First Minister in order
to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire”3 was shared
by Clement Attlee and even by Harold Wilson,4 because what made
Britain a world power was its empire.5 The war and its consequences,
however, dealt a severe blow to Britain’s imperial ambitions. With
Britain’s expulsion from many Asian countries by Japan, “the myth
of the invincible white man was exploded overnight.”6 Although it
had reclaimed these territories after the war, Britain was in dire finan-
cial straits,7 and was further humiliated by having to accept from the
United States a loan of $3.75 billion with strings attached: the abo-
lition of trade preferences and the free exchange of sterling for the
dollar.8 This struck a serious blow to the “imperial trade preferences
and currency controls which had knitted the empire together as an
economic unit.” 9 Britain’s status as a great power was predicated on
its being an imperial power, the essence of which was precisely the
existence of the sterling area and preferential trade with its empire.
The growth of the global economy after 1945 made the trade policies
of colonialism obsolete and was also one of the root causes of decolo-
nization.10 Furthermore, the revival of the Western economies in the
1950s led Britain to shift its emphasis from its empire to Europe and
North America, where trade in manufactured goods was growing
rapidly. Trade and investment between industrialized countries had
become much more important.11
INTRODUCTION 3
Moreover, the United States was pressing Britain to take up its role
as a leader in Europe and to shed its colonial empire.12 Washington
regarded the UK’s imperial tariffs as inimical to the free trade require-
ments of the fast-growing U.S. economy and its need to control strate-
gic raw materials.13 It also considered the British Empire a hindrance
to uniting the “free world” against Soviet influence.14 But the United
States was quite willing to prop up Britain’s colonial system when it
felt that this was necessary to keep communism from taking hold in a
country.15 Such was the case in Malaya16 and, closer to Belize in many
ways, in Guyana, which will be considered below.
Nationalism and the British Response

Lord Rosebery remarked in 1884 that “great empires, when they
crumble, are apt to crumble exceedingly small.”17 After 1945, “virtu-
ally everywhere, colonial rule crumbled far quicker and decolonised
states took forms unforeseen by British planners.”18 Dozens of small
states became independent from Britain, and in almost all cases the
phenomenon of nationalism was critical in determining the nature
and timing of independence. Belize was an exception to this because
its independence was delayed by the Guatemalan claim, but it did
have a strong and militant nationalist movement for a decade before
Britain conceded the promise of independence.
The first global call by nationalists for self-government was made
by Kwame Nkrumah in his “Declaration to the Colonial Peoples of
the World,” approved by the Pan-African Congress in 1945, affirming
that all people must gain the right to control their own destiny “by
all means at their disposal.”19 In the British colonies, the means used
by the nationalists were generally peaceful,20 but wars were fought in
Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus.
Britain was forced to concede independence to the Indian subcon-
tinent in 1947, even though “in London’s eyes India’s significance
bulked larger than any other part of the imperial system.”21 At the
same time, however, it pushed deeper into Africa and the Middle
East.22 In the desperate financial situation in which they found them-
selves in 1947, British ministers believed that “the colonial empire
could make a major contribution towards solution of our present
difficulties.”23 Indeed, they harbored “the idea of expanding Britain’s
power to equal the United States and the Soviet Union . . . by combin-
ing the resources of Western Europe, the Dominions, and the Afro-
Asian colonies under British leadership.”24 This led to what has been
called “the new imperialism”25 or “the second colonial occupation.”26
After 1945 the sterling area, of which the colonial empire was the
backbone, was more tightly controlled. It discriminated against trade
with the “hard currency” areas, especially the United States, and
became a device for minimizing dollar expenditure.27 In 1948, the
Colonial Development Corporation (CDC) was created to promote
increased colonial production “whose supply to the UK or sale over-
seas will assist our balance of payments.”28 This led to a significant
expansion in local bureaucracies and “a fresh invasion of British and
Commonwealth personnel to fill expanding technical departments
overseas.” Crucially, too,
solving Britain’s post-war dollar shortage by stimulating colonial

exports to the United States was also a key element in the 1949 deci-
sion to devalue the pound by 30 per cent, and the sterling crisis of
November 1951 later re-emphasised the integral role of colonial
primary producers in British economic recovery. 29
As we shall see, the September 1949 devaluation of sterling was

followed by the devaluation of the Belize dollar three months later,
providing the immediate trigger that launched the independence
movement in Belize.
The British push for economic growth in Africa carried within it
the seeds of the demolition of the colonial system, since this growth
“would have to be paid for by political concession,” and
[t]he British were to be surprised by the extraordinary scale of popu-

lar support which the nationalists were able to command . . . territories
which had been political deserts now seemed to pullulate with political
parties that were the darlings of the masses, the tribunes of the people
and the voice of the future.30
Another aspect of Britain’s decolonization policy was what has been

called its “federal panacea”: the idea that a federal structure could cre-
ate more viable postindependence states, since self-government seemed
unrealistic for small populations. Nicholas White opines that “the
federations all illustrate an imperial desire to refashion empire and,
in so doing, strengthen, rather than weaken, ‘the British connection’
with overseas dependencies.”31 This is certainly how it was seen by
the Belizean leaders of the independence movement, who also feared
the effect of a “West Indian invasion” on the job market. They effec-
tively exploited parochial sentiments and used the British West Indies
Federation as a major weapon in their attacks against colonialism.
INTRODUCTION 5
Until the late 1950s, British officials and politicians alike believed
that “it was dangerous for smaller territories to nurse illusions of
independent grandeur.”32 The early Labor governments sought to
implement a new approach to the colonies: “they were to be prop-
erly developed and the natives were to learn to govern themselves.
Independence would be granted once the colonies were ready for it,
i.e. after 30 to 40 years at the earliest.”33 After the experiment to
turn the colonies into profitable productive units had failed, however,
most colonies were seen as financial burdens, and the foremost reason
for hanging on to them was “a sense of responsibility as well as the
feeling that to abandon them would damage Britain’s prestige.”34
It would be left to Harold Macmillan, in his second government
(1959–1963), to speed up the pace of decolonization and scuttle the
concept of “viability” and “readiness.” But before that, Britain had to
pass through the trauma of losing its hold on the Suez Canal in 1956,
which “was regarded as central to any postwar revitalisation of impe-
rial power and the preservation of great power status” and important
for securing oil supplies.35 More broadly, it has been argued that
the [Suez] crisis concerned the UK’s ability to operate as a world

power whose claims to that status were uniquely geared to its role in
the underdeveloped world, and that this crisis was resolved only when
the British government recognized that this status, given existing
constraints, was too grandly conceived and had to be scaled down.36
The United States was instrumental in having Sir Anthony Eden

replaced by Macmillan as prime minister, emphasizing the fact that
Britain could no longer play the great power game as it had been
accustomed to, and that “subsequent decolonisations in Africa and
the Mediterranean were simply one aspect of an adaptation of British
statecraft which flowed from this recognition.”37
An important factor affecting Britain’s decolonization policy was
its poor economic performance, including the decline in its share of
world exports. Britain’s trade with Commonwealth countries also
declined dramatically between 1950 and 1970 in comparison with
its trade with the United States and Europe, and while in 1960 about
60 percent of British foreign investment was in sterling area countries,
by 1970 this proportion had fallen to 38 percent.38
It was not surprising, then, that in 1957 Macmillan famously
called for “something like a profit and loss account for each of our
colonial possessions,” and suggested that in some places, “there is no
United Kingdom interest in resisting constitutional change even if it
seems likely to lead to cession from the Commonwealth.”39 Officials

concluded, however, that the colonies had contributed to the impor-
tance of the sterling area and were important for UK trade, and that
premature withdrawal would be discreditable and dangerous.40 They
also warned against withdrawal where, as in Cyprus, Belize, and the
Falkland Islands, this might lead to a vacuum into which other pow-
ers would move, damaging British prestige and risking the loss of
the territories to communism.41 A few months later the governor of
Barbados wrote that he had been appalled on visiting London to hear
a Conservative Party official say that “Britain should withdraw from
useless places like British Honduras in order to save money.”42
By 1960, however, Britain’s determination to shed its colonies,
except in very special cases like Aden, became inexorable. That is when
Britain signaled to Belize its readiness, indeed its desire, to discard its
imperial mantle there, changing the decolonization movement in that
colony from the standard anticolonial struggle against the metropole
to one focused on removing the remaining obstacle to independence,
the Guatemalan claim, and requiring Belizean leaders to concentrate
on the international environment, which was then heavily affected by
Cold War politics.
The Cold War and the Special Relationship

A bipolar world emerged after the Second World War: the United
States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) became
the superpowers, and British pretensions to be a competing “third
force” through the empire-commonwealth were soon shown to be an
illusion. It became clear during the war, and clearer still after the Suez
crisis in 1956, that Britain’s only chance of remaining a relevant power
in the world lay in nurturing the “special relationship” that had been
created during the war by Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.43 Before
Suez, independent British action without U.S. approval still seemed
possible, but afterward “the forward movement of American influ-
ence steadily demolished any such assumption.”44 Macmillan was at
pains, after Suez, to mend fences with the United States, which had
vigorously opposed Britain’s war against Egypt, and in March 1957
British and U.S. officials agreed that
the best counter to Soviet aims is to pursue resolutely and systemati-

cally the constructive policy of leading dependencies as rapidly as pos-
sible toward stable self-government or independence in such a way that
these governments are willing and able to preserve their political and
economic ties with the West.45
INTRODUCTION 7
The most important aspect of the special relationship for the

United States, however, was the Cold War, which was “of central
importance in the redefining and repositioning of the empire.”46 The
British minister of defense declared that “our Colonial Empire in its
varying stages of development is likely to be a vital ‘cold war’ battle-
field,” where the communists might strike directly or “exploit trou-
bles basically of a nationalist character.”47 That is why it sometimes
suited the United States to tolerate and even encourage continued
British colonialism, even though it shared the developing anticolonial
mood of the postwar world.48
The Case of Guyana

Because of its similarities with Belize, it is instructive to consider
the decolonization of Guyana,49 the only other British colony on
the American mainland in the twentieth century, and over which
Venezuela maintained a claim to two-thirds of its territory, although
it supported Guyana’s bid for independence.50
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP), led by Cheddi Jagan, like
Belize’s People’s United Party (PUP), was launched in 1950 with
ethnically diverse leadership and won the first general election under
universal adult suffrage in April 1953. British intelligence reports
acknowledged that the PPP had a wide following among the work-
ing class and that the election demonstrated the success of African
and Indian unity, support from the indigenous professional classes,
and “the profound desire by many people for a change from the old
order.”51 The report opined that “the PPP is by no means a Communist
organisation as such, but is exploited by a tight clique of Communists
or ‘fellow travellers.’ ” It identified Jagan as belonging to the commu-
nist section while Forbes Burnham headed the noncommunist sec-
tion.52 When the government introduced a Labor Relations Bill that
the business sector decried as a communist measure, the Colonial
Office determined that
a very grave situation is developing. It is evident that there is an impor-

tant section of the [PPP] . . . which is trying to turn the territory into
a Republic completely independent of the United Kingdom with a
Communist political bias and a leaning towards Russia rather than the
West in international affairs.53
The government had done nothing illegal or anticonstitutional,

and the British admitted that “it might be argued that since the
people of British Guiana chose this government it is undemocratic

to intervene,” but concluded that intervention could be justified as
a means of “protecting them from their own folly,” and because a
communist regime (no evidence for the existence of which was prof-
fered) “would seriously embarrass the UK in its diplomatic relations
with U.S.”54 The action taken thereafter is summarized by Nigel
Bolland:
On October 9, 1953, the British government suspended the new con-

stitution, threw out the PPP ministers and fomented a split within
the PPP. By 1955 the PPP was divided and race quickly emerged as
the central political issue between Cheddi Jagan’s PPP and Forbes
Burnham’s People’s National Congress (PNC). Although the PPP
won the elections in 1957 and 1961, Jagan was not allowed to lead his
country into independence. His government was destabilised between
1962 and 1964, when a new constitution enabled Burnham to create a
coalition government consisting of two minority parties.55
In order to enable Burnham to win, the British government went

against all tradition and enforced a proportional representation sys-
tem on Guyana. The United States insisted that Guyana must never
become independent under Jagan, who they considered a commu-
nist threat. In 1962 U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk told British
Secretary of State Lord Home that the continuation of Jagan in
power “is leading us to disaster in terms of the colony itself, strains
on Anglo-American relations and difficulties for the inter-American
system.”56 Lord Home replied that Britain could not go back on
the policy of bringing dependent territories to self-government, and
slipped in a reference to Belize:
As the present regime in Guatemala would hardly have come into

being without your support in 1954 and since, I shall be asking you
to use your good offices at the right time to prevent another possible
misadventure on your doorstep.57
But the British were unable to withstand the onslaught of U.S.

diplomacy, which pursued at the highest levels its goal of denying
Jagan the opportunity to lead Guyana into independence. President
John Kennedy told Prime Minister Macmillan in June 1963 that if
in 1964 a communist state were to be established in Guyana, the
next president would have to take military action against Cuba and
that there would be considerable resentment in the United States
if the UK pulled out of Guyana.58 Rusk suggested that the British
INTRODUCTION 9
impose direct rule, but Home noted that this would be condemned
in the UN, whose Committee of 24 (see below) had just voted for
Britain to leave at once and in this context, the question would be
why the same could not be done in Rhodesia.59 It was finally agreed,
at Kennedy’s suggestion, that the best solution would be to call an
election and arrange for a coalition government of Burnham’s and
another minority party to win; this was in fact achieved by Britain
imposing the proportional representation system in 1964. Two years
later, Guyana became independent, and at the strong urging of the
United States,60 the UK decided to leave British troops in the terri-
tory until the Guyanese security forces were strong enough to cope
with any attempts at subversion by the PPP.61
The case of Guyana shows clearly that “in the competition in the
American mind between the ‘Special Relationship,’ ‘anti-colonialism’
and ‘anti-communism,’ the last always prevails.”62 It also demonstrates
how far Britain was willing to go to accommodate U.S. wishes affect-
ing countries in its “backyard”; this did not augur well for Belize.
William Rogers, who as Henry Kissinger’s assistant secretary of state
for Latin America until 1977 dealt with British officials on the Belize
question, was brutally blunt on the question:
Latin America probably yields less evidence of a unique relationship

between the United States and the United Kingdom than any other
part of the world . . . No other major grouping of developing countries
is so dominated by an economic and military superpower as Latin
America is by the United States.63
Rogers displays his own disdain and arrogance when he refers to the
case of Belize:
Britain’s last remaining defense commitment on the mainland of the

hemisphere is Belize, and this is strictly marginal in Washington’s
scheme of things. America’s concern is for the nurturing of the ten-
der shoots of democracy in Guatemala, the restraint of its military,
and the enhancement of development in that last firebreak between
a Central American conflagration and Mexico. So the festering prob-
lem of Belize has been an irritant and a side-show as far as American
strategy in Central America is concerned for years.64
The status of Belize as a “side-show” in the U.S. scheme of things

became painfully apparent during the two decades that the Belize
government sought to gain independence for Belize.
Defense Matters
Security issues were always at the heart of the relations of coopera-
tion between the United States and the UK; they were also crucially
important for the issue of Belize’s independence: there came a point
when the only thing that stood between Belize and independence
was the fear of a Guatemalan military takeover, and the only feasible
shield against that was British forces. It is, therefore, important to
look briefly at the UK’s defense policy at the crucial times.
Upon taking office in 1964 (by which time Belize had become
self-governing and expected to gain independence within four years),
Prime Minister Harold Wilson (Labor) believed that Britain had to
maintain three defense roles: the strategic nuclear, the defense of
Europe under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and
a global role:
our maritime tradition, our reputation . . . above all our Commonwealth

history and connections, mean that Britain can provide for the
Alliances and for the world peacekeeping role a contribution which no
other country, not excluding America, can provide.65
This grandiose vision of Britain’s “unique” world power role could

not be sustained. In 1968 Wilson declared that “apart from our
remaining Dependencies and certain other necessary exceptions, we
shall by [1971] not be maintaining military bases outside Europe and
the Mediterranean.”66
Wilson’s second government (1966–1970) enunciated to Belize
its policy of no defense guarantee after independence. Heath’s
Conservative government (1970–1974) maintained this policy. In
March 1974 Wilson’s government (reelected in February) announced
that it had initiated a review of current defense commitments whose
aim was to save several hundred million pounds per annum while
maintaining a modern and effective defense system.67 NATO would
remain the first charge on defense expenditure, and other commit-
ments would be reduced, although Britain would “continue to main-
tain forces in the dependent territories of Hong Kong, Gibraltar,
Belize and the Falkland Islands.”68 Wilson announced that British
forces would be withdrawn from Malaysia and Singapore by April
1976, but that a training team in Oman would be maintained.
Foreign Secretary James Callaghan would later suggest that a similar
arrangement might be the way forward for Belize. By 1975 Britain
had embraced its European destiny, and sought to remove or reduce
its few remaining worldwide defense commitments.
INTRODUCTION 11
This posture played an important role in delaying Belize’s inde-

pendence, since the UK was policy-bound in denying the possibility
of providing a defense guarantee with a military presence in Belize
after independence. Although this was the position of both Labor
and Conservative governments from 1965, the change of govern-
ment from Labor to Conservative in 1979 proved significant, since
the Margaret Thatcher government, in the international conjuncture
of the early 1980s, was less reluctant to deploy its military forces in
furtherance of its interests.
The International Arena

The Commonwealth
The British saw the Commonwealth as a medium to maintain their
status as a great power after their real power in the world had waned.
The white “Dominions” that had become self-governing states would
constitute a partnership of free societies exercising a powerful moral
influence on world affairs.69 At the same time,
[t]he British . . . were determined to conserve sufficient elements of

legal unity such that the empire continued to be perceived as an opera-
tional (and, when necessary, fighting) entity by potential great power
entities.70
However, as long as what was essential in Britain’s empire relation-

ships could be maintained, concessions could be made in relation to
formal constitutions.71
With the advent of the independent nonwhite ex-colonies, the
question of their full and equal membership of the Commonwealth
worried the British; Burma was denied membership in 1947 when its
leaders insisted on a republican constitution, because
the object of British policy was to transfer power on terms that would
preserve a special link with the British imperial system, minimise the
international and strategic significance of self-rule and encourage
commercial cooperation.72
The UK felt that Commonwealth membership should include con-

tinued loyalty to the British Empire by way of the monarchy, and
denying this would damage British prestige and encourage anti-British
sentiment elsewhere. Two years later, the British reversed that policy
when it became clear that India would rather leave the Commonwealth
than give up its republican constitution, and India was too important
a country to lose.73 Another problem was faced with the admission of
Ghana and other black-led states, which precipitated apartheid South
Africa’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth. The British then saw
the efficacy of opening membership in the Commonwealth to all
their former colonies, but they still entertained doubts about the
readiness of subject peoples to throw off the colonial mantle, which
the British regarded as a protective blanket required for people unpre-
pared for self-rule. Even Iain Macleod, Macmillan’s colonial secretary
who put decolonization on fast track, admitted that he never believed
the colonies were “ready” for self-government.74
Still, for British politicians and officials alike, a large part of
the success of Britain’s decolonization project was the creation
of the new Commonwealth, which was seen “as a means of sup-
porting Britain’s role as a great power: independence within the
Commonwealth would enable decolonised states to play a positive
role in Commonwealth defence and the sterling area”;75 in this
sense decolonization could be seen as “the continuation of empire
by other means.” 76 But while the newly independent countries were
happy enough to stay in an organization that provided a useful
international forum, they regarded their Commonwealth links as
only one aspect of their foreign relations, as Britain’s patronage
became less and less important compared to other foci of world
influence and they developed diverging interests and sympathies.
The Commonwealth came to have a more practical advantage
for the newly independent states when, following an initiative by
Kwame Nkrumah, the Commonwealth Secretariat was established
in 1965.77 This instrument was to play a crucial role in the Belize
question.
The Non-Aligned Movement

The NAM was an “international social movement rooted in the
national liberation movements waged by the three continents of Asia,
Africa and Latin America against Western colonial and neo-colonial
domination.” 78 Its ideological origin is traced to the Afro-Asian
Conference in Bandung in April 1955, in which 29 countries led by
India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia’s Achmad Sukarno, and Egypt’s
Gamal Abdel Nasser proclaimed their “non-alignment” from either
of the superpowers.79 By 1960, world events moved a great many
other countries to embrace and expand this concept. Cold War ten-
sions had intensified and Africa had become a crucial battleground in
INTRODUCTION 13
the East-West conflict, with the crisis in the Congo enveloping the
UN, to which many of the new countries turned for solutions. In
1960, 16 new African states became UN members; they joined the
other Third World countries in getting the General Assembly (GA) to
pass (with both the United States and the UK abstaining) the semi-
nal Resolution 1514 on Decolonization.80 After the April 1961 U.S.-
generated invasion of Cuba, several Afro-Asian states, along with
Europe’s Yugoslavia (whose Josip Broz Tito had become an impor-
tant leader in the budding movement) and Cuba from Latin America
held a preparatory meeting in June for a conference of nonaligned
countries to which they invited the Algerian liberation movement.
This invitation to the provisional government of Algeria “established
a precedent in international relations and became an integral part of
non-alignment.”81 The assumption by the NAM of the right to rec-
ognize the legitimate representatives of a country before indepen-
dence later allowed Belize to be welcomed in the fold of the NAM
while it was still a colony, and facilitated its bid for independence by
internationalization.
The First Summit of the NAM was held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in
September 1961, and it set very broad parameters for membership: a
country should have an independent foreign policy based on peaceful
coexistence of states with different political and social systems, support
national independence movements, and not belong to a multilateral
military alliance concluded in the context of Great Power conflicts.82
The movement privileged multilateralism and consistently sought to
strengthen the role of the UN in world politics. The NAM came of
age at the Fourth Summit in Algeria in 1973: 75 countries attended,
representing two-thirds of UN membership. Its Political Declaration
emphasized the problems of Latin America (the threats against Cuba
and Salvador Allende’s Chile, the continuance of colonial situations)
and declared that
as long as colonial wars, apartheid, imperialist aggression, alien domi-

nation, foreign occupation, power politics, economic exploitation and
plunder prevail, peace will be limited in principle and scope.83
Although the NAM had no constitution or permanent secre-

tariat, it did have many institutional organs, the most important
of which was the Conference of Foreign Ministers of Non-Aligned
Countries. Belize presented its case fully to the fifth such conference,
held in Peru in 1975, effectively launching its internationalization
campaign.
The UN and Decolonization

The framers of the UN Charter never used the word “decoloniza-
tion,” and provided no firm guidelines for that process. Although
Chapter 11 of the Charter calls on members with colonies to “develop
self-government . . . and assist in the progressive development of their
free political institutions,” there is no call to make those countries
free. The only duty put on those states was to transmit to the sec-
retary general, “for information purposes, subject to such limitations
as security and constitutional considerations may require,” technical
information relating to economic, social, and educational conditions
in the territories.84 The exclusions suited the philosophy of Britain
and the other “administering powers” that the timing and nature of
any constitutional advance was a matter for them alone: Churchill had
said at the Yalta Conference that he would “never consent to the fum-
bling fingers of forty or fifty nations prying into the life’s existence of
the British Empire.”85 But by 1960 the membership of 49 in 1945 had
doubled to 98, and the recently independent states led the move to
pass the “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial
Countries and Peoples,” adopted by the GA on December 14, 1960
(Resolution 1514), radically changing the rules of the game and
expanding the Charter. The Resolution demanded a “speedy and
unconditional end to colonialism” and declared that “lack of pre-
paredness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.”
In 1961, the GA established a Special Committee on the Situation
with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration (originally of
17 members and then of 24, it became known as the Decolonization
Committee or the Committee of 24 or C24). In contrast to the for-
mer “information” committee, it had a majority of members who
were not colonial powers, asserted the right to receive petitioners and
send visiting missions, and examined the political situation in colo-
nial countries with a view to assisting them in the early attainment of
independence.86
Britain became a member of the C24, but as early as 1962 British
officials, annoyed by its anti-British rhetoric, agonized over whether
to leave the committee, although they recognized that UN pressure
was “likely to bedevil our international position for so long as we con-
tinue to be regarded as a colonial power.”87 In 1971 Britain finally
left the committee, just around the time that Belizean leaders started
thinking of appealing to it. In 1974, however, the new Labor gov-
ernment’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Ivor
Richard, recommended that Britain should resume cooperation with
INTRODUCTION 15
the committee, although not become a member, and indicated that

visiting missions to British colonies would be favorably considered.88
Resolution 1514, however, was not free from controversy. One
early question was that of defining the “self” that was the bearer of
the right of self-determination; was it to be a race, a territorial area,
or a community? By and large, the UN opted for the territorial over
the ethnic criterion, or “the right of the majority within a generally
accepted political unit.”89 It went further and established the norm
of respect for the former colonial boundaries. Another problem was
how self-government was to be achieved, as the Resolution enumer-
ated three alternatives: independence, free association, and integra-
tion. Luckily for Belize, UN practice in the C24 and the Fourth
Committee (the GA committee of all members, which dealt with
decolonization issues) was “suffused with a strong bias in favor of
one particular result, independence,” and it was contended that “any
decision to merge with an already existing political unit must follow
independence . . . and cannot be a substitute for it.” 90 A great deal of
disagreement revolved around paragraph 6 of the Resolution, which
condemns the disruption of the territorial integrity of a country,
since it “provides the springboard for all arguments designed to pit
or preserve territorial integrity claims against a rival claim to self-
determination.”91 How Belize argued its case for the primacy of self-
determination is described in Chapter 5.
Internationalization
The Belizean people’s march toward independence was blocked in
the 1960s by the Guatemalan threat to use force to satisfy its territo-
rial claim. Britain sought to settle the dispute by negotiation, but at
the expense of the sovereignty or territory of Belize, whose people
were not prepared to accept this. In theory, they had no standing in
traditional international law; sovereignty of the territory lay in the
UK, not in Belize. At the same time, Britain was constrained from
reaching a settlement with Guatemala against the express wishes of
the Belizean people, first for reasons of prestige and later because of
commitments made as a result of Belize’s internationalization, and a
stalemate ensued.
Under the normal scheme of things, such an intractable dispute
would be submitted to the traditional means of resolving disputes in
accordance with Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, the Pacific Settlement
of Disputes, under which Article 37 gives the Security Council ulti-
mate authority to “decide whether to take action under Article 36 or
to recommend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropri-

ate.” Article 36 recommends that legal disputes “should as a general
rule be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).”92
The Chapter 6 provisions were unacceptable to the government of
Belize, first because under the principle of self-determination, peo-
ples’ rights could not be overridden by an irredentist territorial claim,
and second because it deemed the referral to the ICJ at that time,
when Belize was still a colony, an unacceptable risk, as well as a factor
that would delay independence for many years.
Belize was, therefore, faced with Sophie’s choice: to make unpal-
atable concessions to Guatemala or to remain a colony.93 The Belize
government could not convince Britain of its central thesis, that there
were two distinct issues: the territorial claim, which was a matter
between Britain and Guatemala; and the demand for independence,
which was a matter between Belize and Britain to be resolved under
the principles of the UN, and particularly those of Resolution 1514.
The Belizeans argued that since the Anglo-Guatemalan dispute was
Britain’s responsibility, it must resolve it without penalizing Belize
in any way, and if it could not do so, it had an obligation to resolve
the issue of Belize’s independence by providing it with a defense
guarantee against any Guatemalan threat to its sovereignty or ter-
ritorial integrity. When this was categorically and consistently denied
by the UK, and when Belize’s participation in negotiations proved
that its true independence could not be thereby achieved, it opted for
internationalization.
Internationalization is here used to mean the use of international
norms, and the moral authority of international organizations, to
achieve the independence and security of Belize. It refers to a strategy
conceived and implemented by the government of Belize to achieve
independence with all its territory and with adequate security against
any Guatemalan invasion. This strategy involved lobbying other bod-
ies and persons who could have a positive impact on the achieve-
ment of its goals (including governments, groups within states, and
international organizations such as the Commonwealth, NAM, and
the UN), the use of international norms to its advantage, coalition-
building, and the multifaceted use of negotiations as a tool of the
strategy.
The Belizean leaders gave “negotiations” a new meaning: a pro-
cess by which one appears to seek to reach agreement with another
party or parties and in which reconciling differing views, needs, or
ideas may or may not be the ultimate goal. Normally, negotiation is
seen as a dialogue between opposing parties intended to produce an
INTRODUCTION 17
agreement and so resolve a dispute. Here, negotiation is used as a tool

that has to do with dispute resolution (in that, for example, it is an
alternative to the use of force) but that is a process in which at least
one party does not expect the negotiation itself to produce an agree-
ment. All social relations—in the family, in the workplace, in relations
between states—utilize negotiation as a form of dispute resolution.
Central to the concept of negotiation, whether it is openly recognized
or lurking in the background, is the idea of compromise, that in order
to reach agreement each side must give up something. This becomes
a problem when one party to a dispute believes that the dispute is
bogus, or constructed, and has no basis whatsoever in fact or law; in
such a context that party will not consider itself compelled to give up
anything at all, and the negotiation is bound to fail.
That scenario would accurately characterize the views of the
Belizean people and government with regard to the Guatemalan
claim. They believed that Guatemala had no justifiable claim to any
part of Belize’s territory, and that to the extent that it was aggrieved
about any failure to fulfill the 1859 Treaty, that should be resolved
with Britain, not with Belize. For the Belizean people, that meant
that Belize should not negotiate about the claim, period. For the
Belize government, which was aware that it had to play by the rules of
the international relations game, it meant that it had to “negotiate,”
but that it could not consider making any concessions of substance.
For the first decade during which the Belize government was allowed
to participate in the Anglo-Guatemalan negotiations, Belize was at a
severe disadvantage, since Britain and Guatemala were the only rec-
ognized parties to the negotiations. Those negotiations failed because
Belize refused to budge on any major issue and Britain did not feel
free to ram a solution down its throat. One solution tried was to allow
third-party intervention in the negotiation through mediation: nego-
tiations continued, but under another regime, and again Belize was
at a disadvantage, since the choice of mediator was made against the
wishes of Belizean leaders, and the channels of mediation were con-
trolled by Britain and Guatemala. It can be said that this process got
out of Belize’s hands, with serious internal political consequences for
the Belize government. Consequently, after that debacle the Belize
government simply dug in its heels in the following series of nego-
tiations, which naturally broke down, but, fortunately for Belize in
terms of its international reputation, they did so in circumstances in
which the breakdown was ascribed to the Guatemalan government.
Once Belize implemented its strategy of internationalization, how-
ever, “negotiation” took on a totally different meaning, since the very
first UN resolution in 1975 severely circumscribed the scope of nego-

tiations: Belize was to become fully independent with all its territory
and with security, and Guatemala and Britain were to continue nego-
tiations that would produce that result. To that extent the U.S. gov-
ernment was right in pointing out that the resolution did not leave
Guatemala with anything to negotiate. Furthermore, Britain was
constrained to conduct the negotiations “in close consultation with
the government of Belize,” which effectively made Belize, hitherto a
nonparty, a party to negotiations whose results were predetermined
not by the parties but by the GA of the UN.
The negotiations thenceforth undertaken with Guatemala, there-
fore, had a surreal aura, with Britain trying to give them meaning
by proposing real concessions and Belize stubbornly adhering to
the UN resolutions that effectively outlawed such concessions. The
Belize government used “negotiation,” then, as a part of its interna-
tionalization strategy, in the very stripped-down form of sitting at
a table and talking with the opposite party, but with absolutely no
intention, and no hope, of reaching agreement. The real negotiations
carried out by Belize at that time were those with the UK, where it
used its newly acquired status endowed on it by the UN and other
international organizations like the Commonwealth and NAM to
counter Britain’s legal/constitutional advantage as the administering
power, and with other governments, with representatives of interna-
tional organizations and civil society groups, within the framework of
the ever-more-widely accepted norm of self-determination. The latter
negotiations turned out to be for the most part very successful.
In order to make its internationalization strategy effective, Belize
moved the question of a legal dispute over territory decisively away
from the legal/bilateral sphere to the politico-ideological/multilateral
sphere. It gained independence by using the moral authority of the
UN both to prevent the claimant state from enforcing its will and to
force the administering power to assume the responsibility of defend-
ing the newly independent state.
The key organ of the UN for implementing Belize’s strategy was
the GA, the deliberative body composed of all members, with each
having one vote. It can discuss any issue and make recommendations,
except on matters of peace and security when those matters are before
the Security Council, and if any action is required it must submit the
matter to that body, which is made up of 5 permanent members94 and
10 other members elected by the GA on the basis of geographical dis-
tribution.95 But because the permanent members each has a veto, and
because during the Cold War years the Security Council was often
INTRODUCTION 19
frustrated by its use, the GA deliberations took on a strong moral

authority that few nations found it convenient to ignore.
Normally, the GA meets in the last four months of each year, and
begins with the “general debate,” often addressed by heads of state
or government and foreign ministers on the issues that interest them.
Matters that will be brought to the Assembly for decision are first dis-
cussed in the relevant committees, which then submit their drafts to
the Assembly for decision by resolution; in the case of decolonization
issues, this is the Fourth Committee. On dealing with a matter, the
committee usually holds a general discussion, then a draft resolution
is prepared, usually with a number of “cosponsors”; a resolution with
a large number of cosponsors indicates broad support. The drafts are
discussed by the whole committee, which then votes on them; the
approved drafts are forwarded to the GA.96 Given the fact that its
resolutions are nonbinding, skeptics have questioned the value of the
GA as an instance of meaningful international action, but as Samuel
Barkin notes, the GA
speaks with some real moral authority simply because it is the core
democratic organ of the UN, and, to some extent, the voice of the
community of nations. The Assembly helps to legitimate broad prin-
ciples such as the sovereign equality of nations and the cooperative
settlement of disputes, and can also be used to legitimate positions on
specific issues.97
He also affirms that the UN as a system “plays a fundamental role

not in undermining but in redefining the sovereign state system . . . it
has changed the content of the set of rules, the international regime
that we understand by the term sovereignty.” 98 Multilateralism, for
example, has become the norm of state behavior in a way that was not
so 50 years ago. This, surely, is an expression of some form of power:
If one defines power in terms of changes in outcomes, without requir-

ing that it be the result of some conscious or active attempt to change
outcomes, then the UN system does have some real power.99
Indeed, as I have suggested above, the GA was able to effectively

alter the meaning of the UN Charter (which was the product of
the power of a handful of countries in 1945) through its passing of
Resolution 1514 in 1960.
A priori, a simple state-centered perspective would predict that if
the interests of a very small colony clashed with those of much larger
powers, the interests of the latter would prevail. This is even more
evident when we recall Kenneth Waltz’s claim that the capabilities
of states can be measured in terms of “how they score on all of the
following items: size of population and territory, resource endow-
ment, economic capability, military strength, political stability and
competence.”100 It would be difficult to find a country that, accord-
ing to these criteria, could be ranked lower than Belize. Moreover,
initially Belize was confronted not only with a vastly more power-
ful regional state (Guatemala) but also with two world powers deter-
mined to force it to make unwanted concessions in order to achieve
its independence.
In the event, however, Belizean interests prevailed, suggesting that
Belizean leaders had greater diplomatic and political resources than
should be expected from the “capabilities” of their country. These
resources lay in international institutions (in particular the UN),
and in the ability of Belizean leaders to negotiate and to gain ever-
greater international support. In essence this very small country was
able to build coalitions of support among like-minded states, many
of whom were members of the emerging and increasingly influential
nonaligned movement. As Robert Keohane and others have demon-
strated, institutions can mediate the interests of protagonist states
and give to small states the ability to build coalitions that can act as
bulwarks against great power interests.101
This approach has particular force when the incentives of the small
state are very great and the incentives of the larger state are compara-
tively minor. In this case, Belize’s very survival was at stake, whereas
Britain’s motivation was simply to disengage from its colony in as
decorous a manner as possible and without affecting its relations with
the United States. Keohane refers to this phenomenon as an “asym-
metry of motivation,” which explains discrepancies between power
resources and outcomes:
An actor with intense preferences on an issue may be willing to use

more resources to attain a high probability of a favorable result, than
an actor with more resources but lower intensity.102
In other words, outcomes do not always reflect real power

resource availability; in this case Belize was heavily underresourced
in comparison to all three of the significant others (Guatemala, the
UK, and the United States), but its motivation for securing its goals
was higher. Likewise, third-party states also had an incentive to
support the Belizean cause: Mexico because of its own geopolitical
INTRODUCTION 21
concerns, Panama because of its dispute with the United States

over the Canal, and CARICOM and NAM states because of their
determination to defend hard-won gains for less powerful countries,
distance themselves from ex-colonial powers and demonstrate their
independence in the international arena.
Belizean leaders realized that, given Belize’s ministate condition,
they could only succeed in their goal by enlisting the support of
other countries. They, therefore, decided to steadily build coalitions,
expanding out in concentric circles to encompass first the Caribbean
Community countries (who themselves were punching beyond their
weight in the international arena), then the Commonwealth, and
then the Non-Aligned countries. Having gained such overwhelm-
ing support, the Belizeans chipped away at Guatemala’s hold on
Latin American countries. They succeeded because they were able to
interject regional and international organizations as intermediaries
between the main protagonists.
They also took advantage of the evolving norms of international
behavior. The norms of self-determination, which by the 1970s had
acquired a highly developed meaning in relation to colonial territories
(with a strong bias toward independence), and of territorial integrity
(which in the hands of NAM countries acquired a meaning more
favorable to Belize than to Guatemala) played a crucial role. The norm
of nonintervention, which was jealously guarded by NAM countries,
also played in favor of Belize’s security, no doubt helping (along with
UK reinforcements) to still the hand of those Guatemalan gener-
als who throughout the 1970s were minded to provide a military
solution to their desire to “reincorporate” Belize.
The same can be said about the norm of multilateralism and in par-
ticular the role of the UN. Belize purposely sought to use resolutions
of the UN (where it was guaranteed an automatic and overwhelming
majority as a result of the use of its alliance-building capabilities) in
order to limit Guatemala’s scope of action, although it must be said
that the nature of Guatemalan governments at that time led them to
seek to defy UN resolutions. More importantly, Belize used the moral
authority of the UN, and more particularly of the Commonwealth,
which had a special significance for Britain, to “name and shame” the
UK into honoring its obligations toward Belize. Britain’s concept of
prestige, its desire to be considered a good international citizen, was
highly instrumental in leading it to be mindful of the views of the
Belizean government, which were so fully supported by the over-
whelming majority of the international community. And when that
majority became a consensus (with the adherence of Latin American
states and especially of the United States), this acquired a level of

pressure that it was almost impossible for the UK to resist.
This book will demonstrate that Belize used its “internationaliza-
tion strategy” to gain independence against all odds, and will detail
how this was done. In effect, a nonstate actor faced off against three
powerful state actors and had greater success in shaping the out-
come than any of them. It may well be that Belize was the first, and
remains the only, country to use this strategy successfully to gain its
independence recognized by the entire world community.
Chapter 2
The Guatemalan Claim and

Decolonization
T he territory that became known as Belize was an undifferentiated

part of the Caribbean coast of Central America that was considered
subject to Spanish sovereignty, by virtue of the Papal Bull of 1493.
In 1821, Central America declared formal independence from Spain,
and in 1823 an assembly in Guatemala City proclaimed the United
Provinces of Central America, made up of the territories that had
formed part of the Kingdom or Captaincy General of Guatemala
(except Chiapas, which became part of Mexico). In 1838/1839 this
federation broke up into the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, El
Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.1 Guatemala asserts that it then
inherited sovereignty over Belize, which it alleges had been considered
part of the Petén and/or Verapaz regions of Guatemala.
In the seventeenth century British subjects established a settlement on
the Belize coast to cut logwood. For over a hundred years the Spaniards
tried to dislodge the British, but in the latter part of the eighteenth
century Spain, while it retained sovereignty, accorded the British treaty
rights to cut logwood and mahogany in the area between the Hondo and
Sibun rivers. But there were subsequent attempts by Spain to remove the
British settlers, who exceeded the limits of the treaty in terms both of
their activities and of the land they occupied. The last Spanish attempt
to dislodge the settlers occurred in 1798, and thereafter Spain made
only faint-hearted attempts to assert its sovereignty.
The British continued to gain control of several parts of the isth-
mus and to influence the new states in Central America. The emerg-
ing hemispheric power, the United States, also staked an interest
there. After decades of conflict and diplomatic activity, Britain signed
treaties that settled territorial issues with several of the new Central
American states.2
A British treaty with Guatemala was signed and ratified in 1859. It

recognized British sovereignty over Belize and specified boundaries, but
it did not end the conflict over Belize, because of an article that commit-
ted both countries to build a means of communication from Guatemala
City to the Caribbean coast, which was never done. Guatemala later
contended that this had been intended as compensation for what was in
fact a treaty of cession; Britain denied this, insisting that the treaty was
what it claimed to be on the face of it: a boundary treaty.
A closer look at the facts is necessary in order to appreciate why,
a century and a half after the issue seemed to have been resolved, it
remains an intractable problem that has defied all attempts at solution.
The Belize Settlement and Spain

At the dawn of the seventeenth century Spain still dominated the
Central American region. It did not remain unchallenged for long:
British pirates roamed the coast from northern Yucatán to Bluefields
in Nicaragua, raiding Spanish ships for whatever cargo they carried.
One lucrative item was logwood, which was valued for its use as a dye
in Europe.3 Peace treaties between Britain and Spain in 1667 and 1670
committed the British to suppress piracy, and within a few years many
of the British buccaneers had settled down to cut logwood all along the
coast, from Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean coast
of Central America. By the Treaty of Paris of 1763 Britain obtained
Spanish license to cut logwood in the “Bay of Honduras,” as the settle-
ment in Belize was called; the British would demolish all fortifications
they had built, and Spain would ensure that they were not “disturbed
or molested under any pretence whatsoever in the said places, in their
occupation of cutting, loading, and carrying away logwood.”4
Disturbed and molested they were, however. In 1779, when war
had broken out again in Europe between Britain and Spain, the
Spaniards forcibly expelled the British from the settlement, which
remained deserted until the European powers signed the Treaty of
Versailles of 1783, in which Spain again afforded the British settlers
the right to cut logwood and this time they defined limits: between
the Hondo and Belize Rivers. The treaty maintained Spanish sover-
eignty over the area and required that “all the English, who may be
dispersed in any other parts, whether on the Spanish Continent, or in
any of the Islands whatsoever . . . shall retire within the District which
has been above described.”5
The British cutters complained that the areas and privi-
leges assigned to them were “most unexpectedly and extremely
G UAT E M A L A N C L A I M A N D D E C O L O N I Z AT I O N 25
diminished,”6 since the 1763 arrangement had merely referred to “the

Bay of Honduras,” which was capable of a wide interpretation. By a
further Convention of 1786 Spain agreed, in return for the British
evacuation of the Mosquito Shore, to extend the limits of the Belize
settlement southward to the Sibun River and to allow the settlers
to cut any wood and gather any produce from the earth, but not to
establish plantations.7 Britain appointed a “Superintendent” with ill-
defined powers, and subject to the Governor of Jamaica, to preside
over the settlement; he arrived in Belize in 1786.8 A Spanish officer
would inspect the settlement twice a year to ensure compliance. The
Convention expressly forbade the formation of any system of gov-
ernment except as Spain and Britain may agree in order to maintain
peace and order. The Convention’s limitations were quickly ignored,
however, because of the internal development of the settlement.
After the 1763 Treaty, a very basic system of government was codi-
fied for the British settlers in Belize by Vice Admiral Sir William
Burnaby, who had been sent from Jamaica to put into effect the treaty
provisions. This rudimentary set of rules provided for magistrates to
pass laws and enforce them,9 although the settlers had already been
administering their affairs by “Public Meetings” that passed resolu-
tions deemed to have the force of law, and they also elected magistrates
with some judicial and executive functions.10
At the time the settlers had been granted permission to cut log-
wood, the logwood trade was going through a sharp decline as a
result of falling prices, and the British had begun to divert their atten-
tion to mahogany, which in 1765 accounted for about a quarter of
the total value of exports; by the 1770s it had overtaken logwood in
importance.11 After 1786 the settlers passed a new set of resolutions
to regulate their claims to the mahogany works, but contrary to the
terms of the treaties, which granted merely usufructuary rights, these
lands were in fact treated as freehold property, being dealt with in all
respects as such from an early time, and certainly by 1765.12 The shift
from logwood to mahogany changed the nature of the settlement.
Since the mahogany tree was much bigger than the logwood and was
scattered over a much larger area, its trade required more land, more
capital, and more labor. The first British settlers cut their own log-
wood, but by the 1720s they had begun to import African slaves to
work for them. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the slaves
outnumbered their masters.13 Most of the Africans were brought
from Jamaica and some from the United States.14 In 1745 there were
some 120 slaves in the settlement and by 1779, when the main activ-
ity had shifted to mahogany, there were 3000 (or 86 percent of the
total counted population). Although the slave trade was abolished by

Britain in 1807, in 1820 there were still over 2,500 slaves in Belize.
Thereafter the numbers gradually declined, until by 1835 the census
counted 1,184 slaves, just under half of the enumerated population.15
The slaves in Belize were fortunate in that the settlement was sur-
rounded by territories administered by Spanish officials who were only
too happy to give them refuge as a means of destabilizing the British
settlement. Slaves escaped with such regularity, and in such numbers,
that their masters often felt that the very existence of the settlement
was threatened by this phenomenon.16 In the eighteenth century, most
escapees went north to Yucatán, where the Spanish authorities offered
them protection.17 In the nineteenth century, when the settlement
expanded to the west and south, the slaves sought and found refuge
in neighboring Petén, or even further south, down the coast to Omoa
and Trujillo in Honduras.18 The records are replete with references
to what was undoubtedly a continuous flow of escapees.19 The inde-
pendence of the Central American countries only made matters worse
for the slave owners. In 1825, Superintendent Edward Codd reported
that the neighboring republics had passed a law declaring that all slaves
who went over to them would be declared free, complained that those
areas were “vastly inhabited by descendants of former Runaways,” and
declared that if the matter were not resolved “this Settlement must be
entirely ruined.”20
Another contentious issue complained of by the visiting Spanish
commissioners was the use made of the land. Although the slaves
were brought to the settlement to cut logwood and mahogany, many
of them were engaged in “making plantations”—that is, the cultiva-
tion of small plots of ground foods, grains, fruits, and vegetables,
which was forbidden under the Treaties.
When the Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808, resulting from Spain
having allied itself with Revolutionary France) broke out, the settle-
ment at Belize was put on the alert; fortifications were built, and from
Jamaica came artillery, ammunition, soldiers, and supplies. In 1798 a
Spanish expedition from Bacalar (in Mexico) attacked the settlement.
After a few skirmishes, however, it became clear that they would be
unable to overcome the defending forces and so retired from the area.21
This was the last Spanish attempt to impose its rights of sovereignty
in the settlement, although on very few occasions, even until 1816,
Spain sent protests to Britain regarding the continued defiance by the
British settlers of the Treaties of 1783/1786.22 Effectively, however,
Spanish power was absent from the time of the failed military action
in 1798. In 1800, the Law Officers of the Crown opined that the
“Bay of Honduras” was a British possession.23 By 1802 the settlers

had occupied areas as far south as Stann Creek and Deep River.24 In
1806 the mahogany cutters were active at Golden Stream, Deep River
and Rio Grande.25 In 1816, the Superintendent affirmed that the
woodcutters had long been in quiet possession of land as far south as
the Moho River, only 15 nautical miles north of the Sarstoon, 26 and
in 1825 the British Superintendent in Belize described the Sarstoon
as being the southern boundary.27
Guatemala Stakes Its Claim

It is not clear what part of the Spanish empire had been responsible
for the territory of Belize from the Hondo to the Sarstoon during the
colonial period. The limits of the Belize settlement described under the
Treaties with Spain had nothing to do with her internal organization
in Central America, but with negotiations between Spain and Britain
at the end of wars that were concerned with other issues. The Anglo-
Spanish treaties set limits to the settlement without any thought as to
whether it fell under the Captaincy General of Yucatán or of Guatemala.
What is known is that all the Spanish attacks on the settlement, and
the inspectors who came to enforce the treaties, were from Yucatán,
not Guatemala, and that, for example, in 1787 “boundary marks were
erected and the new territory was formally assigned to the settlers by
the then Governor of Yucatán.”28 The Spanish jurisdictional divisions
were often vague and changed over time, and in any case no effective
Spanish administration was ever established over any part of Belize.29
Barely a month after its declaration of independence, the govern-
ment at Guatemala wrote to the Superintendent in Belize proposing
a “definitive commercial agreement.”30 In December 1821 the Belize
magistrates asked the Superintendent to protect their interests with
the new states by the establishment of boundaries and the regula-
tion of commercial intercourse.31 London advised, however, that in
order to maintain neutrality as between Spain and the new republics
it would be better to enter into informal arrangements rather than
a formal treaty.32 Although by July of 1825 a British Consul had
been appointed to Guatemala,33 the British government was for the
most part consistent throughout this period in maintaining that “it is
only with Spain that Great Britain can properly or conveniently enter-
tain” the question of British tenure of Belize.34 Britain, meanwhile,
exercised jurisdiction over the territory: in 1837, the Superintendent
began to make crown grants of land outside the old treaty limits;35
on November 2, 1840 he issued a proclamation declaring that the
“Law of England is and shall be the Law of this Settlement or Colony

of British Honduras.”36 In 1854 the first constitution was declared,
providing for a House of Assembly of 18 elected representatives;37 in
1862 the settlement was declared the colony of “British Honduras,”38
and in 1871 it was made a Crown Colony.39
The first declaration by the government at Guatemala which might
be seen as reflecting a claim to territory occupied by Britain occurred
in 1832, when the minister of war announced to Congress that Belize
was a great danger to Guatemala, as it represented a manifest usur-
pation of Guatemalan territory, and was increasing in population at
such a rate that its encroachments were becoming more serious day
by day.40 In 1834, the Guatemalan government purported to make
a grant of the entire territory between the Sibun and the Sarstoon.41
The judges and magistrates along with the Superintendent in Belize
then declared the territory held by the British settlers at the time of
Central American independence as follows:
an imaginary line drawn due north from “Garbutt’s Falls” to the Rio
Hondo on the north and from the same point due south to the River
Sarstoon in the south, should form the extreme line of our claims to
the westward, and that the course of those two rivers from the points
where this imaginary line cuts them to their fall into the sea, should
form our respective boundaries to the north and the south.42
British and U.S. Interests in Central America

Britain had challenged Spanish hegemony of the Central American
coast in several areas, not only in Belize. In 1823, the United States
proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine, warning European countries off
any new or recolonization in the Americas—and British Foreign
Secretary Canning “proceeded to adopt and carry out a policy cal-
culated to render ineffective the Monroe doctrine in so far as it
conflicted with British designs.”43
In the 1840s, the United States was intent on building an inter-
oceanic canal across Nicaragua, and in 1849 that country granted
the United States the right in perpetuity to do so. The British, how-
ever, were keen on maintaining their grip on the Mosquito Shore (a
territory that straddled Honduras and Nicaragua), and warned the
Central American nations that Britain would resist any attempts by
them to encroach on the territory of the Mosquito King. In 1850,
Britain and the United States attempted to resolve their differences in
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, by which both governments agreed not to
colonize or occupy any part of Central America.44 They later agreed

that this undertaking did not apply to Belize’s dependencies nor to
“the small islands in the neighborhood of that settlement.”45
The treaty left undetermined the areas that would be considered as
“dependencies.” Britain took advantage of this ambiguity, and proceeded,
in 1852, to declare Ruatan, Bonacca, and four neighboring islands in
Honduras a British “Colony of the Bay Islands.”46 This naturally aggra-
vated the United States, and its relations with the United Kingdom
were further strained by the filibustering activity of U.S. nationals,
which culminated in the U.S. filibuster William Walker declaring his
own government in Nicaragua.47 Negotiations to resolve their conflicts
over Central America resulted in the Dallas-Clarendon Treaty of 1856.
Britain agreed to return the Bay Islands to Honduras, and the Mosquito
territory was incorporated into Nicaragua. In return, the United States
agreed that Belize was a British settlement, and that it was bounded on
the north by the Mexican Province of Yucatán, and on the south by the
River Sarstoon.48 The treaty required the UK to settle the boundaries
with Guatemala within two years. Although the treaty was not ratified
for reasons unrelated to the Belize question, Britain decided to carry
out its provisions, and sent an emissary first to Washington and then
to Central America to pursue this objective. In 1859 and 1860, treaties
were signed by the British with Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras,
which gave effect to the Dallas-Clarendon Treaty.49
The Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty of 1859

By the time the Dallas-Clarendon Treaty was signed, Guatemala and
Britain had already been engaged in diplomatic negotiations. In 1849,
Britain and Guatemala signed and ratified a Treaty of Friendship,
Commerce, and Navigation; it did not mention Belize at all, and
Guatemala did not enter any reservation with respect to it.50 In 1850,
Guatemala appointed a consul in Belize.51 Guatemala sent an emis-
sary to London, who in 1857 submitted a draft treaty to the Foreign
Office setting out the actual British possessions “on and prior to the
1st of January 1850.” It stated that Guatemala was renouncing its
rights to the territory, and that as a compensation for the renunciation
made, Britain was to give Guatemala “effective and positive guaranty”
against filibusters.52 The UK refused to acknowledge that the terri-
tory was Guatemalan, or to offer any compensation whatsoever, and
appointed Charles Wyke to negotiate the required agreements. In 1859
and 1860, Wyke negotiated treaties with Guatemala, Honduras, and
Nicaragua in accordance with the terms agreed previously with the
United States. In his annual message to Congress in 1860, President

James Buchanan declared that the final settlement of the Central
American question was entirely satisfactory to his government.53
The arrangements regarding Belize, however, turned out not to be
satisfactory to Britain, because Wyke had exceeded his instructions.
He had been told that, in order not to offend the terms of the treaty
of 1850 with the United States, the boundary must be described not
as involving any cession or new acquisition from Guatemala “but, as
it is in fact, simply as the definition of a boundary long existing, but
not hitherto ascertained.”54 Wyke, however, believed that Britain had
encroached on the Guatemalan territory, and that Guatemala would
demand some form of compensation in order to sign the bound-
ary treaty. He, therefore, agreed to include in the treaty a provision
(Article 7) requiring Guatemala and Britain “conjointly to use their
best efforts” to establish a means of communication from Guatemala
City to the Atlantic coast.55
On April 30, 1859, a “Convention between Her Majesty and the
Republic of Guatemala, relative to the Boundary of British Honduras,”
was signed.56 It declared:
It is agreed . . . that the boundary between the Republic and the British
Settlement and Possessions in the Bay of Honduras, as they existed
previous to and on the 1st day of January, 1850, and have continued
to exist up to the present time, was, and is as follows:
Beginning at the mouth of the River Sarstoon in the Bay of Honduras,
and proceeding up the mid-channel thereof to Gracias a Dios Falls;
then turning right and continuing by a line drawn direct from Gracias
a Dios Falls to Garbutt’s Falls on the River Belize, and from Garbutt’s
Falls due north until it strikes the Mexican frontier.57
Ratifications of the Convention were exchanged on September 12,

1859,58 and that should have been the end of the matter, but it turned
out to be just the beginning of a century and a half of strife, occa-
sioned by Article 7 of the treaty. It seems, however, that in 1859 the
Guatemalan government was more concerned about security than com-
pensation. Foreign Minister Pedro de Aycinena wrote to the Congress
on January 4, 1860 that he had serious doubts about the validity and
efficacy of Guatemala’s claims. He argued forcefully that Guatemala,
like the rest of Central America, was extremely alarmed about the
actions of filibusters, and also about the possibility of the British aban-
doning Belize and leaving “a motley crew of irresponsible adventurers
and pirates” there who would cause Guatemala untold trouble and
make further encroachments. Guatemala, therefore, sought British

protection against this likelihood. Aycinena also admitted that Spain
itself had never occupied or administered the area between Sibun and
Sarstoon, and that neither had Guatemala.
With regard to the road in Article 7, Aycinena stated that
[o]n [the President’s] orders we began negotiations and, following

our recognition of the current boundaries of the British Establishment
as the basis for said negotiations, we proposed—after acknowledging
its legal existence—opening an accessible road to this Capital in order
to encourage travel and trade with said Establishment by way of our
Atlantic Coast. This proviso was accepted by the British representative
and included in the treaty approved by the President. Upon examination
and approval by the State Council, it was also ratified by H.E.59
His perfunctory manner of dealing with the road, and indeed his
insistence that the road proposal was made after Guatemala had rec-
ognized the current boundaries, suggest that Article 7 was not a
major factor in Guatemala’s decision to conclude the treaty, and that
he was not alleging that the road was a form of compensation for any
supposed cession.
Wyke, however, affirmed in 1861 that
the wording of the Article having reference to the road was purposely
left very vague, in order to prevent the United States Government from
asserting that by this clause we had bribed that of Guatemala to cede
their right to the 500 square leagues of territory to which we gained a
legal title by this Convention.60
This was at variance with the position of the Foreign Office, which
was that title preceded the treaty. In any case, despite differing inter-
pretations as to the precise responsibilities of the two countries with
regard to the building of the road, both countries collaborated in
completing a survey of the road in November 1861. It later turned
out, however, that the cost was seriously underestimated, and that the
road might in fact be harmful to the British settlement. The Colonial
Office strongly objected to “the apparently impracticable Article
about the road.”61 Belize Superintendent Frederick Seymour, how-
ever, argued that to repudiate the treaty would damage Britain’s repu-
tation for good faith and put in doubt her sovereignty over Belize,
although he conceded that to comply with Article 7, given the greater
cost, could cause the United States to question the consistency of the
payment of so large a sum with the provisions of the Clayton-Bulwer
Treaty. He advised that the wiser course would be to negotiate with

Guatemala a new arrangement for complying with Article 7.62
The survey of the boundary, meanwhile, had begun in late
November 1860,63 and the surveyors erected a pyramid at Gracias a
Dios Falls, to mark the southwest corner of the boundary, by early
December, and by late January 1861 they agreed on the position of
Garbutt’s Falls and constructed a pyramid there.64 They then visited
the River Hondo to determine which of the branches was the main
stream (which would mark the frontier with Mexico), and agreed
on Blue Creek. They returned to Garbutt’s Falls in late March to
start clearing the line northwards, and by mid-April had completed
22.53 miles, but were obliged by water scarcity to interrupt their
work. They had agreed to go back to the north and start marking
the boundary at the Hondo when, in late April, Wray, the British
surveyor, received instructions from London to cease surveying the
boundary north of Gracias a Dios Falls.65
The Foreign Office had ordered Wray to stop the survey because it
would have created serious problems with Mexico and with the “inde-
pendent Indians of Yucatán.”66 Even before the survey had begun,
Superintendent Seymour had warned that it was unwise to run the
northern line, since it was not clear where along that line, north of
Garbutt’s Falls, British territory ceased to abut Guatemalan and where
it began to adjoin Mexican territory.67 When Seymour received the first
report of the boundary commissioners in March 1861, he expressed
serious alarm to London, and insisted that Guatemala certainly had
no claim to lands extending as far as the Hondo; the Colonial Office
adopted his arguments, and the order to cease surveying was given.
The interruption was to last for over 60 years.
After it proved impossible to agree on any formula for jointly building
the road, Britain and Guatemala agreed to a supplementary Convention
in 1863, whereby Britain undertook to ask Parliament for the sum of
50,000 pounds in order to fulfill its obligation.68 The Convention indi-
cated that ratifications would be exchanged “in six months, or sooner if
possible.” Guatemala, then at war with El Salvador and in dire financial
straits, failed to ratify within that period. It in fact did so on July 25,
1865, but Britain refused to accept it, arguing that the Convention had
lapsed by the delay of the Guatemalan government.69
Despite many attempts over the ensuing years the matter was never
resolved, and Guatemala eventually claimed that the 1859 Treaty
lapsed for failure to carry out one of its essential provisions. Guatemala
argued that the 1859 Treaty was a disguised treaty of cession, to cir-
cumvent the provisions of the Anglo-American treaty of 1850; that
Article 7 was the compensation for the cession and Britain’s failure
to comply with it caused the entire treaty to fall; and that the terri-
tory of Belize, therefore, reverted to Guatemala, which inherited it
from Spain in accordance with the international law principle of uti
possidetis.70
The Evolution of the Dispute

In 1884, Guatemala declared that unless Article 7 was complied with,
Guatemala would not consider itself bound by Article 1, which set
the boundaries of the territory.71 For the rest of the century, various
attempts made to reach a settlement, including a proposal to build
a railway from Belize to Petén, all came to nothing.72 In the 1920s,
Britain desired to demarcate the frontier, and after negotiations to
that effect were carried out with Guatemala, commissioners from
both countries, in 1929, inspected the boundary markers placed in
1860/1861 at Garbutt’s Falls and Gracias a Dios and replaced them
with concrete markers.73 There was then an exchange of notes in
1931, by which Guatemalan Foreign Minister A. Skinner Klee recog-
nized that those concrete monuments “form part of the border line
between Belize and the Republic of Guatemala.”74
In 1934, however, Guatemala refused to take further part in the
boundary delimitation unless Britain was prepared to discuss the
question of Article 7. Britain was not so disposed, and proceeded uni-
laterally to demarcate the border.75 On September 21, 1939, no doubt
taking advantage of Britain’s involvement in its recently declared war
on Germany, Guatemala informed the UK that the 1859 Treaty
had lapsed.76 Later, the 1945 Constitution of Guatemala stated that
“Guatemala declares that Belize is part of its territory and it consid-
ers of national interest the initiatives carried out to achieve its effec-
tive re-incorporation into the Republic.”77 And on April 9, 1946,
the Congress of Guatemala issued a decree confirming that the 1859
Treaty was void.78
Following the attendance of delegates from Belize to the Conference
for the Federation of British Colonies in 1948, the Guatemalan gov-
ernment issued threats of invasion, which provoked Britain to send two
cruisers to the area and to station a battalion of infantry in the colony;
Guatemala closed the border, and did not reopen it until 1951.79
For the rest of the 1950s, further correspondence between Britain
and Guatemala brought them no closer to a resolution of the dispute
over the territory of Belize. During this period, the dispute was taken
to a different plane with the emergence of a nationalist movement that
demanded independence, and the dispute heated up and raged on for

decades, and is still unresolved. The record shows that it need not have
been so. As late as 1931, Guatemala had reaffirmed its acceptance of
the 1859 Treaty, and had been willing to complete demarcation of the
boundary on the treaty lines if only Britain had been willing to address
the question of the road commitment it had acquired under Article 7 of
the 1859 Treaty and in the 1863 Convention. Britain’s refusal to honor
that commitment ended up costing it a lot more than the £50,000 that
would have ended the dispute more than a century ago.
This is not to suggest that Guatemala had any valid legal claim
to the territory. Even if it were possible in international law to abro-
gate the treaty, the status quo ante would not give Guatemala any
title to the territory. Guatemala has known for more than half a cen-
tury that it had no real hope of having its claim vindicated by the
international legal system; the opinion of a most highly regarded
international jurist commissioned by Guatemala stated in 1950:
The writer cannot advise the Government of Guatemala to seek to

bring the whole dispute to the [ICJ] for judgment. This view is based
on the writer’s fear that it is highly improbable that the Court would
give a judgment in Guatemala’s favor.80
Manley O. Hudson pointed out that even if Guatemala could con-

vince the Court, against the clear wording of the treaty, that it was a
treaty of cession, the facts since then would probably lead the Court
“to say that the cession has not been nullified.”81 Although he felt that,
with respect to Article 7, “a legal basis exists for a claim by Guatemala
to compensation from the United Kingdom,” such a demand would
probably be construed as a tacit abandonment by Guatemala of its
claim to the territory.82 He further determined that Guatemala would
gain nothing even if the matter were decided ex aequo et bono.83
It is fair to conclude, however, that in the post-1945 period the gov-
ernment of Guatemala was no longer interested in a cart-road or indeed
in any purely monetary compensation in lieu. It wanted territory, and
with good reason: passage to the sea from its huge Petén territory was
inhibited, its access to the Gulf of Honduras was reduced, it would
gain considerable resources in the Caribbean sea and there was the
possibility that oil might be found in the area. But there was another
element that gained importance as time went by: national pride. The
Guatemalans felt, justifiably so, that they had been hoodwinked by
the British, who had refused to ratify the 1863 Convention because
Guatemala was unable to ratify on time. Besides, the Guatemalans
knew that the days of colonialism were numbered. At first they thought
that the people who inhabited the territory, who were suffering under
British colonialism, would jump at the prospect of becoming part of
Guatemala. When that proved to be an erroneous calculation, they
decided to try to wrest the territory from the British against the wishes
of the inhabitants and with the assistance of the United States, and on
occasion they even contemplated a military solution. Both Britain and
Guatemala were willing to refer the matter to the major power of the
hemisphere: in 1937 Guatemala proposed arbitration by the president
of the United States with power to decide “in justice and equity,”
and in 1940 Britain proposed arbitration with respect to Article 7
“both in its legal and equitable aspects” before a tribunal composed
of one member appointed by each party and an umpire appointed by
the president of the United States.84 Eventually, in 1965, the dispute
was submitted to the U.S. government for mediation, and the parties
would likely have agreed to the solution proposed, but the people of
Belize rejected it. By that time, it had become clear that the inhabit-
ants of the colony had a predominant voice in the outcome of the
conflict, and the Guatemalan government had begun to establish a
pattern of stirring up the controversy as a means of diverting attention
from difficulties with its own population.
The Belize question then became a battleground that also involved
Mexico, which feared Guatemalan expansionism, and the U.S. gov-
ernment, preoccupied with Cold War considerations. And the issue
had evolved from one of settling a nineteenth-century territorial dis-
pute to one of respecting the right of the population of Belize to
self-determination.
Belizean Nationalism and Its Effects

In 1871 Belize had been declared a Crown Colony,85 ruled by a
Governor and with a Legislative Council made up of officials and
nominated members. Various attempts were later made to reintroduce
elected members, but they were all rebuffed—in 1890, on the ground
that of some 30,000 inhabitants only 400 were of European descent.86
A hurricane devastated the colony in 1931, and in return for aid to
rebuild, the British insisted that the governor be given “reserve powers”
to pass laws rejected by the nonelected Legislative Council. In 1936 an
elective element in the emasculated Council was allowed, and by 1945
the Council consisted of four official members (British), four nomi-
nated members, and six members elected on a very narrow franchise (in
a population of close to 60,000, the electorate numbered 822).87
The population of Belize in 1946 was about 60,000;88 of whom 60

percent were of mainly African and Afro-European descent (hereafter
referred to by the local term “Creole”), about 27 percent were Mestizo
and Maya, 7 percent “Black Carib” (now known as Garinagu), 4 per-
cent European, and 2 percent “East Indian.” The large Mestizo pop-
ulation was a legacy of the influx of refugees from the Caste War of
Yucatán in the middle of the nineteenth century and of immigration
from Guatemala. The diversity of the population was accentuated by
a marked tendency for concentration of ethnic groups in particular
areas, with the Creoles mostly resident in Belize City, which housed
a third of the population and played a very dominant role in the life
of the country.
The majority of the people took little interest in electoral politics,
knowing that real power lay with the governor and that he supported
the local oligarchy, in particular the British-owned Belize Estate and
Produce Company, which held a fifth of the colony’s land—over a
million acres. There had been sporadic popular protests against the
terrible conditions in which people lived under colonialism, and in
fact the first of the “disturbances” that shook the British Caribbean
colonies in the 1930s occurred in Belize.89 The effects of the Great
Depression were exacerbated by the hurricane that destroyed Belize
Town in 1931, and the colonial government’s “relief measures proved
woefully inadequate and insulting.” 90 On February 14, 1934 a group
of unemployed workers marched through Belize Town protesting
that their families were starving because they could get no work.
This was the beginning of a movement that was the precursor of
trade unions, which were banned in the colony until 1941.91 Labor
agitation continued throughout this period, and segued into the
nationalist movement in the 1950s.
In the late 1940s, despite the worldwide decolonization movement,
it appeared to Belizeans that the British were determined to deny
them independence through the mechanism of the proposed British
West Indies Federation. The people were almost unanimous in their
opposition to the federation, which they saw as an imperial device to
create one big colony out of several small ones. George Price92 gave
expression to these concerns: “What Federation spells is this: that
cheap labor can be imported into this country to enforce and imple-
ment a system of exploiting us poor people, a system to degrade our
already low standard of living.” 93 Indeed, the economic conditions
of the colony had become worse after the war, a British reporter con-
cluding “that Belize [City] with its 22,000 people is about the most
shockingly depressed spot in the whole British West Indies—perhaps
in the Commonwealth. Hunger, poverty, the filthy conditions under

which the people exist are incredible.” 94
Conditions were ripe for an explosion of nationalist fervor, and
the spark that detonated it was the devaluation of the Belize dollar
on December 31, 1949, imposed in defiance of the Legislative
Council through the use of the governor’s reserve powers. A People’s
Committee formed to protest against devaluation quickly became a
movement for radical change: a memorial to the King on February 3,
1950 castigated the “colonial exploitation” that had caused poverty
and misery to the people of Belize, demanded a discontinuance of
all efforts to federate the country with the British West Indies and
proclaimed that “there is in us a growing and determined aspiration
to eventual self-government.” 95 On September 29, 1950 the People’s
Committee transformed itself into the People’s United Party (PUP),
“to achieve and preserve for the people of this country national unity
and political and economic independence.” 96 Two months later the
party won elections to the Belize City Council, having campaigned
for universal suffrage and self-government. For the next three years
the PUP continued its campaign for constitutional reform, and
endured the usual colonial assaults including harassment and impris-
onment of its leaders, but its popular support continued to grow. The
PUP from its outset defined a strategy that was at odds with the pre-
vailing British policy toward decolonization, decisively rejecting the
“preparation theory” promoted by the Colonial Office.
The colonial administration’s attacks on the PUP concentrated
on the charge that the PUP was supporting Guatemala’s territorial
claim. The PUP had in fact repeatedly refuted this charge in public
meetings and in the Belize Billboard, but it continued to campaign
vigorously against federation, forcing the Legislative Council in June
1952 to defer the question indefinitely.97 Later that year, a message to
the Queen asked her “to release us from the shackles of colonialism
or eventually we may be compelled by circumstances to appeal to our
democratic neighbors of the Western Hemisphere to aid us in secur-
ing our rights.” 98 The leaders of the PUP were not reluctant to dangle
the threat of appealing to a democratic Guatemala to assist Belize in
its anticolonial stand. The politics of the Guatemalan government
until the coup of 1954 gave rise to interesting contradictions: on
the one hand its nationalist stance on Belize presented problems for
Belize’s nationalists, while on the other hand its reformist policies
and anti-imperialist positions were attractive to them.
Even before the party was formed, the People’s Committee sent an
appeal to all Central American governments, insisting that Belize was
geographically part of Central America and not of the West Indies.

Leigh Richardson, the party leader, even argued that “the only fed-
eration [the people] could conceivably welcome would be a federation
with the other countries of Central America.” 99 And in September
1951 the secretary of the party, Phillip Goldson, published an arti-
cle called “Seven Days of Freedom” in which he described his visit
to Guatemala, lauded the achievements of the Arbenz government
and drew unfavorable comparisons with the colonial government
of Belize.100 But the party, while stating its belief that the country’s
destiny was “more wrapped up with the destiny of Latin America
than of the British Caribbean” repeatedly made clear its position on
Guatemala: “We do not wish Guatemalan sovereignty. We want the
end of British colonialism in our country.”101 The PUP insisted that
“the present evil is British colonialism,” asserting that over and above
the territorial claim of Guatemala, the major factor oppressing the
people was colonialism, and implied that an alliance with others to
fight this “present evil” was justifiable.102 The PUP leaders at this
time never denied that they were receiving assistance from any sources
in Guatemala; they judiciously denied that “the PUP is receiving aid
from Guatemala to work against this country.”103
The PUP continued its campaign for constitutional reform, and in
1953, the Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton, fresh from his show of
force in Guyana, recommended to the Cabinet that a new constitu-
tion for Belize allowing for universal adult suffrage should go ahead,
despite the fact that the PUP “was violently anti-British and, though
not known to be affiliated with international Communist organiza-
tions, was believed to be supported by the Guatemalan government,
which had Communist tendencies.” He argued that although “the
situation in the Colony had some unwelcome similarities to that in
British Guiana,” in the case of Belize there would continue to be an
official majority in the Executive Council, and the governor could be
given emergency powers.104 The Cabinet agreed that the new constitu-
tion should be introduced in 1954 as planned, but added that the gov-
ernment should not hesitate, in dealing with the colonies generally, to
exercise “a restraining influence when circumstances warranted it.”105
Still, the British persisted in their attacks on the PUP, and less than
two months before the first general elections with adult suffrage, they
staged an “impartial inquiry” by a commissioner from London into
allegations that the PUP was having “contacts” with Guatemala. The
commissioner could find no evidence that the PUP had received money
from the Guatemalan government nor that it was trying to sell out the
country to Guatemala. In the event, the most potent slogan for the
elections became “Contact or No Contact, Vote PUP All the Way.”106

On nomination day the Governor delivered a blistering attack on the
PUP, warning the people to be “on your guard all the time against
International Communism . . . there are foreign states who do not wish
us well who are eager to embarrass us by assisting agitators.”107 The
PUP insisted that the big issue was a solution to the people’s social and
economic problems, repeated its opposition to federation and found it
necessary to condemn communism. In the end, the question before
the electorate was whether to vote for or against the movement to self-
government and independence. When, contrary to the expectations
of the Colonial Office, the nationalist party in Belize won an over-
whelming majority (67 percent) in the elections in 1954, the British
cabinet was reassured that the governor would take steps to guarantee
that the PUP would not be in a position to oppose British policy.108
Upon winning the elections, the PUP stated that it would cooperate
with the colonial government only so far as that cooperation “will not
retard the campaign against the colonial system.” But when the “coop-
eration” of Richardson and Goldson extended to supporting the pro-
posed West Indies Federation, which was still hugely unpopular in Belize,
confrontation became inevitable. In 1956, Richardson, Goldson, and
10 other leaders resigned from the party and Price became the leader,
a position he was to hold undisputed for four decades.109 Richardson
and Goldson formed the Honduras Independence Party (HIP), and
in March 1957 it, along with the National Party (NP), contested the
general elections, in which the PUP won all nine seats.110
London was still concerned about the PUP’s anticolonialist
rhetoric, and decided to play the Guatemalan card again. During
a visit by Price and his colleagues to London to discuss financial
assistance and constitutional advance in 1957, the British accused
Price of secretly meeting with a Guatemalan official in London.
Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox Boyd broke off the talks, alleg-
ing that Price had entertained “a most improper offer” from the
Guatemalans “which involved severing the connection of British
Honduras with the British Crown and associating it in some form
with the Guatemalan Republic.”111 The governor dismissed Price
from the Executive Council and in a radio address declared that
Price “was prepared in certain circumstances to see you, the peo-
ple of this country, handed over to the Guatemalan Republic lock,
stock and barrel.”112 This incident was an important crucible affect-
ing how the Guatemalan claim was to be handled by Price and his
political opponents, by the British, and by the Guatemalans in the
future, influencing the attitude and approach of all parties for years
to come and dividing the population into those who believed the
charge or used it for political purposes and those, the majority, who
believed it was a colonial ploy to detract from Price’s true purpose of
leading Belize to independence. It merits further consideration.
In early 1957 a meeting of Foreign Office and Colonial Office
officials agreed that they could consider “an alteration of a minor char-
acter” of the frontier as a final trump card to clinch an agreement, pro-
vided it had the support of the Belizeans.113 The British then proposed
to Guatemalan that talks be held in London, including representatives
of the newly constituted government of Belize.114 On 20 March there
were preliminary talks between UK and Guatemalan officials, in which
the Guatemalans revealed that a major concern was the fear of Belize
joining the West Indies Federation, but the British reassured them
that there was no strong reason to suppose that the people would opt
for such a course.115 British officials discussed among themselves other
possible solutions, including “some form of closer association with any
one or all of the Central American Republics”116 and “a minor recti-
fication of the frontier,” if the area involved were uninhabited.117 This
last idea, however, “is not one that ought to be mentioned to George
Price at this juncture. It is potentially too explosive.”118
The projected meeting between the British and the Guatemalans
that would include Belizean representatives was finally set for
November in London. While there, Price accepted an invitation for his
delegation (which included two members of his party and a nominated
member to the Legislative Council) to meet with the Guatemalan rep-
resentative Jorge Granados in London to consider the proposal he was
to put to the British, which involved some sort of association of Belize
with Guatemala. Price listened and encouraged his colleagues to ask
questions, and undertook to consider the proposal.119 Two of his col-
leagues told the governor about the meeting, and when challenged
by Secretary of State Lennox Boyd, Price said he wanted more time
to discuss the matter with his colleagues. He later told the governor
that he and his colleagues had agreed to keep the discussions with
Granados private for the time being for political reasons, and Colin
Thornley replied that he “could conceive of no sort of political reason
for considering for one moment [the] proposal that relations between
their country and the British Crown should be severed.”120
This was rather disingenuous, given the fact that severing the
ties of Belize with the British was precisely the entire raison d’être
of the PUP’s struggle for independence. Governor Thornley him-
self had reported in May that “I did not myself believe that either
George Price or any of the present PUP leaders were in favor of the
absorption of this country by Guatemala,”121 at a time when he knew

about British willingness to accept the close association of Belize
with Guatemala and even land cession. It is hardly credible, there-
fore, that the British really considered it traitorous that Price had
told Granados that his delegation would consider his proposal. Price
himself has clarified that although he told Granados that he would
consider the Guatemalan proposal, he had no intention of accepting
it, as his future actions proved, when he consistently rebuffed UK and
U.S. pressures to concede sovereignty or territory to Guatemala.122
In any event, Price went home to a hero’s welcome,123 and although
two of his party leaders defected, he maintained the support of the
PUP and of most of the population. The British persisted in hound-
ing Price, however, and in 1958 charged him with sedition for having
allegedly made uncomplimentary remarks about the Queen, but a jury
acquitted him and his popularity soared.124 In municipal elections in
November 1958 the PUP won 29 of 33 seats in 7 municipalities, and
Price became the mayor of Belize City.125 Meanwhile, in July 1958,
the HIP and the NP had merged to form the National Independence
Party (NIP). Goldson became the leader in 1961 and made the NIP
a one-issue party, based on the charge that the PUP was selling out
the country to Guatemala. Goldson had become convinced that Price
was compromising himself with Guatemala; he also feared that the
PUP’s embrace of a Central American destiny would threaten Belize’s
“ethnic balance” and lead to its “latinization.”126
Colonial Office officials at that time, despite their protestations
that they would not force Belize to join the West Indies Federation,
believed that
“independence,” even within (much less without) the Commonwealth,

is not a possibility. Self-government, therefore, for British Honduras,
would mean control of their own internal affairs; “independence” could
only be as a member of the West Indian Federation . . . We must not hon-
estly encourage British Honduras to set its sights on “independence” as
this is apparently understood by the People’s United Party.127
It is not surprising, then, that in 1959 a British constitutional

commissioner, Sir Hilary Blood, rejected calls for self-government,
perhaps decisively on the ground of the PUP’s alleged sympathy for
Guatemala.128
Still, in 1961 a new constitution introduced a quasiministerial
system with greater executive powers for the elected leaders; in gen-
eral elections that year the PUP won all 18 elective seats and the
British finally came to accept that the PUP had overwhelming pop-
ular support and that the people wanted independence. The British
were also consoled by the changed attitude of Price. When he was
called upon to form a government with some degree of authority in
development matters, he realized that the party needed more than
just mass support—it needed to deliver on its promises for social and
economic improvements, which would require the cooperation of
the British. Price accepted the British scheme of step-by-step con-
stitutional decolonization, and the embrace tightened when—after
a hurricane in 1961 devastated the country and destroyed Belize
City—the British provided unprecedented amounts of aid, includ-
ing the building of Belmopan, the new capital city, long a cher-
ished Price dream. In 1964 a “self-government” constitution came
into effect, and Guatemala broke diplomatic relations with Britain
in protest; it was not to renew those relations, despite Britain’s per-
sistent attempts to do so, for 22 years, 5 years after Belize attained
independence.
In 1965, the PUP won the first elections under self-government,
with a reduced but still substantial majority (57.8 percent).129 The
PUP leaders expected that within four or five years Belize would
become independent, but they knew that something had to be done
about the Guatemalan claim if an independent Belize was to have a
modicum of security. Price, therefore, agreed to mediation by the
United States, which dragged on until 1968, when the mediator’s
proposals were rejected by Belizeans. Immediately thereafter, Price
tried to force the pace and secure independence without a settle-
ment; the British appeared to go along with this, but then claimed
that the PUP’s mandate had run out, that the opposition had gained
popular support and that an election would have to be held before a
constitutional conference could be called. The PUP again won the
general elections in 1969, with 57.6 percent of the votes,130 but the
British then insisted that another effort must be made to resolve
the dispute by negotiation, and stated categorically that they would
not provide a defense guarantee for an independent Belize. In 1974
national elections resulted in another victory for the PUP, but with
a reduced proportion of the vote (51.3 percent),131 gaining 12 seats
and the United Democratic Party (UDP) 6, the most any opposi-
tion party had won since adult suffrage, and Dean Lindo became the
leader of the UDP.132
Despite Lindo’s greater emphasis on economic and social issues,
the UDP continued to exploit the suspicions harbored by a still sig-
nificant minority that Price and the PUP were soft on Guatemala; he
also made more of the “communist” charges against the PUP. And
although he participated in talks with the British and Guatemalans in
search of a settlement, he was clearly motivated by the determination
that the PUP should not be the party to lead Belize into independence.
This meant that as Price fought the battles on the international arena
to gain independence for Belize, he had to be constantly looking over
his shoulders to secure his home front. This affected the efficacy of the
internationalization campaign, especially in negotiations with the UK.
Guatemala: Consolidation of the Counterinsurgency State

The Guatemalan people had not fared well, and had never known
democracy during the first century of their nationhood. A series of
long and cruel dictatorships culminated in that of Jorge Ubico (1930–
1944).133 Popular mobilization against Ubico resulted in his resignation
on July 1, 1944 and the subsequent fair election in December of Juan
José Arévalo, whose brand of “socialism” threatened “little more than
the sensibilities of the oligarchy and the U.S.”134 His regime abolished
Ubico’s debt-peonage, and the number of schools and teachers in the
countryside nearly doubled, but “the socio-economic power structure
in the countryside was left largely intact.”135 Rural and urban wages rose
significantly, and a new labor code facilitated the rapid development of
unionism, while at the same time Arévalo suppressed open commu-
nist activity.136 The reformist program became more pronounced when
Jacobo Arbenz, Arévalo’s defense minister, was elected and assumed
the presidency in 1951, although even during Arévalo’s mildly reform-
ist regime Washington had begun to apply economic and diplomatic
pressures against Guatemala, and had cut off arms shipments.137
The Arbenz regime was far from being communist, but his agrar-
ian reform program affected the United Fruit Company, in which the
Dulles brothers (John Foster, secretary of state, and Allen, director
of the Central Intelligence Agency) had interests, and the U.S. gov-
ernment soon determined to remove Arbenz by means of an “almost
exclusively United States-directed campaign, dependent upon consid-
erable diplomatic and logistical support for the triumph.”138 A major
part of that diplomatic support was in fact supplied by the UK. The
British were ambivalent about Guatemala; because of Arévalo’s 1948
invasion threat they had stopped arms shipments to Guatemala, but
they certainly did not see the Arbenz regime as a communist threat
(although when it suited them they used that as a weapon against the
PUP), and in 1953 they were considering selling military vehicles to
Guatemala, but they agreed to support the U.S. arms embargo.139
In May 1954, when the United States was preparing the invasion of
Guatemala and determined to detain and search any ship to prevent
arms reaching Guatemala, Britain agreed to support the embargo,
even though they considered it a violation of international law.140
After the invasion began and Guatemala appealed to the UN
Security Council (UNSC) to send observers, Washington leaned on
Britain to support its position that Guatemala had violated the intent
of the United Nations (UN) Charter by appealing to the UNSC rather
than to the Organization of American States (OAS). With British and
French support, after a first resolution had been vetoed by the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the UNSC refused to recon-
sider the Guatemalan crisis by a vote of four to five.141 The British
later persuaded Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold not to publish
his legal determination that the United States had been “completely
at variance with the Charter” when it argued that Guatemala was
wrong to appeal to the UNSC rather than the OAS. Although the
British government defended its position against very strong attacks
in Parliament and the press, it told the United States that “it was
never comfortable for the Government to defend a line at home which
it did not really believe.” And when the British government published
a White Paper on the issue, it was “specifically targeted to allay U.S.
anxieties,” and ensured that it was sufficiently “anticommunist” in
tone. Years later, the author of the White Paper admitted that “Jacobo
Arbenz was no more a threat to his country than Harold Wilson was
to ours.” Meers refers to the dire consequences for the Guatemalan
people of the 1954 coup, and concludes that
the legacy of the Arbenz coup has been no more pleasant for London. In
need of some rallying point for their demoralized nation, Guatemalan
rightists have vigorously pursued their country’s claim to Belize and
ultimately broke relations with London in 1963 over the matter.142
The Guatemalan experiment in democracy ended in 1954, with

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)–supported coup against
democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz, and a succession of
military governments, sometimes under cover of fraudulent elections,
ruled the country until 1985. The 19 years between the coups of
1963 and 1982 marked the consolidation and institutionalization of
the army as an authoritarian political force.143
In 1958, President Ydígoras Fuentes of Guatemala asserted the
claim to Belize “with a vigor and in a demonstrable manner that had
been unknown in previous regimes . . . He did not rule out the use of
force.”144 In 1960, when the Cold War was particularly tense, with
the Cuban revolution making the United States especially anxious to
guard its backyard, Fuentes allowed the United States to prepare the
forces for the Bay of Pigs invasion in Guatemala; he also hoped that by
so doing the United States would assist him in the claim to Belize.145
On November 13, 1960, a group of young officers staged a coup; it
was put down with the help of the anti-Castro air force in training
there, and some of the coup officers began a guerrilla struggle that,
in different groupings and manifestations, was to last 36 years, over
which time the “counterinsurgency” war claimed 200,000 lives.146 In
1963 Defense Minister Coronel Enrique Peralta Azurdia overthrew
Fuentes and began to establish the system of open control of the state
by the armed forces.147
U.S. President Kennedy had instituted the Alliance for Progress in
1961 in an attempt to create a vibrant middle class in Latin America
and so help to forestall Cuban-style revolutions in the continent.
Soon, military governments were established in most of those coun-
tries. Between 1964 and 1966, the Peralta regime in Guatemala
received $24 million in military aid from Washington, and Peralta
promoted the formation of the Consejo de Defensa Centroamericano
(CONDECA). Faced with growing social unrest and diversified guer-
rilla activity, the army established new bases all over the country. In
preparation for elections in March 1966, the regime suppressed politi-
cal parties and exiled many of their leaders. Still, the only civilian can-
didate in the elections, Méndez Montenegro, who was associated with
the Arévalo regime, won and proclaimed the “Third Government of
the Revolution.”148 But the armed forces were concerned about the
rising level of guerrilla activity, and conditioned their allowing him
to assume the presidency: he had to sign a pact that gave the army
carte blanche to prosecute the anti-insurgency war, and forbade any
negotiations with the guerrilla leaders. Three major consequences of
the pact were (1) a regime of impunity was established by assuring
that the armed forces would not face judicial sanctions for any abuses
committed in the counterinsurgency; (2) civilian presidents, even
if democratically elected, would be subservient to the military; and
(3) by prohibiting negotiations with the insurgents, the country was
condemned to a prolonged war.149
The army unleashed a campaign of terror that engulfed the civilian
population. A guerrilla front had been established in Zacapa, and in
1967 Coronel Carlos Arana Osorio commanded an operation there
that was particularly brutal in its effects on the civilian population,
earning him the sobriquet of “Butcher of Zacapa.”150 The economic
situation was also affected by the war over disputed territory that
broke out between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969, which frac-
tured the fragile Central American Common Market (CACM) and
affected its potential for promoting economic growth in Guatemala.151
For the next several years, Guatemalan governments would divert
considerable attention to attempts to resolve that territorial conflict
and allow the CACM to resume its normal functions.
In the run-up to the elections in March 1970, the guerrillas kid-
napped Foreign Minister Alberto Fuentes Mohr (who was actively
engaged in negotiations with Britain over Belize). The general cli-
mate of insecurity favored a “hard hand” candidate who promised to
end the war and bring peace and stability: Arana Osorio won the elec-
tions and assumed office on July 1, not long after the guerrillas had
exchanged a kidnapped U.S. diplomat for some of its militants held
prisoners.152 The army felt that the experiment with a civilian presi-
dent, albeit with hands tied by the army, had not been productive.
Until the democratization process began in earnest in 1985, it resolved
not to make the same mistake again: henceforth all presidents would
come from the military. Guatemala was not alone: throughout much
of Latin America military governments were installed; in Central
America only Costa Rica maintained democratic governments.
Under President Arana Osorio there was a legal strengthening of
the repressive state apparatus, working along with illegal death squads.
The counterinsurgency state was consolidated. In the elections called
for March 1, 1974, which effectively excluded all antisystem politics,
the contending parties presented military candidates; the Christian
Democrats (DC) put forward General Ríos Montt as their presiden-
tial candidate with civilian Alberto Fuentes Mohr as vice presidential
candidate. On the day of elections, when the government realized
that the DC candidate was ahead at the polls, it suspended all infor-
mation regarding the elections and there was a power outage that
lasted until the following day, when the government announced that
General Kjell Laugerud García, who had been Arana’s defense minis-
ter and handpicked by him as the official candidate, had won.153 With
Laugerud, as with previous and following leaders, the Belize issue
was used to divert attention from the grave internal problems the
governments were unable to resolve.
The United States: Reluctant Broker

U.S. policy toward countries in the Caribbean Basin has been shaped
by its sense of the region’s geopolitical importance, and the United
States has used every strategy available to ensure that its governing
definition of national interest is upheld. After the overthrow of the
Arbenz government, Secretary Dulles proclaimed that “this intrusion
of Soviet despotism in Guatemala was, of course, a direct challenge to
our Monroe Doctrine, the first and most fundamental of our foreign
policies.”154
When the Belize issue appeared on the radar of U.S. policy ana-
lysts in the 1960s, their vision of the region was heavily tinged by
the effects of the Cuban revolution and the debacle of the failed
Bay of Pigs invasion. The U.S. government facilitated the first tri-
partite talks (UK-Guatemala-Belize) in Puerto Rico in 1962, which
President Ydígoras Fuentes later claimed resulted from pressure by
the United States on Britain, as part of a deal in return for the use of
Guatemalan territory to train members of the force for the invasion of
Cuba.155 Whether or not this was true, it was clear that Washington
fully supported the Guatemalan dictatorships as a bulwark against
any communist influence. On the other hand, there was the “special
relationship” between the United States and the UK, which made
the former reluctant to take positions completely at variance with the
latter. It had no such qualms with regard to the local Belize gov-
ernment, and indeed would feel more comfortable with Guatemala
controlling the foreign affairs and defense of a country that, in the
view of the United States, could easily come under the influence of
communism.
The United States certainly saw it as an important national secu-
rity goal to remove or curtail any perceived communist threat to its
hegemony in the hemisphere, and was not shy to act accordingly. In
the 1960s, the Panama Canal Zone became the focus of its coun-
terinsurgency training for armed forces of the hemisphere; in 1961
a CIA-backed coup overthrew President Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador
for being too friendly to Cuba; in 1962 the CIA began a campaign
in Brazil against Janio Quadros, and supported his ouster in 1964;
in 1963 the CIA backed the coup that overthrew the elected social
democrat, Juan Bosch, in the Dominican Republic, and the U.S.
army invaded the country in 1965 to prevent his reinstatement; and
in 1973 Washington supported the coup that ended in the death of
elected president Salvador Allende and the installation of the bloody
Augusto Pinochet regime, and also backed the military coup that
seized power in Uruguay.
Given this record of U.S. intervention in the hemisphere, and the
fact that there was an active U.S. counterinsurgency training unit in
Guatemala during this time, it was to be expected that it would take
a more openly partial role in aiding Guatemala to take Belize, espe-

cially since the latter could be seen as a potentially unstable ministate
unable to prevent Cuban infiltration. The fact that it did not can
be explained only by Britain’s control of the territory; the United
States relied on Britain to ensure that Belize did not become a port of
Cuban penetration in the isthmus. Washington’s preference was for
Britain to remain in Belize, but when it became clear that Britain was
determined to get out, the United States used its role as mediator to
try to ensure that the foreign and defense policies of Belize would be
controlled by Guatemala. After that effort failed, the United States
was reluctant to become involved again and, while it continued to
prop up the military regimes in Guatemala, it refrained from taking
any positions with respect to the Guatemalan claim to Belize.
When the United States was once again called upon by Britain to
take an active role in the dispute, it was thoroughly preoccupied with
the Vietnam War and its aftermath, and with the Watergate crisis
that ended with the ignominious removal of Richard Nixon from
office in 1974. Kissinger told Callaghan in 1975 that the United
States regarded itself as very much on the sidelines. Only when the
UK alerted him to likely military action was Kissinger spurred to
take action, to the extent of suggesting a settlement package, but at
the same time he scolded Britain for having reinforced the garrison
and suggested that this had made matters worse. It was only with the
advent of the James Carter administration (1977–1981) that a new
way of engaging the world suggested an enhanced and more positive
role for the United States in the dispute.
The British desire to be rid of a burdensome and insignificant col-
ony in Central America, the U.S. inclination to bring about a quick
solution that would be acceptable to Guatemala, and the fear that
an independent Belize could easily fall prey to communist infiltra-
tion influenced the actions of both these countries. The negotiations
that began in the 1960s and continued until the eve of independence
in 1981 were strongly affected by these factors, as well as by the
Guatemalan craving for possession of territory it considered its own,
knowing that it was playing against time, given the trend of decolo-
nization that was sweeping the world, and by the Belizean determi-
nation to free itself of British colonialism without losing land to, or
coming under the dominion of, Guatemala.
Chapter 3
Negotiation and Mediation

(1962–1972)
When the People’s United Party (PUP) won another resound-

ing electoral victory in 1961 and made clear its intention to press
for independence, the British government acknowledged that the
Belizeans must become part of the attempt to resolve the dispute with
Guatemala, and for the next decade a series of negotiations took place
with the participation of the Belizean government and Opposition. At
the insistence of the Guatemalans, the U.S. government undertook a
mediation effort that ended in disarray in 1968, with Britain being the
only party willing to abide by the mediator’s proposals. The Belizeans
then pressed Britain for early independence without a settlement of the
dispute but with a defense guarantee, which Britain refused, insisting
that the dispute must be resolved by negotiation before independence.
The British government sought to arrive at a settlement by offering
concessions to Guatemala that were unacceptable to the Belizeans and
deemed insufficient by the Guatemalans. This series of talks ended in
1972 when British intelligence determined that Guatemala was set to
invade Belize and the British garrison in Belize was reinforced.
First Belizean Involvement in Negotiations

In November 1961, the British government agreed to a Guatemalan
proposal for informal talks, insisting that elected ministers of Belize
be present.1 In January 1962 the United Kingdom (UK) informed
Washington about this move and asked for “help in sobering up President
Ydígoras”; Secretary of State Dean Rusk sent the Guatemalan presi-
dent a message denying any commitment to support the Guatemalan
claim to Belize and adding that “in the American view the wishes of
the inhabitants of British Honduras should be the decisive factor.”2 In

preparation for talks, an internal Colonial Office memorandum noted
that one of Guatemala’s “greatest preoccupations is their excessive fear
of Mexico and Mexican designs on British Honduras,” and added that
if the Guatemalans were to propose territorial adjustments they should
be looked at, “but I doubt whether this would appeal to the British
Honduras delegation.”3 Indeed, Governor Peter Stallard “reacted
strongly to [the] suggestion that we might give away part of British
Honduras.”4 The foreign and colonial secretaries put the matter in
perspective for the Colonial Policy Committee of Cabinet:
British Honduras is an embarrassment to Her Majesty’s Government . . .

Politically, it is anachronistic to maintain a colony on the American
continent in the 1960s: its existence complicates Her Majesty’s
Government’s relations with all the Latin American States (who are
passionately anti-colonial) . . . Indirectly, this also has repercussions
on our relations with the United States. Militarily, the maintenance
of a garrison in British Honduras is a commitment which we ought
to shed as soon as possible. Financially, British Honduras costs Her
Majesty’s Government half a million pounds per annum simply to bal-
ance the budget. Added to these general disadvantages is our long-
standing dispute with Guatemala, which is costing us about £1 million
per annum in lost trade already, and if the Guatemalan Government
decides to break relations with us, could lead to the loss of substantial
British assets as well.5
They felt there was “no visible prospect of the territory becoming
economically viable, unless incorporated within some larger economic
framework,” but admitted that it was tacitly accepted in Belize that
independence was the goal. What was needed was a formula that satis-
fied certain requirements: that the UK “be relieved as soon as possible
of their expensive and embarrassing commitment to defend and give
full financial support” to Belize; that Guatemala’s aspirations to see
Belize “associated closely with Central America and so with her are
satisfied far enough to enable our relations to return to normal”; that
Belize be given adequate protection against any Guatemalan attempt
to annex the territory; that alternative sources of finance be found,
and that Mexican susceptibilities be satisfied. The secretaries believed
that all these objectives could be achieved by granting Belize full
internal self-government and by Belize’s entry into the Organización
de Estados Centroamericanos (ODECA) and the Organization of
American States (OAS) on attaining independence. When the British
put these thoughts to the U.S. State Department, the officials were
N E G O T I AT I O N A N D M E D I AT I O N 51
noncommittal, although one was heard to murmur that “an indepen-

dent country of 92,000 people would land on the American plate.”6
Talks were held in Puerto Rico in April 1962. The British del-
egation was led by the Earl of Dundee, the Guatemalan by Ernesto
Viteri Bertran, and the Belizean by Price. Dundee stated that the
British government was aware that “Latin America had become
a critical centre of the cold war: Castroism and communism could
only be defeated in the area if all its enemies were united and did all
they could to remove causes of friction. The future of BH was such
a cause.”7 He announced that a constitutional conference in 1963
would agree on full internal self-government for Belize and hopefully
independence would follow soon after, and then Belize would be free
to join or associate with whomsoever she wished. Viteri welcomed
Britain’s decision to retire from the Central American area as a colo-
nial power and expressed the hope that this would open the way to
a solution which would adequately satisfy Guatemalan requirements.
Price declared that his party manifesto called for full internal self-
government within the Commonwealth, followed by independence.
The Guatemalans, however, objected that Belize was too weak to
stand alone and would fall prey to communists. They protested that
Britain could not unilaterally grant independence to Belize, and pro-
posed that a transitory regime of joint administration be established,
supervised by an international organization, and that after an appropri-
ate time a plebiscite be held, which would guarantee Belizeans the right
to self-determination.8 Britain maintained that it had already promised
independence to Belize, and would not renege on that promise unless
the Belizeans so requested. Price affirmed that Belizeans had already
decided their future, which was independence, and that the transitory
regime was not acceptable. It became clear that there was no basis for
a meeting of minds, but two concrete actions were agreed: that the
Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) activate the rec-
ommendation it had made in 19619 to undertake a study to consider
the implications for Belize to join the Central American economic
system and that a commission be established to recommend measures
for cooperation and joint development.10 In the event, neither of these
resulted in any positive outcome: the commission never met, and the
ECLA study was not completed until 1968, when it advised that Belize
had nothing to gain from closer economic ties with Central America.11
Although the declaration had called for further talks, none was held.
The Guatemalan delegation advised its government that in order
to thwart Britain’s plans for making Belize independent, it must
endeavor to get the support of the U.S. State Department.12 In
January 1963, Guatemala sought the “friendly intervention” of the

U.S. government, proposing its Puerto Rico formula for a transitory
regime, but the State Department responded that U.S. policy was
not to intervene in this kind of dispute.13
On March 31, 1963 Fuentes was overthrown by a military coup,
and Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia was sworn in as president. His
foreign minister, Alberto Herrarte, declared that his government
would not allow any unilateral change in the status of Belize, and
that Britain’s insistence on creating a new state out of a portion of
Guatemalan territory could only be considered by his government
as secession, and his government would feel free to take whatever
unilateral action best served its interests.14
Self-government for Belize and U.S. “Good Offices”

The constitutional conference was already taking place in London when
the British responded on July 13, denying that Guatemala had any rights
over Belize, or any right to be consulted about its future, but express-
ing the hope that the recommendations agreed at Puerto Rico could
be implemented and that informal talks could be held soon.15 When
the Guatemalan government learnt that a new self-government con-
stitution with a ministerial system and a bicameral National Assembly
would be implemented on January 1, 1964, it broke off diplomatic
relations with Britain, but maintained its consulate in Belize.16
A commission of three ex–foreign ministers appointed by Herrarte
from the Consejo de Belice17 recommended that Guatemala ask the
United States to mediate the dispute. They disagreed with the offer to
hold a plebiscite in Belize, arguing that Guatemala had often expressed
its reservations about applying the principle of self-determination to
the Belize case, considering it a case of unlawful detention of its terri-
tory by Britain.18 On their advice, the Foreign Ministry wrote to the
U.S. government asking for its “friendly mediation” to find a solution
to the dispute. The State Department replied that it had always main-
tained a position of strict impartiality in that dispute, but agreed to
explore whether its good offices could be usefully employed.19
They were, and accordingly three meetings were held toward the
end of 1963 in Washington between the British and Guatemalan
ambassadors. Britain insisted that there would be no delay in grant-
ing internal self-government to Belize.20 Guatemalan delegate
Adolfo Molina Orantes proposed a federation between Belize and
Guatemala.21 The British representative replied that a federation that
meant the incorporation of Belize into Guatemala would certainly not
be acceptable to Belizeans, but that they might consider some form

of federation within the Central American framework. He refused to
engage in a conversation on that issue, however, insisting that this
would have to be discussed in the presence of Belizeans; nothing
further could be discussed until the new constitution had come into
effect, the Belizean ministers had assumed their new functions, and
they had completed a projected tour of neighboring countries.22
In April 1964, the U.S. government made it clear to Guatemala that it
“cannot support Guatemala’s claim to British Honduras on any grounds
of law or equity at all,”23 and the Colonial Office asserted that
[t]he United States Government now appears to be firmly committed

to the principle of self-determination for British Honduras and that
the British Government are satisfied that the State Department is not
and never was supporting the Guatemalan proposals whatever individ-
ual officials may have advocated . . . the United States Government have
been remarkably co-operative in exercising their good offices between
the British and Guatemalan Governments, without trying to put on
any pressure in order to obtain concessions for the Guatemalans.24
Just how wrong this assessment was, certainly in terms of the future atti-
tude of the United States, will become clear in the following pages.
The Guatemalans, meanwhile, concluded that any further talks in
Washington would be fruitless, and asked Britain to send a “top flight
diplomatist” to Guatemala for negotiations; Britain agreed on condi-
tion that Belizean representatives be present.25 In September Britain
sent Ambassador Sir Douglas Busk to Guatemala with the message
that federation was unacceptable to the Belizeans and, therefore, to
Britain. He proposed that Price join the meeting, but the Guatemalans
would not receive him unless he came prepared to discuss the federa-
tion proposal; Price refused, and a quick visit by Busk to Belize on a
U.S.-provided aircraft did not budge him.26 Busk concluded that “the
major factor in all our talks was very intense mistrust of Mr. Price
(only equaled by his mistrust of them),” that the Guatemalans were
most preoccupied by the “vacuum” in Belize after Britain left, and
that what they feared most was Mexico filling that vacuum.27 When
the Guatemalans realized that their federation idea would go nowhere,
they proposed either arbitration or that the UK and Guatemala jointly
ask the U.S. government to mediate.28 The U.S. government told the
British that they did not want to mediate, and preferred that the mat-
ter be submitted to arbitration. They added that “they have serious
worries about the wisdom of British Honduras proceeding to inde-
pendence with the dispute with Guatemala unresolved; they also
question the economic viability of an independent territory of 100,000

inhabitants.”29 The United States apparently also shared Guatemala’s
attitude to Mexico; when Stallard asked the U.S. consul what would
be the U.S. reaction to a Mexico-Belize relationship similar to that of
the United States and Puerto Rico,
he was frankly horrified, and said . . . that he imagined the U.S. would
prefer to prop up an unviable independent Belize rather than see the
Guatemalans upset . . . it does show up U.S. thinking on Mexico whom
they appear ready to ignore, as opposed to Guatemala which they
evidently consider to be the lynch-pin of their apparatus to control
Central America.30
The U.S. government was worried about attacks by guerrillas on U.S.

property in Guatemala City, and alleged that both urban and rural guer-
rillas were being supplied through Mexico, and that one route used was
the northern frontier of Petén very close to the border with Belize.31
Mediation by the U.S. Government

The British and Guatemalans met in Miami in May 1965, where a large
delegation of Belizeans headed by Price and including Opposition
members was present, and there was agreement in principle to seek a
mediator.32 At further meetings in London, the British government
bowed to the Guatemalan demand that they jointly ask the United
States to mediate, despite the objections of the Belizeans, who expressed
their preference for the mediation not to be undertaken by the United
States alone, but rather with other governments.33 The U.S. govern-
ment did not at first wish to assume the mediation, but eventually
agreed, and so informed the two governments by note of September
28, 1965.34 The Belizeans made it clear that they would accept this
reluctantly, and insisted that they had the “tacit right to veto any rec-
ommendation of the mediator which it finds unacceptable.”35
The U.S. government appointed Mr. Bethuel Webster, a member
of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, as its mediator, and the first
meetings of the parties with Webster took place in November 1965 at
the State Department.36 The terms of reference were formally accepted,
but both countries made reservations. Guatemala stated that the ter-
ritory of Belize was an integral part of Guatemala, and hence the prin-
ciple of self-determination did not apply. Britain maintained that the
mediation must take into account the principle of self-determination,
that it entertained no doubts about its sovereignty, and that the
mediation should not refer to the juridical merits of the case.37 By
subsequent exchange of notes, Britain, Guatemala, and the United

States agreed that the objective of the mediation would be the defini-
tive resolution of the dispute between Britain and Guatemala over
the territory of Belize, taking into account the position and rights of
both countries with respect to Belize. It was agreed that the proceed-
ings would not be made public while the mediation was in progress
without the consent of the mediator and both governments.38
Further meetings took place in New York the following month,
where Webster put some ideas forward: joint access to roads and water-
ways, joint customs arrangements, a joint commission for road and
water transportation, and Belize’s entry into the Central American
Common Market (CACM). In a separate meeting with the British
delegation Webster suggested further that the UK provide a quid pro
quo for the cart road of Article 7 as well as assistance for economic
and cultural development, and asked about possible arrangements
for “relatively free movement of people” across the western border of
Belize, consular representation for Belize by Guatemala, and coopera-
tion on public safety.39 Webster visited Guatemala in January 1966,40
and went on to Belize, where he was struck by the determination of
Belizeans not to become part of Guatemala. As a result of his visits,
he was “very much more impressed by the difficulties of reaching a
political solution than he was before.”41
In early March, Webster met with the Guatemalans in New York
and then with the British and Belizeans (including two Opposition
members), to whom he confided that the position of Guatemala had
been “very rigid.” They discussed the points Webster had suggested
in December as well as new ideas on defense, free port facilities, a
plebiscite and a free trade area. He said that “the present Guatemalan
military fear was that British Honduras might become a channel for
infiltration into Guatemala (e.g. from Cuba).”42 Webster promised
to reflect on all he had heard from both sides and present a paper
in the near future. The Belizeans asked him to go slow on projects
such as road links, border facilities, and hydro schemes “until such
time as they could negotiate with the Guatemalans on an equal foot-
ing,” and said that they were opposed to the removal of the British
military presence and would not be prepared to share with Guatemala
responsibility for the sea coast or land border.43
The First Webster Proposals

In January 1966, according to Herrarte, Webster submitted to
Guatemala an outline agreement for development of the contiguous
areas of Belize and Petén.44 A seven-member Joint Authority would

be established of three from each side and an international personality
chosen by both as executive president. The areas within the author-
ity’s competence would include natural and human resources and the
environment, construction of transport and communications facilities,
free ports in Belize, free movement of capital and labor, education, and
culture. The topics of public security and public information were men-
tioned but not developed.45 The Guatemalans were unhappy with this
proposal, since although it did not refer to independence for Belize,
neither did it resolve the territorial dispute. They proposed instead
that the faculties and powers exercised by Britain pass to a ministerial-
level Administrative Authority of indefinite duration comprised of
three members named by each of the governments of Guatemala and
Belize; the seventh member would preside, and be named by those
six, and if they could not agree, by the ODECA. International repre-
sentation for the development plans of Belize would be managed by
the Authority along with the government of Guatemala; the defense
of Belize would be undertaken by the government of Guatemala, with
the coordination of the Authority and the local government of Belize;
Guatemala would patrol the coasts of Belize and establish naval bases
anywhere along its coast. Additional provisions covered the free move-
ment of persons and goods; free ports for Guatemala at Belize City
and Dangriga; a joint police force responsible to the Authority; free
trade; and mutual recognition of educational certificates.46
Aycinena delivered these amended proposals (based on a
Guatemalan Cabinet paper)47 to Webster in March 1966, arguing
that they represented a significant move away from the traditional
position, which was the total recuperation of the territory, plain and
simple. But Webster felt that if he presented the Guatemalan proposals
as they stood to Belize it would mean the failure of the mediation.48
The Second Webster Proposals, 1966

In April 1966, Webster presented fresh proposals to the Guatemalans,
asserting that they had been approved by the British and the Belizeans,
and that they reflected U.S. policy on the matter.49 Neither the
British nor the Belizeans, however, had seen them. The proposals
were in the form of a draft treaty between Guatemala and Britain,
stating that within a short time Britain would abandon all claims
over Belize and cease to exercise all governmental functions. There
were provisions for Guatemala to assist the government of Belize in
the conduct of its international relations and, when requested, to
represent Belize internationally and protect Belizean nationals in

other countries. During the transitional period, the governments of
Guatemala and Britain would share responsibility for defense; after
that period, Guatemala would be responsible for those defense mat-
ters agreed to between it and the government of Belize. Guatemala
and Belize would cooperate in the use of their internal security forces.
There were provisions for freedom of transit, movement of goods and
persons, free trade, free ports, and other matters. The Authority to
be established to deal with these matters would be composed in the
same way as in Webster’s previous proposal.50
Webster told the Guatemalans that he was attempting to establish
a type of federation between Belize and Guatemala without calling it
that. Herrarte has opined that this official proposal of the U.S. gov-
ernment was constructive and that although Guatemala would not
have formally recuperated the territory, it would have put an end to
Britain’s sovereignty and created permanent ties assuring a political
and economic community between Belize and Guatemala.51
On May 4–6, Webster met with Foreign Office (FO) officials in
London and explained that, on the advice of the State Department,
he had earlier submitted draft proposals to the Guatemalans; they
had reported to him in New York on April 28 that they had submit-
ted it to their Cabinet, the Council of State, other ministers, and
President-elect Julio César Méndez Montenegro, and they had all
been “in favor in principle,” although they had made many sugges-
tions for detailed changes in the draft.52 He had then instructed the
U.S. embassy in London to deliver a copy to the FO.53 John Rennie
for the FO said that at official level the UK “were in sympathy with
the general aim and with the form of the agreement.” The British
proposed an amendment to Webster’s defense arrangements, by call-
ing only for exchange of information, but Webster insisted that “there
was a problem of Communist infiltration and there should therefore
be policing of joint enterprises and the joint use of security forces to
deal with . . . Cuban penetration.”54 Webster asked the British to write
him a letter agreeing to his proposals, but Rennie insisted that any
UK agreement in principle would be valueless without Belizean agree-
ment, and “it would be nearly impossible to sell the draft as it stood”
to them, whereupon Webster conceded that “everyone must be fair
with Mr. Price and provide him with a complete disclosure.”55
The British were caught in a dilemma: they thought that Webster
would not accept modifications they had in mind because these would
prove unacceptable to the Guatemalans, but they knew that Webster’s
proposals would be “entirely unacceptable” to the Belizeans, and in any
case would not prevent Guatemala from “reasserting its claim when-
ever it chooses.”56 The FO prepared a redraft of Webster’s propos-
als, softening some provisions, limiting internal security provisions to
exchange of information and removing from the Authority the power
to make regulations and to have enforcement responsibility, but main-
taining Guatemala’s authority to participate in the defense of Belize.57
The British were apprehensive about showing the draft to Price—“his
reaction might be so adverse that it may prejudice our chances of dis-
pelling suspicions that he may well form”58 —and decided to bring
the Belizeans to London for talks prior to going to New York to meet
the mediator. The governor felt there was no chance that either Price
or Goldson would find the proposals acceptable, since they envisaged
“substantial diminution of sovereignty with Guatemala put in domi-
nant role and no reciprocal benefits for Belize.”59 Meanwhile, account
had to be taken of Mexican sensibilities:
The Mexican government support self-determination for British

Honduras and eventual independence without strings. They have also
hitherto assumed that this was H.M. Government’s position. If they
suspected that H. M. Government’s position had so changed as to
prejudice these principles they might well accuse us of having deliber-
ately deceived them about the purposes of mediation when we repeat-
edly assured them that questions of sovereignty would be excluded
from its scope.60
This last point, of course, would apply with even greater force to the
Belizeans themselves. Still, Secretary of State Michael Stewart told the
Cabinet that “there are no difficulties from a purely United Kingdom
point of view” in Webster’s proposals, but that it would be difficult to
sell to the Belizeans. He concentrated on the Joint Authority, eschew-
ing any mention of its limitation on Belize’s sovereignty and stating that
most of the Authority’s economic development projects would benefit
Belize. Stewart acknowledged that “our obligations under Article VII
of the treaty are still unfulfilled” and asked Cabinet to approve a grant
of two million pounds over the next four years for setting up the
Authority. Stewart asked Cabinet to approve the mediator’s proposals,
which would result in Guatemala recognizing an independent Belize,
allow the removal of the British garrison, give Belize an assured eco-
nomic future, and represent “the final fulfillment of a commitment
undertaken by the United Kingdom under the Treaty of 1859.”61
Two million pounds must have appeared to Cabinet as an incredibly
cheap price to pay for all these benefits, and the grant was approved.62
The Belize delegation (five from the PUP led by Price and two from
the National Independence Party [NIP] led by Goldson) met with the
British in London on June 1–3, 1966 and saw the drafts for the first
time. They argued for, and won, several changes to both the Webster
draft and the redraft that the British undertook to put to the media-
tor. A crucial gain was a new paragraph on defense stating that “the
Government of Belize shall be free to negotiate such regional or
other Defense Assistance Agreements as it considers necessary.”63
On the issue of representation abroad, the agreed article read: “The
Government of Guatemala and/or the Government of the United
Kingdom, if requested, shall afford assistance to the Government
of Belize in its international relations.” On the question of the Joint
Authority, the Belizeans were assured that it “would have no say in
the control of the internal economy” of Belize. The NIP representa-
tives went along with these proposals, insisting, as did the PUP del-
egates, that they were not accepting the Webster proposals but only,
as Mr. Goldson put it, indicating “agreement in principle as a basis for
the conclusion of a treaty,” and with the amendments they were sug-
gesting.64 Where the NIP did differ totally from the PUP was in their
insistence that the name “Belize” was unacceptable, as was early inde-
pendence, since “it would take at least ten years” for Belize to become
viable. The British and Belizean delegations moved on to New York,
where they met with Webster on June 6–7, argued forcibly for changes
in Webster’s draft, and succeeded in winning his approval for most of
them, pending his meeting with the Guatemalans a few days later.65
There was never any real prospect of the Guatemalans agreeing to
the alternative proposals put forward by the Belizeans; indeed, as they
made clear in subsequent meetings with the mediator, they desired
to strengthen some of Webster’s proposals in their favor. Meanwhile,
developments in Belize put a spanner in the works. The FO had said
of Goldson that on June 3, “he was seen in London briefing the Daily
Mirror Overseas Group Caribbean correspondent. A few days later
a distorted account of the talks appeared in the Trinidad Mirror.”66
When Goldson returned from New York he reprinted that account,
which alleged that “Britain wants to quit British Honduras and in
effect hand the colony over to Guatemala as soon as possible,”67 and
later published the original Webster proposals, without the changes
Webster had agreed to in New York.68 The subsequent public denun-
ciations69 motivated Price to make a statement to the House of
Representatives on June 17, 1966, in which he explained that at the
meetings in London the British had shared the mediator’s proposals
with the Belizean delegation, assuring them that the proposals were
not final, and that whenever the mediator presented his final propos-
als the government of Belize would be consulted. Price denied the
allegations made by the Trinidad newspaper, and asserted that the
policy of his government was to attain full sovereignty and indepen-
dence for Belize within the Commonwealth. He said that the British
government had given a solemn undertaking not to impose a solution
unacceptable to the people of Belize.70
On July 1, 1966 Méndez Montenegro was sworn in as president of
Guatemala, and Emilio Arenales became foreign minister. The three
parties met with the mediator in September and November; Webster
presented amended proposals that in the view of Guatemala consider-
ably watered down the proposals he had made in April.71 Accordingly,
the Guatemalans asked Webster not to present any further suggestions
until Guatemala had responded to the new proposals.72 Meetings in
January and March 1967 were equally frustrating for the Guatemalans,
who felt that they were being accused of being inflexible when in their
view it was the British who were being intransigent by insisting on an
independent Belize within the Commonwealth. They attempted to
bring Webster back to his proposals of April 1966, which they alleged
had been accepted by both Britain and Guatemala, but Webster said
that there was no possibility of agreement along those lines.
With Webster’s approval, Guatemala then undertook direct nego-
tiations with Britain, and Arenales hammered out an agreed text with
Foreign Secretary George Brown in London in July 1967; this was
to be signed by the parties in September in New York.73 The July
draft, according to Herrarte, declared that after a designated date the
UK would transfer supreme authority over the territory to Belize,
which would exercise its powers in accordance with the stipulations
of the treaty. The 18 articles of the draft dealt with the free tran-
sit of goods, vehicles, and persons; free ports; rights of Guatemalans
to work in Belize and vice versa; and cooperation in transport and
communications, education, and cultural and scientific exchanges.
An authority composed as in previous drafts would be established
to deal with those matters. There was also provision for Belize to
become a party to the CACM. On internal security, the two police
forces would consult and cooperate with one another. By Article 14,
Guatemala and the UK were to enter into special agreements with
regard to Belize’s international relations, which would serve as mod-
els for similar arrangements between Belize and Guatemala after the
designated date (i.e., when Belize was to become “independent”). In
the formulation and conduct of its foreign policy, Belize was to con-
sult and coordinate with Guatemala in those matters requested by
Guatemala or by Belize. Article 15 required Britain and Guatemala to

agree special arrangements for the defense of Belize that would serve
as models for Belize to agree to on the designated date. These arrange-
ments would include the establishment of a joint defense committee
to plan and coordinate the defense of Belize, to carry out measures
for the defense of the approaches to and the territorial integrity of
Belize, and the use of port and airport facilities for the maintenance
of Guatemalan vessels and aircraft. The defense of Belize would take
account of the framework provided by the Inter-American Treaty for
Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty), and if the joint defense com-
mittee so determined, arrangements with other countries could be
made for Belize’s defense.74
The Brown-Arenales talks were leaked, and a London newspaper
declared that a secret plan to hand Belize over to Guatemala “has
been drawn up in Whitehall under powerful American pressure.”75
The “July text” would haunt the British for months, since Brown had
conceded much more to the Guatemalans than what the Belizeans or
even the mediator were likely to agree to. But while the Guatemalans
behaved as if everything in the July text had been firmly agreed,
British officials insisted that “the July text had not been accepted by
the two Governments without reservation”; Guatemala had 13 reser-
vations, and the UK had said that everything was subject to approval
by the Belizean government.76
British and Guatemalan delegates met with Webster in New York
on November 9–10, 1967, and British attempts to amend the July text
were rebuffed by the Guatemalans, who insisted that their instruc-
tions did not permit any renegotiation of that text.77 They said they
were not too happy with Article 14 (to do with foreign representation),
but felt bound to accept it because it had been approved by the two
foreign ministers in London. Rennie, however, stated that Price had
strongly repudiated this and the following article as seriously derogat-
ing from the sovereignty of Belize. Webster then shocked Guatemala
by stating that Article 14 “really meant that Belize’s foreign policy
was to be governed by Guatemala,” and declaring that
he was not disposed to put his name, or the name of the United States
Government, to the sort of provisions which appeared in Article 14 of
the July text, because some of them were offensive to British Honduras
and he could not foresee their being accepted there.78
Furthermore, he said, the Mexicans would only drop their claim if

there was self-determination in substance, which the July text would
not provide. The Guatemalan delegate insisted that it could not agree
to “unrestricted independence,” as this would affect peace and stabil-
ity in the area; there had to be a complete arrangement dealing with
all relevant aspects.79
Webster then vacillated, stating that he had been asked by
Mr. Richard Frank (his State Department assistant) to make it clear
that he was not in favor of unrestricted sovereignty. They agreed to
meet again a few days later to try to resolve the remaining differences
over the July text. There were further meetings in November, with
the Guatemalans insisting that no changes be made to the text agreed
to by ministers and the British protesting that they had made clear
that Belize would have to be consulted; it had, and objected to many
of the articles agreed to.80
What occurred between July and November that caused Britain to
pull back from an agreement reached by its foreign secretary? For one
thing, the British press had accused the British government of bow-
ing to U.S. pressure and selling out the country to Guatemala,81 and
for another Goldson had appeared before the United Nations (UN)
Fourth Committee on August 30, 1967 to denounce the mediation
process. He alleged that the nefarious plans to subjugate his country
to Guatemala continued, and accused Price of working in favor of
Guatemala’s ambitions. He denounced the Brown-Arenales talks and
asked that the UN administer a referendum to determine the wishes
of the people of Belize.82
On December 4, 1967, after two further meetings had taken place
between the parties and the mediator, Belize’s minister C. L. B. Rogers
addressed the Fourth Committee, stating that “absorption of the
people of Belize by Guatemala would amount to the extinction of
Belizean society and the denial of the human rights of the Belizean
people.” He took some time to refute Goldson’s allegations against
Mr. Price and the PUP, and called on the UK government “to fulfill
its obligations to the people of Belize and lead them to absolute inde-
pendence in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations
Charter.” He put the onus on the UK for any recommendation the
mediator might make:
No doubt, in its own interest, the UK will be prepared to yield some

ground but we hope not so much, or of such a kind, as to render the
results unacceptable to us. But were that not to be the case, and should
the mediation fail and matters develop unfavorably, Belize would look
to the UN as our last great hope to ensure that Belize could attain a
secure and meaningful independence.83
Webster’s Final Proposals

In early April 1968 Arenales was informed that the mediator had a final
draft ready to present, and he protested that in December 1967 the
mediator had promised to present a “semi-final version” of his proposals,
arguing that further negotiations on the proposed text were in order.84
But the State Department overruled Guatemala’s objections, noting that
further negotiations were not advisable, since Belize was moving toward
independence and the U.S. government had made a decision as to the
proposal and was not prepared to suggest a draft giving Guatemala more
control. In any case, it remarked, “although Arenales has alluded to
compromises, he has never been prepared to get down to brass tacks.”85
On April 18, the State Department wrote to the governments of the
UK and Guatemala enclosing the final proposals of the mediation in
the form of a treaty. Arenales was very upset with the proposals, claim-
ing they were “less than the British had previously accepted”; the U.S.
ambassador concluded that Guatemala “will probably reject results of
mediation.”86 Dean Rusk, however, argued that
[e]ven though the Treaty will result in an independent Belize,

Guatemala will receive numerous tangible benefits and the opportu-
nity to exert significant influence over Belize now, and greater influ-
ence as time passes by. Resolving the dispute and at the same time
protecting essential Guatemala interest of bringing Belize within its
sphere of influence will be of great importance to Central America as
well as Guatemala.87
The draft treaty88 did not differ much from the 1966 proposals.
There was still to be a Joint Authority with wide powers, with three
members appointed by each government and the chairman appointed
by those six; if unable to agree, they would ask the U.S. government
to make the appointment. The article on external affairs required
Guatemala to assist Belize in the conduct of its international relations
when requested, and they were to conclude arrangements concern-
ing matters of external defense of mutual concern, but again there
was a need for a request from Belize to trigger action on the part of
Guatemala. There was also a suggestion that the defense of Belize
should be handled through the Rio Treaty, and that Belize would not
need bilateral defense arrangements with other countries.
The Guatemalans were shocked at both the timing and the con-
tent of the terms of the treaty—not only because Webster had said
in December that he would present “semi-final” recommendations,
but also because Foreign Secretary Brown had invited Guatemala to
meet in London in the spring of 1968 to discuss new ideas for a

settlement.89 As to the content, they felt that the mediator had not
only failed to take into account those areas in which Guatemala and
Britain had reached agreement, but that he had been unduly influ-
enced by the Belizean insistence for early and complete independence,
and neither the conduct of its defense or its foreign affairs was suf-
ficiently tied to Guatemala. Arenales tried to ensure the continuation
of the mediation, but the British instead proposed that negotiations
continue after the proposals had been made public and the Belizeans
had made known their reaction.90
A bipartisan Belizean delegation went to Washington to receive the
proposals, and upon seeing them Price, conscious of the Guatemalan
dissatisfaction with them, remarked that “everyone at this table
knows the sensible thing for us to do is to keep quiet and let the
Guatemalans reject the mediation treaty.” 91 Had this occurred, as
was most likely, Belize would have been in a strong position to say
that since Guatemala had rejected the U.S. mediation, Belize should
be allowed to proceed to independence with its security against
Guatemala assured; Belize might then have become independent in
1969. On his return to Belize, however, Goldson held a public meet-
ing on April 29, and prematurely disclosed and denounced the pro-
posals, saying they were the same as those the people had rejected
two years before. There were disturbances in various parts of Belize
City after the meeting, and for several days following there were
demonstrations “on an unprecedented scale accompanied by acts of
fire-raising and explosions.”92 On May 8, Price took to the airwaves
to denounce the violence and to reveal that although Goldson had
publicly rejected the proposals on April 29, Price had done so months
before, but privately, given the need to respect the rules of confiden-
tiality of the mediation.93 He read from a memorandum he had sent
to the UK government on August 8, 1967, explaining why his gov-
ernment was rejecting the then current draft treaty, and added that
although the final draft had made some changes, it still did not satisfy
the basic imperative stated by his government in that memorandum:
Any agreement, if it is to be approved by us, must accept the aspira-

tions and rights of the Belizean people to be an independent and sov-
ereign nation in the full sense of the word. This must not be qualified
or restricted in any way.94
On May 14, 1968, the Belize House of Representatives passed

a resolution rejecting the proposals;95 subsequently the British and
Guatemalan governments informed the U.S. government that they

did not accept the draft treaty as a basis on which to settle the dis-
pute. In notes to both countries on September 20, the U.S. gov-
ernment acknowledged that its role as mediator had terminated, but
declared that it continued to be interested in the resolution of the
dispute and offered to be of assistance to that end in the future if the
parties so requested.96
Lessons of the Mediation

The purpose of mediation is to bring opposing parties together and,
through efforts at harmonizing their positions and satisfying the
essential interests of both, arrive at proposals for a definitive settle-
ment of their dispute. The parties are then free to accept or reject the
proposals. Webster’s mediation failed because the only party disposed
to accept his proposals was the one that, in the circumstances, least
mattered—the United Kingdom. Perhaps the most shocking lesson
for many Belizeans was that the British government could not be
trusted to safeguard Belizean interests in the face of Guatemala’s ter-
ritorial claim. This was especially disturbing because Britain had for
so long appeared to champion the rights of the territory, condemn-
ing Price for having contacts with Guatemala. Now, in the mediation
process, it had tried very hard to convince the Belizean leaders that
they should accept what in effect amounted to Guatemalan control
of the country.
In the 1950s, Britain’s decolonization process was restrained by
Cold War considerations. Having felt the need in 1953 to intervene
militarily and suspend the constitution in British Guiana, the British
were watchful of any similar “communist leanings” in its other
dependent territories in the Caribbean. The British were concerned
because the PUP was having contacts with Guatemala, which was “an
unhappy country tainted with Communism.” 97 Soon after this, the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assisted in the overthrow of the
elected government of Guatemala and installed a dictatorship that
lasted, in different guises, throughout our period.
In the course of the mediation the British described as
reasonable—and tried to get Belize to agree to—proposals that would
result in Belize’s absorption and control by Guatemala. This attitude
was not dissociated from the Cold War context, except that this time
the situation was inverted: Guatemala was in the “free world” and a
close ally of the United States, while a free Belize could fall under
communist influence from Cuba. Once again, therefore, Britain was
anxious to ensure that its actions fall in line with U.S. policy in a region
that it clearly recognized as within the U.S. sphere of influence.
U.S. strategic views on Guatemala were clearly defined by the State
Department in Country Analysis and Strategy Papers, which during
the 1960s determined that
[i]t’s strategic geographic location and proximity to the U.S. main-

land, the Panama Canal, and to Cuba; its position in the Central
American regional integration movement; and its potential as a base
for spreading subversion, all make Guatemala an area of importance
for the United States. For the same reasons, it is also an important
target for Castro-communism.98
With regard to the territorial claim, the State Department recog-

nized that “Guatemala’s claim transcends law or equity and is an emo-
tional, potentially explosive issue.” And while it acknowledged the
legitimate right of the Belizeans to self-determination, it also required
that any solution meet “the political needs of the Government of
Guatemala,” since the interest of the United States was to prevent a
breakdown of regional stability. It worried about the possibility of
Belize becoming independent without a settlement, since this could
provoke a crisis and encourage those Guatemalans who “insist that
the only ‘solution’ is a military invasion and forcible annexation of
Belize.” 99 Given this perspective, it was inevitable that the United
States try to do everything possible to satisfy the perceived political
needs of the Guatemalan government.
The Belizeans felt all along that the U.S. government could not
be an impartial mediator because of its commitment to Guatemala.
The government delegates could not be as blunt as Goldson (who told
the UN Fourth Committee in 1967 that “it is generally known that the
United States is heavily committed to Guatemala; therefore it cannot
be an impartial mediator”),100 but they made it clear that they shared
exactly the same sentiments. The intervention by C. L. B. Rogers at the
UN Fourth Committee had two major objectives: one was to correct
the impression left by Goldson that the PUP government was selling
out to Guatemala, but the other, and more important, was to alert the
world to the danger of Britain trying to push the mediator toward a
solution that would inevitably be rejected by the Belizean people.
Mediation, by its very nature, can succeed only if the parties are
willing to move some distance toward each other’s position and find
some common ground. If the political reality had been the same as the
legal reality, that is, if there were two parties to the dispute, Britain and
Guatemala, then no doubt the mediation would have succeeded. But

there was a third party, which indeed was the most important party,
the one that really counted—the people of Belize. There was really no
middle ground between their position and that of Guatemala’s, and,
therefore, no possibility of success for the mediation.
The problem remained after the mediation terminated, and as long
as the security of a new Belizean state would not be guaranteed by
Britain or any other power, then attempts would have to continue to
resolve the Guatemalan claim to the territory.
The Two-Treaty Package

Almost immediately after the failure of the mediation, Price began
to press the British to call a conference for an independence constitu-
tion. In May 1968, his Cabinet decided that the UK would have to
guarantee the security of an independent Belize, and in reporting
this to London the governor said he saw “no alternative to moving
ahead on independence with a firm HMG guarantee of the future
security of B.H.”101 In Britain, 28 Labor members of Parliament were
poised to make a statement in the House calling on the government
to guarantee the security of an independent Belize.102 Mr. Morgan,
assistant undersecretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO), visited Belize in July and reported that Price insisted that
he would brook no further mediation, that Britain should resolve its
dispute with Guatemala bilaterally without infringing the sovereignty
of Belize and guarantee Belize’s security. He planned to request a
constitutional conference to be convened by mid-November to pre-
pare for Belize’s independence in September 1969.103 The governor,
however, urged London “to drag heels on conference while exploring
possibilities for settlement of dispute.”104
In September 1968 Price received an assurance from the secretary
of state that “provided things went as we hoped (over resolution of
the Anglo/Guatemalan dispute)” a constitutional conference could
be held in March 1969.105 In January 1969, however, Price asked for
a postponement of the constitutional conference; the British specu-
lated that “Price and others were realizing problems they were creat-
ing for themselves by pressing for an early independence.”106 Morgan
held talks with the Guatemalans in March in New York and offered
a “considerably larger sum” than the two million pounds formerly
offered to satisfy the road obligation, but Guatemala refused, insist-
ing that elements of the mediation proposals were essential to a settle-
ment. Price showed no surprise when this was reported to him, and
repeated his call for a defense guarantee. Although Morgan explained

that the British policy of retrenchment made this impossible, he as
well as the Governor appeared to favor a defense guarantee, but felt
that general elections in Belize would be required before an inde-
pendence conference was called. Morgan guessed that independence
would occur in mid-1970.107 The U.S. consul in Belize suggested that
if Belize
is determined to move to early independence and the dispute is still

unresolved we should consider urging HMG to extend a defense guar-
anty to an independent Belize on the basis this would best assure the
continued stability of the area as well as satisfying understandable
GOG concern over Belize as a corridor for Cuban infiltration.108
After several months of correspondence in which the British

insisted on continued negotiations with Guatemala and Price main-
tained that that would be a useless exercise and insisted on indepen-
dence with a British guarantee, however, Foreign Secretary Michael
Stewart informed Price that “Her Majesty’s Government has taken
a firm decision that a defense guarantee will not be given to your
country after it becomes independent,” and warned that any decision
the Belize government took would be in full knowledge of that posi-
tion.109 Price then clearly enunciated the policy that would guide his
government for the next dozen years:
The independence of Belize cannot, in our opinion, be dependent

upon the policy of the Government of Guatemala towards the Anglo-
Guatemalan dispute. Moreover in the absence of an honourable settlement
we cannot accept a discharge of the United Kingdom’s responsibility to
this country without an arrangement for her defence.110
Stewart recommended to his Cabinet in September that negotia-

tions be held with Guatemala based on a two-treaty package, one of
recognition and the other of cooperation, which would only com-
mit the UK to consult with the other contracting parties in case of
breach. Any measures taken would be confined to diplomatic action;
there would be no commitment to give military assistance.
Lord Malcolm Shepherd of the FCO visited Belize in October
1969 and reported that the Guatemalans had agreed to negotiate on
the basis of a “two-treaty package,” and he invited the Belizean gov-
ernment to join Britain in those negotiations. Price concurred on
the understanding that the UK would call a conference “to agree
the terms of the new independence constitution” and “to organize

such defense arrangements as shall insure the new nation against
aggression.”111
Shepherd, accompanied by Belize ministers Rogers, Hunter, and
Vernon H. (Harry) Courtenay, met Guatemalan Foreign Minister
Alberto Fuentes Mohr in New York City on October 23 and 24, 1969
to discuss the two-treaty package. Shepherd reaffirmed that “the tim-
ing of independence for Belize rested with the Government and the
people of the territory.”112 Fuentes Mohr asserted that “the economic
field must provide the real basis for agreement.”113
The three Belizean ministers stayed on in New York and held meet-
ings with members of the UN Secretariat and with delegations of UN
missions; this was prompted more than anything else by the Belizean
government’s distrust of the British.114 They circulated a letter to UN
missions, the crux of which was to place responsibility for the secure
independence of Belize squarely on the UK. They explained that the U.S.
mediation had failed, expressed concern over threats from Guatemala,
and called on the UK to either deliver the territory to Belizeans free
and clear from all claims or provide a defense guarantee.115
Elections were held in Belize in late 1969, and the PUP maintained
the share of the vote (just shy of 58 percent) it had won in 1965, and
took all but one of the parliamentary seats.
The Meaning of Cooperation

Negotiations began in January 1970, in New York City; Lord
Shepherd tabled the British draft “Treaty of Recognition of the
Territorial Integrity of Belize” (TOR), by which Guatemala, Mexico,
and the UK would “recognise and respect the territorial boundaries
and the territorial integrity of Belize.” In the event of a breach, the
contracting parties would consult with respect to the measures neces-
sary to ensure observance. The draft “Treaty of Cooperation” (TOC)
required Belize and Guatemala to cooperate in all matters of mutual
interest and established a framework for regular meetings between
their representatives to review progress and to suggest other areas
of cooperation. There were five annexes to the treaty that provided
for Belize-Guatemala cooperation in economic development; travel
and transit; cultural and scientific cooperation; external affairs; and
defense. The UK would provide aid for the improvement of com-
munications in Guatemala, and the conclusion of the agreements
would be regarded by the UK and Guatemala as a final and honorable
settlement of their dispute over Belize.116
The Guatemalans saw the “cooperation” agreements as being

the vehicle by which they would effectively incorporate Belize into
Guatemala and control its economic development, defense, and
foreign affairs. They had come to accept the inevitability of Belize
becoming independent, but felt they could strengthen the “cooper-
ation” aspects and so in effect “incorporate” Belize into Guatemala
through the mechanism of “integration,” if necessary using CACM
as a cover. The Belizeans, on the other hand, were determined to
have full and unfettered independence, but were willing to look
at cooperation agreements such as would normally be undertaken
by two neighboring sovereign states. The British vacillated between
attempting to get Belize to bend as much as possible to Guatemala’s
demands and staying true to their pledge not to force through an
agreement that Belize did not want. The key card held by the British
was the question of defense: they would not defend Belize after
independence, and, therefore, the Belizeans must cooperate with
Britain to arrive at a settlement with Guatemala. With the three
parties having such incongruent objectives, the negotiations were
bound to fail.
The British insisted that their drafts on foreign affairs and defense
did not compromise the sovereignty of Belize. On external affairs, the
two states were to consult on matters of mutual interest; they would
establish a Joint Consultative Body for that purpose. A Joint Council
was to be established to consider any matters of security or defense
of mutual concern to Belize and Guatemala. Guatemala was to assist
Belize to become a party to the Rio Treaty.117 But at a meeting of
Belize’s External Affairs Committee118 (EAC) on March 2, 1970,
the Belizeans expressed their concern that the negotiations were
being carried on in secrecy. They were worried about the proposed
Regional Development Corporation (RDC), as the Guatemalans
wanted elements of sovereignty built into it. They were unhappy with
the TOR, which merely called for consultations if there was a breach
of the commitment to respect the territorial integrity of Belize. Price
wrote to Shepherd, saying it was pointless to continue discussing
the two-treaty package unless the TOR “precisely sets out action on
the part of the signatories should the sovereignty of Belize be either
threatened or violated,” and stating that he would only continue talks
if this assurance were given.119
When Shepherd met the Guatemalans in New York in April,
Fuentes Mohr stated that Guatemala would accept the TOR on
the general lines of the British draft (which would recognize the
independence and territorial integrity of Belize) provided the TOC
was satisfactory.120 The following morning Shepherd flew to Miami

to meet Price, who laid down conditions for continued negotiation:
(1) Guatemala abandons its claim; (2) the TOR contains provisions
for the meaningful safeguard of the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Belize; and (3) future economic cooperation be under
suitable arrangements. Shepherd reminded Mr. Price that any form
of absolute guarantee by Britain of Belizean independence “was not
within the bounds of possibility.”121 Shepherd returned to New York
and informed the Guatemalans of Price’s three conditions and they
professed to be happy with them.122 British and Guatemalan offi-
cials had meanwhile met and agreed most of the terms of an annex
that set out the agreement on the RDC.123 Its objectives included
the gradual and progressive integration of the two economies, with
secure investment and employment for both peoples in either coun-
try. The RDC was to have international juridical personality and
be empowered to formulate a joint regional development policy
for Belize and Guatemala. The Board of Governors, which would
not be subordinate to any organ in Belize or Guatemala, would
include two ministers from each government and the president of
the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI)
or, if he were a Guatemalan, the vice president. All officials and
institutions of Belize and Guatemala would have to comply with
the decisions of the RDC, whose charter could be amended only
by unanimity.124 Courtenay wrote of this draft: “Annex resulted
in one all power Corporation too powerful to be acceptable and
too grandiose to be practical. It amounts to giving up our sov-
ereignty on economic development and would result in economic
absorption.”125
The Belizeans proposed to convert the RDC to an advisory group
of officials, and their draft TOR declared that in the event of a viola-
tion or threatened violation to Belize’s territorial integrity, the par-
ties were to meet “with a view to ascertaining the measures necessary
to . . . preserve and protect the sovereignty of the State of Belize.”
The UK felt that this implied a commitment to take military action,
which would be problematic not only for the UK but also for other
signatories.126
Elections in the UK in 1970 produced a Conservative govern-
ment; Joseph Godber, the new minister of state for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs, told Price that with regard to the question
of a UK military or independence guarantee, “the Secretary of State
has asked me to tell you that there has been no change in the policy
of HM Government.”127
The Three-Treaty Package

In September 1970, Godber said that if the treaties of recognition and
cooperation were negotiated between Guatemala and Belize alone, the
UK would be willing to participate in a third Treaty of Settlement and
provide financial assistance; Guatemala welcomed the proposal.128 The
Guatemalans declared that their constitution required them to “take
all steps towards the incorporation of Belize in Guatemala,” but that
“if steps were taken which would bring the two countries more closely
together,” this could be seen as satisfying the constitutional require-
ment, and Belize could ultimately become the sixth state in Central
America.129 The Guatemalans insisted that Mexico should not be a
party; they already had enough problems with Mexico, and did not rec-
ognize that Mexico had any valid claim. They referred to Cuba in the
context of defense, and said Belize and Guatemala could explore areas
of mutual interest concerning their security. They agreed that experts
should meet to hammer out the details.
At secret meetings of experts in Jamaica in October 1970 and in the
Bahamas in November,130 the UK delegation tried very hard to rec-
oncile the opposing views of the Belize and Guatemalan delegations,
but found this to be an impossible task. They haggled over whether
the RDC, or some Economic Council, should be a decision-making or
simply an advisory body, and whether it should have broad planning and
executive functions or not. They argued interminably over the meaning
of free movement of persons and whether Belize should commit to join-
ing a Central American Community regardless of the terms of entry.
At various points, the Belizean delegation objected to drafts or to con-
cepts on the ground that they raised the specter of Webster’s mediation
proposals, and would be unacceptable to the people of Belize.131
At a meeting of the EAC in Belmopan in November 1970, the
British reported to Price and his colleagues that they “had been con-
vinced of the Guatemalans’ sincerity both in the widest sense and in
their willingness to consider amendments to their draft.” But Price
was unhappy with the UK withdrawal from the TOC, and told the
British that “some people might say that this was like Pontius Pilate
washing his hands of the whole affair.”132 Courtenay added that
British withdrawal from the TOC upset the balance of that treaty in
favor of Guatemala and altered the original concept of the two-treaty
package. Price formally renewed his request for a British military
guarantee for Belize after independence.
In January 1971, the FCO sent a message urging Belize to
make greater efforts to get closer to the Guatemalan draft of the
TOC,133 prompting Price to comment that the UK appeared to be

supporting Guatemala’s position.134 Henry Hankey, parliamentary
undersecretary in the FCO, acknowledged the strong views held by
Belize in favor of a two-treaty package, and withdrew the British
proposal for a three-treaty package.135 But at a meeting of the EAC
two days later, Price again clashed with the British. He warned
there was nothing to stop him from calling for a constitutional
conference and exposing to the world the UK’s refusal to fulfill its
obligation to give a defense guarantee.136
At the next negotiating session in March 1971 in San Francisco,
the Guatemalans again tried to extend the TOC beyond what was
acceptable to Belize. They called for Guatemala to “guarantee the
defense of Belize in case of foreign aggression or a threat of aggres-
sion.” Guatemala was to provide equipment and training to Belize’s
security forces, and a Defense Council would be established, made
up of equal numbers from each country, which must approve by una-
nimity any defense pact that Guatemala or Belize may wish to enter
with others. Foreign representation would be joint and financed by
Guatemala under the supervision of a Council of Foreign Affairs.
The Council was to draw up the joint foreign policy of Guatemala
and Belize and supervise the functioning of the joint missions; it
was to be composed of Guatemala’s foreign minister and “the
Belize minister with responsibilities in this field.” Belize’s Minister
Harry Courtenay limited himself to saying that Belize would study
Guatemala’s draft, but that its provisions were inconsistent with
Belize’s basic philosophy.137
Nothing of significance transpired between March and September,
but still in his National Day Address on September 9, 1971, Price
announced that “from here we look to the future and we see the
year 1972 as the year when [we] shall most likely fulfill the man-
date to lead Belize to sovereign independence.”138 In his address to
the General Assembly of the UN later that month, Foreign Minister
Roberto Herrera warned that “we shall oppose any change in the
juridical or political status of the territory unless the problem of
Guatemala’s rights thereto is first completely resolved.”139 A week
later, Herrera told Price that Belize’s draft presented at San Francisco
was not acceptable because there was nothing on defense and for-
eign affairs, nor on Belize’s future relationship with Central America.
Price affirmed that Belize must first become independent and then
work toward closer relations with Central America. Herrera agreed
there should be another study on Belize’s future relationship with
CACM and the Central American Community if and when the latter
became a reality, and that the study might be done by the Sistema de
Integración Económica Centroamericana (SIECA) or by ECLA.140
Invasion Scare
In mid-January 1972, the UK received intelligence reports of an
impending Guatemalan invasion of Belize.141 The Costa Rican foreign
minister informed the British that the Guatemalans had asked him how
Costa Rica would react if Guatemala and El Salvador occupied Belize,
perhaps in February or March.142 Nicaragua’s Anastacio Somoza
also spoke to the British about this plan, and he agreed to tell the
Guatemalans that the British were aware of the threat and were ready to
meet it, and that they had informed the United States.143 The Mexicans
asked the UK ambassador about the alleged plan, and told him that
if the Guatemalans invaded Belize “the Mexican army would also
enter . . . so as to preserve from Guatemala their now dormant rights to
the northern part of the territory.”144 The U.S. State Department also
knew about this beforehand, through a report of the Office for Latin
American Affairs of the Pentagon, which noted that the Guatemalan
invasion would have ended in failure because of the immediate arrival
of British troops.145 Indeed, the U.S. government could not have been
in the least surprised at Guatemalan intentions, having noted as far
back as 1969 that “Roberto Herrera Ibarguen of the MLN continues
to urge a military solution to the Belize problem.”146
Fabio Castillo, a former member of a Salvadoran Junta, later affirmed
that Salvadoran President Fidel Sánchez made a deal with President
Arana to join in an invasion of Belize and that the quid pro quo for the
deal was to send El Salvador’s “surplus population” to Belize.147
Britain reinforced its garrison in Belize, and the Guatemalans pro-
tested that there had been no plans to invade Belize and denounced
the British build-up as an intolerable threat of aggression. Guatemalan
Congressmen called for a declaration of war against Britain. Price
used the occasion to again demand a defense guarantee after inde-
pendence.148 Two days later, the Guatemalan government headed off
the declaration of war debate in Congress by announcing that it had
brought about the withdrawal of British naval units from Central
American waters.149 In the House of Commons Joseph Godber, ques-
tioned about the troop movements, declared that they “were part of
a long planned exercise in the Caribbean area.”150 The Guatemalan
government was still being pressured at home to react more strongly
to the British build-up, and it decided to take its case to the OAS,
where it felt it had majority support.
In April 1972, Guatemala presented a resolution to the OAS

denouncing Britain for increasing its troop levels in Belize, and call-
ing for the removal of the troops and sanctions. It later withdrew
the resolution after the UK agreed that an OAS observer mission
could go to Belize to verify the number and type of forces it had sta-
tioned there. Major General Alvaro Valencia Tovar of the Colombian
army was designated as the observer; he visited Belize in May, and
did an extensive and detailed study of the British troops stationed
there.151 He determined that the British garrison in Belize was basi-
cally defensive in nature. Premier Price announced that “the scope
and size of the British troops increased because there circulated in
Central American capitals reports that Guatemala intended to invade
Belize. This temporary increase has now been reduced to a force of
about 600, here solely for defense purposes . . . the level which the UK
considers adequate for our defense needs.”152
* * *
The Belize government harbored no illusions about the likelihood of

ever reaching a settlement with Guatemala, and was determined to
achieve independence without a settlement, but with a British mili-
tary guarantee. Price fixed that in his mind early on, and had to adjust
his practice in the light of Britain’s firm refusal to even countenance
that possibility.153 In the meantime, it was Britain that was respon-
sible for Belize’s defense against Guatemala; this meant that he had to
go along with Britain’s insistence on continued negotiations.
The British government, despite its sensitivity to the position of
the U.S. government, also felt constrained by a lingering sense of
duty to a remnant of its former empire; in preparing for the mediation
process in 1965, John Rennie suggested that the best that the UK
could offer Guatemala was joint infrastructure projects and economic
cooperation of the kind normal between two sovereign states.154
Why did this position change in the course of the mediation? As
time went by and the anachronism of the UK holding on to a colony
in mainland America weighed ever heavier on British ministers, they
became more reckless with considering proposals that would clearly
violate the wishes of the Belizean government and people. The UK did
not accept the Belizean argument that the British government must
itself either clear the claim or provide a defense guarantee. During the
mediation talks, British officials stated bluntly—and publicly—that
“Great Britain does not sign defense treaties with former colonies,”
and that “we would be misleading you if we left you with the slightest
impression that you can expect British defense assistance after Britain
withdraws from the territory.”155
For the Guatemalans, the pace of decolonization after 1960
was a clear signal that the clock was ticking against them, and that
they could either gain some control over the territory while Britain
exercised sovereignty or lose it all to an independent Belize. The
Guatemalan policy was, therefore, consistently to demand that there
should be no change of status unless Guatemala was consulted. The
Guatemalans did not so much mind the British remaining in Belize,
so long as Belize remained a colony. The Guatemalan consul in Belize
told the British troop commander there that “the present status quo
including the maintenance of British presence and garrison here was
infinitely preferable to any form of agreement.”156
The United States, for its part, emerged from its attempt at media-
tion with some degree of frustration, having failed to bring about
a peaceful solution that would be acceptable to the Guatemalan
regime, which was its bulwark against the threat of communist infil-
tration in Central America. Although it would have been happy to see
Guatemala exercise control over Belize’s defense and foreign policy,
its special relationship with Britain restrained its policy choices, and
it thereafter assumed the attitude of not interfering too openly in the
dispute, having allies on both sides to satisfy.
The situation in 1972 was that Britain was prepared to compro-
mise Belize’s sovereignty in order to rid itself of this nagging century-
old problem, although it was committed to not impose an unwanted
settlement on Belize. Guatemala, on the other hand, would not
reduce its demands to a point that would be acceptable to the people
of Belize. As a result, both negotiations and mediation failed, and
there matters stood until 1975, when negotiations resumed, but in
a context where, as we shall see, the Belize government had already
decided that negotiations would get nowhere, that Belize could not
count on either Britain or the United States to safeguard its interests,
and that a new strategy must be devised in order to achieve its goals.
Chapter 4
Heavy Lobbying, Hard Bargaining

(1938–1975)
Beginning in the 1930s, Guatemala, no doubt convinced that it

would not resolve the dispute favorably by bilateral negotiations with
the United Kingdom (UK), initiated a diplomatic campaign to elicit
support for its claim. UK felt no need to do this; its stock answer
to any query about the claim was that it was in no doubt about its
sovereignty over the territory. Belize, on the other hand, developed
the strategy of internationalization in the 1970s, utilizing that pro-
cess not only against Guatemala, but also against Britain’s refusal to
either hand over the territory free of any claims or provide a defense
guarantee for an independent Belize.
Guatemala and Latin American Solidarity

After the flurry of notes and activity in the early 1930s, when
Guatemala recognized that the border was legally binding, Britain’s
refusal to discuss complying with Article 7 provoked Guatemala to
launch a diplomatic campaign in support of its claim. In 1938 it
published the “White Book,” a compilation of treaties, diplomatic
correspondence, and arguments designed to prove that Belize was
part of Guatemala, that the 1859 Treaty was a treaty of cession with
Article 7 as the compensation, and that Britain had failed to com-
ply with the treaty.1 The book elicited comments from the Mexican
foreign minister in 1939 in support of Guatemala’s claim to Belize,
and the following year President Lázaro Cardenas expressed support
for Guatemala’s claim, although this statement was quickly rectified,
and Mexico affirmed that it had historical and legal rights over the
northern part of Belize.2
When a new constitution in 1945 declared that Belize was part of

Guatemalan territory and that it was in the national interest to achieve
its effective incorporation into the Republic,3 the century-old dispute
assumed greater urgency, and the Guatemalan government increased
its efforts to seek hemispheric support for its position. Arévalo’s belief
was that Guatemala could never gain Belize by diplomacy, and must
do so by force; he was prepared to invade in 1945, but later confessed
that he did not have the resources to do so.4 His government instead
sought support for its claim from the inter-American system.
In 1948, Guatemala undertook missions throughout Latin America
to lobby support, and complained to the secretaries general of the
United Nations (UN) and of the Pan-American Union (the precur-
sor of the Organization of American States) about British reinforce-
ments in Belize.5 At the ninth international conference of American
states in Bogotá in 1948, a resolution differentiated between colonies
proper and occupied territories, established the American Committee
on Dependent Territories, and declared that “colonialism and the
occupation of American Republics by extra-continental countries
should be brought to an end.”6 That same year the committee clas-
sified Belize as an “occupied territory.”7 In July 1949, at a meeting
of the committee, Jorge García Granados8 presented a long discourse
on Guatemala’s rights to Belize. The Mexican delegate declared that
if there were to be a change of status, the rights of Mexico over a part
of the territory would have to be taken into account.9
The tenth Inter-American Conference, meeting in Caracas in
1954, passed a resolution declaring that extra-continental countries
having colonies in the Americas should allow the people in those
colonies to exercise their right to self-determination, but went on to
exclude “territories that are the subject of litigation or claim between
extra-continental countries and some American republics.”10 In
August 1955, at the first meeting of ministers of Foreign Affairs of
Central America, held in Antigua, Guatemala, the meeting issued a
unanimous declaration supporting Guatemala’s claim.11
President Ydígoras Fuentes attempted to take the international
stage in more dramatic fashion. In April 1958, he crossed Belize’s
western border and arrived at the town of Benque Viejo del Carmen,
declaring that it was Guatemalan territory.12 He was politely asked
to leave by the British authorities, but the incident was given global
publicity.13 An important gain for Guatemala, which was to affect
Belize even after independence, was the passage by the Organization
of American States (OAS) of a resolution in December 1963 on the
admission of new members, known as “The Act of Washington,” which
H E AV Y L O B B Y I N G , H A R D B A R G A I N I N G 79
prevented countries subject to a territorial claim by a member state

from becoming a member of the OAS.14 The most ambitious attempt
by Guatemala to directly confront Britain in the arena of international
opinion was its action at the OAS in 1972, but as we have seen it did
not achieve its objective. In 1974, Guatemala succeeded in getting
the Comité Jurídico Interamericano to declare that the principle of
self determination could not be invoked to provoke secession where
any American state claims sovereignty. The declaration mentioned
Guatemala’s claim to Belize, “occupied by the United Kingdom” and
called on the General Assembly of the OAS to form a special com-
mission to promote action at the UN to bring an end to occupied
territories in America.15 Bearing in mind these declarations, one could
say that Guatemala had the entire Latin American bloc in its camp by
1974, with the exception of Mexico, which maintained its own claim
to part of the territory. But the reality was a little different.
Belize’s International Campaign

Although the Belize internationalization initiative was formally
launched in 1975, from the moment that Price and his colleagues
formed the People’s United Party (PUP) in 1950 they were aware of
the need to seek regional and international support, and sent appeals
to all Central American governments, including Guatemala, for sup-
port in their anticolonial stand. Price followed closely the global
wave of decolonization, and recognized the special role that the UN
was playing in the process. In 1958 he wrote to the UN secretary
general requesting that “if the question of our self-government and
self-determination is raised by some friendly nation, the matter will
be put on the agenda for the next General Assembly of the United
Nations.”16
Price would copy such correspondence to the Organización de
Estados Centroamericanos (ODECA), the OAS and to the missions
of countries to the UN. In the first decade of the PUP’s existence,
the focus was on ridding Belize of British colonialism, and all the
international contacts made by the party were designed to achieve
that end. After 1961, when the British acceded to Belize’s demand for
independence, the only remaining obstacle was Guatemala’s claim;
Price then began to move, first on the regional stage, to counter the
Guatemalan claim.
We saw in Chapter 3 that the Economic Commission for Latin
America (ECLA) of the UN had agreed to recommend a study on
Belize joining the Central American economic cooperation process.
This occurred when, in May 1961, Price secured Belize’s admis-

sion as an associate member of ECLA. A new constitution had come
into force in Belize with elections in March; the PUP had won all
seats, with 63.4 percent of the vote to 23.3 percent for the National
Independence Party (NIP).17 Although Price was unhappy with
the new constitution because it did not go far enough toward self-
government, he sought to exploit it to the fullest, and with his new
title of first minister traveled to Chile shortly after and addressed
the ECLA conference, saying that he would interpret Belize’s admis-
sion as “a step toward independence” for Belize.18 The irony was that
this act, which Price described as establishing Belize’s “international
identity and separateness,”19 had been cosponsored by the British and
Guatemalan governments. The latter obviously had a very different
vision of what Belize’s admission as an associate member of ECLA
implied. In a visit to Guatemalan on his way back from Chile, Price
was invited by President Ydigoras Fuentes to “bring the country into
Guatemala as an associate state,” to which he replied that his govern-
ment’s goal was “eventual independence as a sovereign state on the
Central American mainland.”20
Upon achieving self-government, Price and two ministers under-
took a Central American tour in March 1964 to seek support for
Belize’s right to self-determination and independence and to inves-
tigate the possibility of Belize’s inclusion in the Central American
Common Market (CACM) “if and when feasible, possible and
desirable.”21 He was received by heads of state in Honduras, Nicaragua,
Costa Rica, and El Salvador and all of them apart from Colonel
Osvaldo López Arellano of Honduras openly expressed support for
Belize’s independence.22 It appeared that although Central American
governments routinely supported Guatemala’s claim in conferences,
they privately held a different view, and were sympathetic to the aspi-
rations of the people of Belize for independence.
In August 1964 Price and his entourage paid an official visit to
Mexico, where they were warmly received by outgoing president
Adolfo López Mateos, whose government assured the Belizeans of
support for independence as well as for economic development. The
visit was widely and sympathetically reported in the press—one news-
paper catching it in the headlines as Tácticamente, la Independencia
de Belice ya está Reconocida.23 Price met with President-elect Gustavo
Díaz Ordaz, who wrote him thus:
The historical ties that bind us, the ever more friendly relations and
the observance of the principles of international coexistence that
Mexico jealously defends with much perseverance are reasons enough

to increase our solidarity with the noble people of Belize in their quest
for freedom and independence.24
Price was so encouraged by his visits to Central America and Mexico

that he told the Mexican press that he expected Belize to become inde-
pendent within three to five years.25 The Guatemalans were so incensed
that their Constituent Assembly approved a resolution recommending
the severance of diplomatic relations with Mexico.26
Price was constrained by the attitude of Britain, which was con-
vinced that the only secure way for Belize to proceed to independence
was by a negotiated settlement with Guatemala. Since 1961, Price
had been cooperating with the British in this project, not because
he believed there was any real chance of settling the dispute, but
because he had no choice. As long as the British refused to consider
a defense guarantee for an independent Belize, he had to play the
game by their rules: negotiations had to be conducted confidentially
and the Guatemalans were to be provoked as little as possible by pub-
lic denunciations. And so Belize kept relatively quiet on the interna-
tional front during the 1960s, even though in the first elections after
attaining self-government, the PUP Manifesto (1965) declared that
[t]he PUP will send a delegation to the United Nations to make known
to the whole world the Belizean unbreakable will to self-determine its
independence on the Central American mainland.27
When the Belize government did appear on the international stage,

as in 1967 at the UN, this was principally motivated by the need to
cover its domestic front after the Leader of the Opposition had made
charges against the PUP in the same forum.
It was in the course of the talks begun in 1969, during which Price
became totally convinced that the Guatemalans were not negotiating
in good faith, that he began to develop the idea that the only way for-
ward for Belize was to take independence without reaching any agree-
ment with Guatemala, but with a defense arrangement with Britain or
with other countries. That is when he decided to mount an interna-
tional campaign to pressure Britain into giving a defense guarantee or
to put together a group of countries who would be willing to undertake
that responsibility.28 In 1971 he created the Belizean Independence
Secretariat (BIS), which acted as a think tank and as the executive
arm of the international campaign for independence. It focused on
the principle that peoples had the right to self-determination, and
believed that once it became known that Belize represented a dis-

tinct reality, with a people who had never been Guatemalan and no
longer wanted to be British, then Latin American support would be
assured. Already Belize could count on the principled support of
Cuba 29 as well as the four Commonwealth Caribbean states. The BIS
launched a campaign in Mexico and Central America, targeting aca-
demics, journalists, and political as well as worker organizations, and
the story of Belize from the Belizean perspective slowly began to be
heard. When it was, the results were as had been expected; giving two
examples here will suffice.
In 1972, the trade union roots of the PUP were used to gain access
to the VI Congress of Latin American Workers held in Venezuela,
and a minister of the Belize government along with the head of
the BIS30 lobbied the delegates (which included Guatemalans) and
emerged with a unanimous resolution that recognized that Belize
was “in every sense a nation with its own people, its own history, its
own territory” and that Guatemala’s claim “constitutes a violation of
the principle of self-determination and a threat to the peace of the
hemisphere”; it urged full support for the right of the Belizean people
to self-determine their destiny.31 In 1975 the youth wing of the gov-
erning party in Costa Rica, Liberación Nacional, issued a widely pub-
licized declaration supporting Belize’s right to become a free Central
American State and rejecting “Guatemala’s intentions of annexation
of the territory of Belize.”32
At the state level, meanwhile, Price visited Honduras, Costa Rica,
and El Salvador in 1972, and “was everywhere well received”;33 he also
met the foreign ministers of Mexico and Brazil.34 Governor Richard
Posnett noted that “the limitations upon what can be done in Latin
America are well understood and Mr. Price is working painstakingly,
and with some success, within those limitations.” Posnett sought
British support for a trip to African countries by Deputy Premier
C. L. B. Rogers, “to establish contact with leaders there and spread
the gospel.” The Governor was reflecting the views of Price, and was,
therefore, far ahead of his British colleagues, when he wrote:
I can see no prospect of advancing British or Belizean interests if we do

no more than keep trying to talk to the Guatemalans . . . the only way
we could expect to make progress [is] by getting the problem into an
international forum on a political basis.35
In March 1973 a special meeting of the UN Security Council

(UNSC) was held in Panama, principally to discuss the Panama
Canal issue, and Price decided to attend the meeting and promote
the Belize cause.36 The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)
was against making an issue of Belize at the UNSC; it feared that
Guatemala would be offended and delay talks even further, and wor-
ried about irritating the Latin Americans at a time that the UK was
trying to gain permanent observer status at the OAS. At the meet-
ing in Panama, however, Guyana’s Foreign Minister37 spoke force-
fully against Guatemala’s claim and invited the Security Council to
“take note of the fear which [Belizeans] felt and to consider what
steps could be taken to safeguard their right to self determination.”38
In April Price told the ECLA meeting in Quito that Belize must
become an independent state soon and be admitted as a full member.
Jamaica’s minister of foreign affairs, Dudley Thompson, suggested
that Belize’s independence could be guaranteed by a Commonwealth
commitment, especially of Caribbean countries and Canada, and
that this may be raised at the Commonwealth Heads of Government
meeting (CHOGM) due to be held in Jamaica in 1975.39
Beginning in 1973 and until 1975, when the final decision was
made to take the Belize case to the UN for a resolution, Governor
Posnett kept up a running battle with other British officials in
London, in New York and in Guatemala, attempting to convince
them that Price was right in insisting on international action. Those
officials had expressed grave doubts about the UN supporting Belize,
and cited the cases of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar to show that
no favorable resolution could be expected to pass at the UN. Posnett
reminded them that “in those territories the people (as I understand
it) wish to remain British. Here the majority (I think) do not. There
the governments are not seeking independence. Here they are.”40
He added that while there was no international lobby for the people
of Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands, there was a strong and grow-
ing lobby for Belize. He asked that there be “careful examination
before we lump Belize into the same basket with other dependencies
for United Nations purposes.” He noted that talks with Guatemala
had led nowhere, and that only by introducing a new element into
the situation would Guatemalan complacency with the status quo be
stirred, and concluded that “it does seem to me rather sanguine to
pin all our hopes on bilateral talks.”41
Waiting for Arenales

Foreign Minister Jorge Arenales, who replaced Herrera in September
1972, held out the prospect to the British of a ministerial meeting
in January 1973 with Mr. Anthony Kershaw, parliamentary under-

secretary of state at the FCO. After January passed without a meet-
ing, Arenales suggested that they meet informally in April before
the OAS General Assembly meeting in Washington. April came and
went, after which Arenales proposed that the meeting be held in
July. In that context, Kershaw visited Belize in June 1973 to reach
agreement on how to handle the Guatemalans and to try to per-
suade Price to go easy with his international campaign, especially at
the UN. Price argued that attempts to negotiate a settlement with
Guatemala had all been crushed by Guatemalan intransigence and
British “appeasement,” and that as a result of Belize’s lobbying, Latin
American support for Guatemala was crumbling; at the Panama
meeting of the UNSC, Guatemala had appeared for the first time
on the defensive, although the British representative had adopted
a disappointingly conciliatory tone. What were the alternatives for
Belize? In the worst case, he noted, she could go for independence
alone and unsupported; proceed to independence with a British or
other defense arrangement; or internationalize the question at the
UN, which is what the C24 Chairman, Salim Salim of Tanzania, had
recommended to him.42
Kershaw reiterated “that it was not the policy of his Government,
nor of any other foreseeable government in the UK, to grant inde-
pendence accompanied by a defence guarantee.”43 As to the UN ini-
tiative, he was not confident that Belize could command a majority,
as Guatemala had a block of fairly solid Latin American votes. The
Guatemalan government now seemed more secure and confident,
and thus could adopt a more amenable posture.44 J. B. Weymes, the
British consul in Guatemala, asserted that Laugerud, the likely next
president, was developing along more statesmanlike and less hawkish
lines than had earlier been predicted.45 Kershaw reported to the secre-
tary of state that Price “is an able man, but has a streak of fanaticism
in him which makes him completely unreasonable on certain subjects.
Guatemala and independence is one of those subjects.”46 There was no
danger of Price declaring Unilateral Declaration of Independence,47
however, since he feared a Guatemalan invasion if the British troops
left. Kershaw concluded that
[Price] has in the past, and is now I suspect once again conducting
negotiations in foreign relations which he keeps secret from us. (I read
him a lecture about this). He may embroil us in difficulties with Latin
America and the independent Caribbean. I am pretty certain he will
sabotage our bilateral talks by some action at the UN.48
The meeting with Arenales was held in July 1973, with Julian
Amery leading for Britain. Arenales said he had a “plan” for a solu-
tion of the dispute, but nothing could be revealed until after the
elections in Guatemala in March 1974. The next president, General
Laugerud, knew the thinking of President Arana and was in agree-
ment; between the elections in March and the swearing in of the new
president in July, his side would have considerable freedom of action,
and an agreement could be reached in that period. In the meantime,
the British should restrain Price and ensure that the matter was not
brought up at the UN. It would also help if they reduced the gar-
rison.49 Amery informed Arenales that Belize planned to join the
Caribbean Community in May 1974, but assured him that there was
no question of Belize advancing to independence before March. The
British tried very hard to get Arenales to reveal something about the
“plan,” so that they could argue with Price to keep the matter out
of the UN, but he absolutely refused, and argued that the plan was
one to be discussed between Britain and Guatemala only; if agree-
ment were reached, Price “or his successor” would have to accept
whether he liked it or not. There was no future in negotiating with
Price; he must be told that if he took matters too far at the UN, “the
Guatemalan government might be driven to take steps which the
Belizeans would have reason to regret as would the Guatemalans
themselves.”50
When he received a report of the meeting, Price simply asked
Hankey to tell Amery that the policy of talks was useless and that
a new approach must be found.51 But the British waited for another
year to hear the “plan” of Arenales; they would try to get some hint
of its content by talking to the United States, by prodding officials
in the Guatemalan foreign ministry (Arenales had told them that he
might send a “leak”) and through other diplomats, but to no avail.
In the following months British officials kept sending reports indi-
cating how difficult and uncertain any action at the UN would be.
They speculated on the probable outcomes of different types of reso-
lution that might be put forward for Belize, and concluded that the
Belizeans should “go straight for a Falkland Islands type consensus
resolution,” which would merely ask Britain and Guatemala to con-
tinue negotiations.52 They preferred, however, that Belize abandon
plans to float a resolution and simply ask its friends to refer to the
matter in their UN speeches.53
Deputy Premier Rogers went to the UN in July 1973 and spoke to
ambassadors from African and Arab countries, who all pledged sup-
port for Belize. In August, the government of Trinidad and Tobago
expressed concern about Belize, “since it represented a serious obsta-

cle to further regional integration and cooperation in the Caribbean.”
They had recently detected signs that the Latin American countries
adjoining the Caribbean were coming under pressure from Africans
at the UN “to take a more active interest in securing independence
for Belize.”54 Price went to London in September and repeated his
belief that the Belize issue must be internationalized, and then he
visited Jamaica, where Dudley Thompson advised him to press for a
resolution at the UN. But Governor Posnett warned that “the greater
danger was of a resolution which incorporated words explicitly or
implicitly recognizing the Guatemala claim,” that Guatemala would
use the fear of separatism in many Third World countries by refer-
ring to Article 6 of Resolution 1514 on territorial integrity, and that
this could positively harm Belize’s chances for future independence.55
Rogers and Courtenay went to New York in October, and according
to Posnett returned “a good deal more cautious about future tac-
tics,” impressed with “the relative insignificance of Belize in a forum
engrossed by the war in the Middle East.”56 In the end, the British
had their way and no resolution was introduced at the UN, but Price
sent a written message to the president of the General Assembly, reit-
erating Belize’s right to independence and seeking the support of
the UN. The British Mission to the UN, meanwhile, insisted that
“we have no evidence of what Price likes to think of as ‘Guatemalan
duplicity.’ The Guatemalans have been as good as their word on play-
ing the Belize issue cool,” and had not referred to it in the General
Debate nor in the Fourth Committee.57
During the first half of 1974, the British sought to rein in
Price’s international campaign lest it annoy the Guatemalans and
affect the “plan” that Arenales had promised. They reported that
Arenales’ reluctance to divulge the plan was not due to deliberate
Guatemalan procrastination, but rather to concern about its effect
on the outcome of elections; Arenales was said to be urging the
president to stage a coup d’ état before July 1, if the Christian
Democrats (whom Weymes dubbed “the lefties”) should win the
elections.58
Meanwhile, Governor Posnett justified Guatemalan fears that the
territory of an independent Belize could be used as a guerrilla base or
as a channel of arms from Castro:
For the present they have no need to police this frontier: we do it for
them. But the removal of British forces at independence would cre-
ate for them new hazards . . . Looked at in this way their reluctance to
contemplate independence for Belize except with Guatemalan control

over defence and external affairs can be understood.59
He stated that there was little popular interest in Belize for inde-
pendence, since it would mean throwing off the blanket of British
protection; and in calling for a continued British presence after inde-
pendence, Price “may have been seeking just the thing to alleviate
Guatemala’s own worries over her security against Cuba. Now, like a
chained dog, Mr. Price can bark for the bone of independence know-
ing that he cannot bite it.”60 Nick Larmour, an undersecretary at the
FCO, suggested that no one was “particularly optimistic about the
proposed Guatemalan plan to be revealed in the next few months,
and the probability is that we shall be left with the same situation
as before, but with a much more frustrated Mr. Price.”61 After the
Guatemalan elections in March 1974, Weymes sought to calm any
concerns London might have over the stability of the government,
and, therefore, of Arenales’ plan. He said that the government had
been in real difficulties over the elections, but that things were nor-
malizing; “sections of the army are thought to be unhappy about the
election fraud and to support Ríos Montt, the opposition candidate,
but he is said to be opposed to military intervention.”62
On May 1, 1974, Belize acceded to membership of the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM), and the Guatemalans submitted a for-
mal protest against this “unilateral” decision.63 But the Guatemalans
told Weymes that this was only a formality, and that the Arenales
plan was still alive, although incoming president Laugerud would
want to consult with his new foreign minister before presenting it;
the meeting could, therefore, not be held until July. It must have
struck Weymes then that Arenales’s plan had been to seal the deal
between the election in March and the accession of the new gov-
ernment in July, for he asked plaintively: “could this be a delaying
tactic?”64
In June 1974, Price visited Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Honduras.
In Caracas Price was able, “by his own devices,” to meet with the
minister of finance and other advisers and officials. In San José, he
met with President Daniel Oduber and Foreign Minister Gonzalo
Facio.65 The press reported Facio as saying that Costa Rica con-
sidered Belize as Central American territory, “which doesn’t mean
Guatemalan territory,” and that peoples’ right to self-determination
had “priority over the element of territorial possessiveness,”66 In
Honduras, Price met with President López Arellano, who told him
he would put in a word for Belize when next he met President Arana.
Posnett noted that there were significant restrictions imposed by

diplomatic propriety (Arenales had referred to Price’s tour in a press
conference and asked Latin American governments not to receive
him), 67 but added with evident admiration that Price
has again shown his talent for making contacts at a usefully high
level notwithstanding protocolaire problems which would have
obstructed a more formal approach and might have daunted a less
determined man. 68
The “Arenales plan,” which had won Guatemala an entire year of

diplomatic respite, was finally laid to rest in July 1974, when the new
foreign minister Molina Orantes told the British that parts of Arenales’
plan were “not convenient,” and that Arenales worked too secretively,
whereas he, Molina, intended to consult the Consejo de Belice and
other high organs of state before talking to Britain. He suggested a
meeting sometime in late September at the UN.69 Weymes believed
him, and said that he was struck by Molina’s sincerity about the need
to move ahead resolutely and resolve the dispute.70
Posnett, meanwhile, traveled to Guatemala and had an informal
meeting with Fernando Sánchez, the head of the Consejo, who asserted
that Guatemalan concern about the defense problems of a future inde-
pendent Belize was related 80 percent to fear of Belize being used by
influences hostile to Guatemala and 20 percent to the presentational
aspect. The clear and present danger to Guatemala came from Cuba,
but in the future might come from Mexico, hence the requirement
was for “a defence arrangement under which Belize would not enter
defence pacts with other countries without Guatemala’s agreement.”
Sánchez repeated the Guatemalan line that they found British troops
in Belize comforting, and that Mexican participation in any settle-
ment was anathema to Guatemala.71 While the British were prepared
to hang their hopes on the sincerity of Molina and forget their having
been taken for a ride by his predecessor, Price would have none of it,
declaring his distrust of Molina and of Guatemala.
The Belize Issue Comes to the Fore

In July Dudley Thompson visited Belize and told the governor that
some Latin American countries were becoming disenchanted with
the Guatemalan position; they understood the differences between
Belize and the Falkland Islands and could possibly be a source of
support in the OAS in the future. Posnett considered this idea “quite
unrealistic.”72 Thompson told him he was a close friend of Salim

Salim, the Tanzanian Chairman of the C24, and asked whether the
UK would be prepared to invite him to Belize. Posnett thought that
Guatemala was likely to react vigorously against such a proposition,
but that since both Price and Rogers knew Salim personally, he might
be invited in a private capacity.73 Price wanted to take the case to
the UN, but the FCO felt that such a move would “provoke gra-
tuitous criticism of HMG’s policy.”74 The UK Mission to the UN
suggested that Salim would not want to entertain an issue that would
divide Latin American supporters of Guatemala and the Caribbean;
Belize should, therefore, keep away from both the C24 and the
Fourth Committee.75 A few days later, however, Salim told British
Ambassador Ivor Richard that he had received a letter from Price
inviting him to go to Belize, but that he felt it would be more useful
if Price were to address the C24; he added that he had considerable
sympathy for the Belize cause.76
By August 1974, Britain’s Mission to the UN was moving tenta-
tively toward the idea that a Price visit to the UN could in fact be
useful.77 The British no longer expected the Guatemalan proposals
to be substantial, and felt it would not hurt to apply some “gentle
pressure” to Guatemala. They thought that 1974 was too soon to try
for a favorable resolution, but it might help to have Price talking to
delegations “plus, incidentally, demonstrating that his skin was not
milk-white.” But his campaign must be sufficiently low-key not to
provoke the Guatemalans, and the British must not be seen to be
orchestrating it.78
Meanwhile, Price was beginning to implement his international-
ization strategy. In July 1974, at its very first meeting in St. Lucia,
the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM pledged to
take all steps necessary to help Belize to achieve independence and to
secure and preserve its sovereignty.79 The following month Rogers
met with members of the C24 at the UN and concluded that Belize
had strong support in the committee, including a majority of Latin
American countries, and returned to Belize with a more favorable
impression for successful action in the Fourth Committee than the
British had anticipated.80
At the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 1974, the foreign min-
isters of Guyana, Barbados, and Jamaica made statements supporting
Belize’s bid for independence, and the Guatemalan ambassador made
a lengthy legalistic response.81 The Belize government wrote to the
president of the General Assembly, noting that elections would be
held on October 30, and that the PUP was preparing the people of
Belize to assume the responsibilities of independence.82 Referring to

the PUP’s platform, the governor informed London that
[m]inisters will cooperate over continued negotiations with Guatemala

but they have no confidence in their success in light of their frustrating
experience over the past ten years. They will therefore continue and
intensify their efforts to bring the Belize case to a wider international
public.83
The PUP won the elections by a handsome majority,84 and a

month later Rogers, despite Britain’s vacillation, put Belize’s case to
the Fourth Committee. He declared that Belize, the last colonial out-
post on the American mainland, wanted its independence as soon as
possible but feared that its territory would be occupied by Guatemala
if UK troops withdrew. He requested support for suitable security
arrangements that would enable Belize to achieve independence.85
When the Barbados delegate said that “Belize had remained for far
too long between the threats from a neighbouring country, on the
one hand, and the empty promise of independence, on the other,”86
he was referring, in the second instance, to Britain’s refusal to provide
a security guarantee. The UK Mission considered that Rogers’ speech
went down very well, and that generally his mission was a success. It
was felt that this improved the chances of Belize taking its campaign
further at the UN the following year.87
Two other developments that would affect Belize’s prospects at the
UN in 1975 occurred in December. First, there was a meeting of the six
Central American presidents with the president of Venezuela in Ciudad
de Guayana, and they issued a joint declaration on December 15,
1974 supporting “the just Guatemalan claim” over the territory of
Belize.88 Second, Venezuela had vacated its seat on the Committee
of 24, because it did not want problems with the U.S. government
over the resolution on Puerto Rico annually proposed by Cuba. This
created a vacancy for a Latin American country, but none was keen to
join, for the same reason. But on December 12, Guatemala informed
the U.S. government that they were prepared to serve in order to
keep the Cubans out.89 The General Assembly resolution of 1961
(No.1654) that established the committee authorized the president of
the Assembly to nominate the members, and membership was to be
based on equitable geographical distribution.90 The president of the
General Assembly was Ambassador Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, a
very close friend of Ambassador Ricardo Alarcón of Cuba. So was the
Venezuelan ambassador, who conspired with Alarcón to ensure that
the latter’s letter to Bouteflika expressing interest in being a member

of the committee was delivered at the same time as Venezuela’s letter
of resignation. Bouteflika resisted attempts by Guatemalan and other
Latin American ambassadors along with the U.S. ambassador to see
him, and privately sought the support of African ambassadors, so that
when during the last session of the General Assembly he announced
that he proposed to name Cuba to the committee, there was no dis-
sent.91 The British were relieved that Guatemala did not become a
member of the C24, but at the same time they made it clear that
Cuba’s membership was a concern.92 Ambassador Richard feared that
active Cuban support for Belize in the Committee of 24 could have

a disastrous effect on Guatemala: we have always understood that the
Guatemalans are concerned, or profess to be concerned, about Cuban
influence in an independent Belize.93
The FCO agreed with Richard, considering that not only would
Cuba’s influence exasperate Guatemala, but also encourage the other
Caribbean countries to turn to Cuba for advice or support, “maybe
even on sugar”; Britain would be encouraging Cuba, by analogy, “to
meddle with the Falklands.” 94
The Belize government was keen to have a visiting mission in
Belize in 1975 while Salim was Chairman, because it felt that inter-
national pressure needed to be remorselessly applied, regardless of
whether there were talks or how they were going.95 The FCO con-
ceded that “there is little hope of meaningful negotiations unless we
can apply some pressure,” and felt that they could tell Guatemala that
the Belizeans were “wholly disenchanted by the history of bilateral
negotiations and insist on pursuing their own diplomacy.”96
Guatemala Draws the Line

The Guatemalans finally showed their hand on February 20, 1975,
when a delegation led by Luis Aycinena met Richard in New York. They
accused Britain of not having done enough to convince the Belizeans
that reaching an agreement with Guatemala was essential to Belize’s
survival, and then made a “categorical absolute declaration” that
Guatemala would never accept Belize being granted independence
behind Guatemala’s back. The border risked becoming a source of
conflict in the region; the area encompassing Punta Gorda, Monkey
River, and the offshore cays was vital for Guatemala’s security in the
Gulf of Honduras, and Guatemala could never agree to share this area
with another country. Apart from the issues of fishing rights and nat-
ural resources, Guatemala’s prime concern was security: an indepen-
dent Belize would be subject to Cuban or other foreign influences.
Guatemala had only limited access to her ports in the Caribbean;
there must, therefore, be a territorial arrangement. The proposal was
that the area of Belize below 16 degrees 30 minutes (just south of
Placencia) be incorporated into Guatemala “at once”; this was the line
that closed off the Gulf of Honduras, which was the decisive factor
for Guatemala.97 The UK would simply have to tell Price that this
was not his territory. A deal could be struck with the transfer of that
territory and parts of the two-treaty package. They insisted that some
elements in Guatemala wanted to take over the entire territory, and
the army was “champing at the bit.” 98
Richard felt that this was Guatemala’s opening bid, and that the
proposals formed a possible basis for discussion.99 Posnett, however,
warned that the chance of Belize accepting any land cession was nil,
and reminded the FCO of Price’s long-standing declaration that he
would never relinquish “one inch of Belizean territory.”100 In Belize,
Price told Richard that the new proposals were “a ruse to keep us all
talking another five years,” and that their discussion should focus on
the internationalization of the dispute.101 Richard, however, insisted
on probing the Guatemalan offer further; he thought less territory
could be offered. Price was willing to consider the possibility of des-
ignating an area of three miles on either side of the Sarstoon for joint
exploitation, but with sovereignty unchanged. Also, he intended to
abide by his party’s manifesto, which had laid out the policy of claim-
ing 12 miles of territorial sea and 200 miles of Exclusive Economic
Zone (EEZ). Price argued that it was the exposure at the UN in 1974
that had brought the Guatemalans back to the negotiating table,
although they had said they would not negotiate until the garrison
was reduced; now, further pressure at the UN was needed to force
them to present more reasonable proposals.102
Price told the British team that if a solution were not found soon,
there could be a change of government in Belize, and the new gov-
ernment would want Belize to remain a colony, which would be “a
ridiculous anomaly.”103 Larmour asked whether the Moho River
could be an acceptable border,104 and Price protested that some Maya
villages and Barranco, a Garifuna village, lay to the south of the
Moho. He was, however, prepared to consider “a symbolic and token
concession.”105 He had in mind the rectification of the western bor-
der from Garbutt’s Falls northward to make it accord with the terms
of the 1859 Treaty.106
In March 1975 Molina told Price in Miami that a cession of

Belizean land to Guatemala was essential; Price proposed “inter-
nationalization” of the common border in the south and develop-
ments in the Gulf of Honduras, which would not involve ceding
sovereignty over any territory.107 Price went on to London, where
he reported on that meeting and presented a memorandum to the
FCO noting that there was an evolving convergence of the Central
American subregion, Mexico, and South American countries with
the CARICOM subregion; together they formed the Caribbean
Basin. Central America was endeavoring to transform the Common
Market into a Community, and Belize could have a future relation-
ship with that, as an equal member. The Sistema de Integración
Económica Centroamericana (SIECA) had prepared a study for the
economic development of the Basin of the Gulf of Honduras, includ-
ing Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, but Belize had about half
the coastline of the Gulf, and could make a substantial contribution
by including a portion of southern Belize in the international project.
His memo included a list of possible projects, such as the provision
of hydroelectric power and water for irrigation by utilizing the rivers
in southern Belize. With the assistance of the UK and other friendly
agencies, he concluded, “Belize would contribute its share to the
economic development of the Central American sub-region and the
independence of Belize with its historic area and boundaries would
be recognised and respected by all Central America.”108
It was agreed that there should be another round of talks, primar-
ily to test Guatemala’s willingness to concede independence. At the
same time, the British would find out “whether, if the Guatemalans
were to receive a significant cession of territory, the Mexicans would
still stand on their limited demand for sea access to Chetumal or
would demand a cession of territory also.”109 Thus did the British
keep insisting on leaving open the possibility of land cession, even
of “a significant cession of territory,” despite Price’s clear refusal
to countenance it. Price returned to Belize via Jamaica, to discuss
the developments with Prime Minister Michael Manley and prepare
strategies for the internationalization, especially for the CHOGM to
be held in Jamaica in late April; Manley agreed to sponsor a Belize
resolution at the meeting.
When a British team including Larmour and Richard visited
Belize in mid-April 1975 to prepare for talks with Guatemala in New
Orleans, Price told them that Belize was not prepared to consider
any “territorial arrangement.” Instead, the British should pay com-
pensation to Guatemala and offer Guatemala unimpeded passage to
the sea, an outlet for the resources of the Petén and trade arrange-
ments.110 But the British had brought quite specific ideas for terri-
torial cession, complete with maps illustrating them: cession of the
Sapodilla Cays; of territorial sea and continental shelf; of parts of
the western frontier involving “fairly substantial cession of territory,”
including several villages; and cession of territory in the south up
to the Moho.111 Richard warned that a promise from Guatemala of
independence for Belize in exchange for cession up the Moho “could
not be dismissed by the British government out of hand.”112 Price
retorted that “the price for independence must be otherwise than
territory. You would not cede British territory, and Britain must pay
the price, you created the problem.”113
Richard confirmed the UK’s commitment that Belize would not
be forced to accept any negotiated solution, but insisted that he “could
not accept a Belizean veto.” Belize was not willing to go to indepen-
dence without a defense guarantee and Britain would not provide it,
so a settlement must be reached.114 When he asked Price whether “a
ladder of negotiating positions” could be put to the Guatemalans,
Price said that the “Belizean ladder excluded land cession.”115
The meetings with Guatemala were held in New Orleans on
April 21, 1975, with Aycinena leading for Guatemala and Richard
for the UK; Courtenay represented Belize. Richard explained that
Belize rejected territorial cession, but Britain was prepared to discuss
any proposal from Guatemala; the UK was under increasing pressure
to grant independence to Belize and it could not resist this pressure
indefinitely. Aycinena replied that once a territorial arrangement had
been achieved and something added to regulate relations between
Belize and Guatemala, the achievement of independence was obvious.
Richard floated the idea of “a formal cession of sovereignty from Belize
of an area of territory, with a lease-back arrangement of that territory to
Belize,” but the Guatemalans rejected this out of hand.116 The Belize
side stood firm on no land cession, and the Guatemalans repeated that
territory was an absolute necessity for any settlement.
The British met separately with Courtenay, who said that he had
become convinced, unlike Price, that territory was essential to the
Guatemalans, and that he believed that cession up to the Moho
River would be acceptable with straight independence.117 In the
resumed session in the afternoon, Richard formally proposed that
the border be the Moho rather than the Sarstoon. Aycinena immedi-
ately said that this would not give Guatemala the full control of the
Bay of Amatique that it required, and offered to accept that part of
Belize south of a line on the Monkey River, and Belize could have
unfettered independence. If anything less were contemplated, “there

would have to be restrictions on Belizean independence proportional
to withdrawal from that line.”118
And so ended those talks. Incredibly, Richard declared that he was
encouraged by the outcome, and felt that
a real possibility for settlement now exists . . . I am now reasonably con-

vinced that the Guatemalans are serious, but that independence for
Belize will involve it ceding some land. I am also reasonably convinced
that this is now Courtenay’s view and that he at least feels the price
worth paying.119
Price himself, as well as his other colleagues, clearly did not think
so.120 At the CHOGM in Jamaica, he was “declaring loudly that
not one inch of Belizean soil would be ceded.”121 Secretary of State
James Callaghan told Price that Britain could not accept defense
responsibilities for countries over whose internal affairs she had no
control, but that perhaps arrangements in Oman might provide an
example for consideration: British officers were seconded on con-
tract to the Omani government to help train local forces. On the
question of Belize’s international campaign, Callaghan warned that
“internationalising a matter did not always help. The current prob-
lems in Cyprus were an example.”122 He proposed instead a package
involving first that Belize make “some border adjustments”; sec-
ond, that the United States put pressure on Guatemala and provide
or secure guarantees that Guatemala would not engage in military
adventures; third, that Britain provide a military training mission
after independence. Price said he thought Callaghan’s idea offered
possibilities.123
Belize Firms Up Plans for UN Action

At the CHOGM in May 1975, Barbadian Prime Minister Errol Barrow
gave a historical account of the dispute and asked the conference to
support the legitimate claim of Belize to independence. Bahamas’
Prime Minister Lynden Pindling went further and urged an immediate
UK guarantee of an independent Belize’s territorial integrity; failing
that the Commonwealth as a whole should offer it, or else the UK
should raise it at the UNSC. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson
said Britain accepted the goal of independence but felt that negotia-
tions were the best prospect, since Britain could not offer a defense
guarantee. It might be raised at the Security Council some time, but
not yet; he would speak to President Gerald Ford shortly about the
matter.124 There was some inconclusive discussion about the possibility
of a peace-keeping force for Belize.125
Callaghan then asked that negotiations be given a chance; and
under pressure agreed that September might be the right time to go
to the UN if talks failed. At the request of Manley, who was chair-
man of the conference, Callaghan, Barrow, Pindling, and Price pre-
pared a draft passage for the communiqué that emphasized support
for Belize’s independence and territorial integrity.126 However, by
the time it reached the floor Callaghan had deleted the reference to
territorial integrity, arguing that this could endanger the talks with
Guatemala, and that his proposed alternative, while not explicit,
gave tacit recognition to the principle of maintaining the country’s
territorial integrity. The agreed paragraph read:
The Heads of Government offered their full support for the aspira-
tions of the people of Belize for early independence. Noting that talks
had recently been resumed with Guatemala, and bearing in mind
the special responsibilities of Britain as the administering power, the
Heads of Government urged the parties to take all necessary action
for a speedy solution to the problem, which could be endorsed by the
international community through the United Nations, in accordance
with the principle of the self-determination of peoples as enshrined in
the Charter of the United Nations.
Callaghan had warned Price against precipitate action at the UN,

but the British were sure that Price
will be returning to Belize in a bullish mood, dreaming of early inde-

pendence for Belize simply imposed on the Guatemalans and sup-
ported morally and militarily by stout friends in the Caribbean and
elsewhere. We shall have to try and get the pendulum swinging back
again somehow.127
Others in the FCO, however, were warming up to the internation-

alization idea, noting that support for Belize was growing in Third
World countries; that if this continued it could embarrass Guatemala
not only in the UN but also in the OAS; that there was a gradual shift
to the left in Latin America that could erode support for Guatemala;
and that even Cuba was no longer seen as a threat, “having moder-
ated its former violent foreign policy and resumed friendly relations
with several Latin American countries.”128 But Callaghan hardened
his position after his experience with Price at the CHOGM; he told
Richard at the British embassy in Washington that
Price must therefore decide whether to go for independence after a

peaceful solution or a continuation of the grievance with the problem
internationalised. If Mr Price pushed matters too far he would consider
withdrawing our troops.129
Price kept pushing; at the ECLA meeting in Trinidad he spoke

strongly for Belize’s secure and unfettered independence.130 The
British reported that Price’s statements went down well, and that
“there were also behind the scene moves of support for Belize, prin-
cipally from Cuba.”131 Governor Posnett reported that on his return,
Price remained adamant about no land cession, although
[w]hen talking with Courtenay alone I formed the impression that he

was less pessimistic about obtaining support for a settlement involving
modest territorial cession than he was prepared to say in the presence
of Rogers or Price. But if so he is in front of his colleagues. Price’s
first observation when asked about renewed talks was to insist that
territorial cession was unacceptable to Belize.132
Richard, however, continued to “hope we can pursue the Moho

idea for at least one more round.” Thereafter, he felt,
we are faced with three choices (A) to negotiate a settlement including

territorial cession over Belize’s head; (B) to revert to the earlier two-
tier scheme, though the Belizeans must realise that Guatemala would
insist on far closer a relationship than Belize could accept; (C) to aban-
don the talks and take the matter to the UN.133
The latter course was what Price had been pushing for years, but he
was forced to go through the motions of negotiations in order to keep
the British on side, knowing full well that it was in their power to sim-
ply abandon the defense of Belize, which would make a Guatemalan
occupation inevitable. And so he continued the talks with the British
and the Guatemalans. He sent Courtenay and Attorney General
Assad Shoman to London in June to tell the British that he did not
regard land cession as a possibility, and that preparations should
get underway to take the matter to the UN in September.134 The
British reported that Callaghan had spoken to Kissinger, but that the
United States regarded itself as very much on the sidelines. Richard
emphasized that in his view no amount of pressure, whether from
the United States or the UN, would persuade the Guatemalans to

abandon their claim; a negotiated solution must be found, which was
why he had proposed the Moho boundary. Courtenay repeated that
Price would not accept cession, “but he might be willing to listen if
minor boundary adjustments were proposed as part of a reasonable
package.”135 On the UN initiative, the Belizeans insisted that there
be a reference to self-determination and territorial integrity in the
proposed resolution, but Richard still felt that it would be “impos-
sible” to get a resolution ordering the Guatemalans to withdraw their
claim.136
Another round of talks was held in July 1975; the Guatemalans
declared that their proposals were nonnegotiable.137 The talks broke
down; the meeting had lasted barely an hour, and as far as the Belizeans
were concerned the stage was set for taking the issue to the UN. The
Guatemalans met with Richard privately after the meeting and sug-
gested that the way forward may be to arrange a “mediation” that
would produce an agreed result. The Guatemalans knew that Price was
still determined not to cede any territory, and that he had, in practice if
not in theory, the power of veto over the British negotiating position.138
Richard liked the idea of a preagreed “mediation” result, but felt that
we shall first have to make one more effort to convince Price that
he cannot have his independence and the whole of his territory too;
and indeed I think we might have to tell him that if the Guatemalans
accept the outcome of any such mediation and if we ourselves think it
is a fair settlement in all the circumstances, then he should not count
upon our acquiescing in a Belizean rejection of the terms.139
Fortunately for Belize, however, there were others in the FCO who
held a different view. FCO officer Patrick Duff 140 argued that it was
difficult to see how a “neutral” resolution would improve the nego-
tiating position of Britain and Belize. He advised that it would be
fruitless to try to persuade Price to agree to cession of territory, and
that Britain should assist in promoting a resolution in the UN giving
maximum support for Belizean self-determination and independence.
And while Courtenay, in his report to Price after the London talks
in June, had suggested that “a number of sweeteners should be con-
sidered” to propose to the Guatemalans, including “Richard’s Moho
proposal,”141 the line adopted by Price and his team was presented by
Courtenay to the House of Representatives after the July talks:
This Government will not accept or agree to any proposal that

includes the cession of . . . any Belizean territory . . . the sovereignty and
independence of Belize is not for negotiation. The question that now

faces government is whether any useful purpose will be served by con-
tinuing to participate in talks on proposals so flagrantly inconsistent
with the declared policies of the Belizean government.142
Rogers and Shoman were dispatched to Peru to lobby delegates

at the Fifth Conference of Foreign Ministers of Non-Aligned
Countries in August. Guatemala, aware of Belize’s intentions,
had applied to be admitted to the conference as an observer,
but Guyana, strongly supported by Cuba, blocked this application;
Guatemala was only able to be present as an “invited country.”
Guyanese Foreign Minister Fred Wills made a forceful statement
to the conference:
I say to Guatemala emphatically and categorically—I say “HANDS OFF

BELIZE.” Renounce your nonsensical claims. Let the people of Belize
remain a nation in waiting no longer. The peace of this hemisphere would
be substantially assisted by a Guatemalan retreat from absurdity.143
The blunt and passionate language of Wills as well as the strong

statements of other CARICOM ministers helped to bring home
to the delegates how important the issue was for the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM). Cuba played a major role in gathering support for
Belize’s cause; Foreign Minister Raúl Roa also made an impassioned
plea for support for Belize. The final communiqué of the conference
declared:
The Conference expresses full support for the people of Belize whose
aspirations for independence continue to be frustrated by territorial
claims. In affirming the territorial integrity of Belize and the right of
its people to independence, the Conference agreed to lend its support
to all efforts directed to those ends.144
The Belize delegation had especially requested the inclusion of sup-

port for Belize’s territorial integrity, and the fact that this had been
accepted by the 78 members present, representing about two-thirds
of the member states of the UN, was an important prelude to the
upcoming UN lobby. Important too was the fact that the meeting
had been held in Latin America, and that Guatemala had been denied
observer status.145 The Belizean delegates also secured a meeting
with a senior government official of the Peruvian government, who
assured them that Peru would, after a suitable time, give its support
to Belize against Guatemala.146
On September 10, then Belize’s National Day, Premier Price

announced, in the presence of his guest Prime Minister Barrow of
Barbados, that “we are arranging a mission to the UN, headed by
former attorney general the Honourable Assad Shoman who has been
appointed minister of state with an office in New York City.”
Chapter 5
Internationalization Emergent (1975)
As they prepared to take their case to the United Nations (UN),

the Belizeans had to bear in mind the positions of Mexico and the
United States. Although Mexico supported Belize’s right to inde-
pendence, it worried that Guatemala might end up with a piece of
Belizean territory; at the same time, it did not want to worsen rela-
tions with Guatemala, its powerful southern neighbor. For the U.S.
government, its relationship with the United Kingdom (UK) and its
proclaimed support for self-determination had to be balanced against
its concern for stability in the region and for upholding established
pro-U.S. governments in Central America, and it relied heavily on
Guatemala to maintain the status quo. Despite this, on the Belize
issue “the Guatemalan military resisted U.S. interference, especially
after Carter’s policy on human rights . . . it is a mistake to think that
the U.S. can manipulate Guatemala.”1 The UK would overestimate
the ability of the United States to influence Guatemala, and even
when the U.S. secretary of state may have wanted to do so in response
to British requests, the officials in the State Department were more
concerned to support the Guatemalan point of view, as part of a wider
policy of support for Latin American militaries.2
The Mexican Factor

Since the signing of the Anglo-Mexican treaty in 1893, the Mexican
government had never seriously questioned British sovereignty over
the territory comprehended in the treaty,3 but it maintained what
was called a “dormant claim,” and was determined to use it to ensure
that its interests were protected as against Guatemala. In international
organs in the 1950s, whenever Guatemala asserted its claim to Belize,
Mexico would issue a protest. At the General Assembly of the UN
102 BELIZE’S IND EPEND ENC E
in 1958, the foreign secretary stated:
Our position on Belize is that, if its present status is altered, Mexico

will claim its rights in accordance with well-known historical and legal
precedents . . . Mexico, when the time comes, will not neglect to take
into account that a solution of the question of Belize must be based on
freedom and independence for the people of that territory.4
When the Puerto Rico talks were held in 1962, President Adolfo
López Mateos reaffirmed Mexico’s position:
any change in the status of Belize cannot be legitimately carried out with-
out the participation of Mexico and without taking into account first and
foremost the right of the people of Belize to obtain full independence if
they so wish, through the free exercise of their sovereign will.5
At the same time, Mexican officials had to take into account not
only Guatemalan, but also more general Central American resent-
ment against Mexico. In 1969, Mexican Foreign Minister Carrillo
Flores said that Central American countries feared Mexico, and
reported that the Salvadoran ambassador in Washington had been
“consulting his CA colleagues expressing concern lest BH inde-
pendence lead to BH opening Bay of Chetumal to Mexican naval
vessels,” arguing that if in addition to its naval base in Acapulco
Mexico had another in Chetumal Bay, it would dominate all Central
America.6
President Díaz Ordaz, in February 1970, affirmed that Mexico
would always support Belize’s right of independence and that the
independent Belize could be sure of the warmest welcome and
assistance from Mexico.7 In April 1974, Mexico’s Foreign Minister
Emilio Rabasa told Price that Mexico supported Belize’s right to
self-determination and would officially recognize Belizean sov-
ereignty one hour after independence. In return, Mexico wanted
such strips of land as were necessary to guarantee her ships access to
Chetumal Bay through Mexican waters.8 When the British learned
in February 1975 that the Guatemalans were insisting on territo-
rial cession, they immediately became concerned that Mexico might
“be tempted to take the wrappings off their own claim.” Yet when
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Minister David Ennals
met with Rabasa in Mexico City, Rabasa expressed Mexico’s main
practical concern: access for all Mexican ships to Chetumal.9 Ennals
assured Rabasa that Mexican concerns over access to Chetumal were
I N T E R N AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N E M E R G E N T 103
fully noted, but did not tell Rabasa about Guatemala’s recent and
implacable demand for significant land cession.10
Later that year, Mexico’s position was more formally defined
by Manuel Tello, then a director at the Foreign Ministry and later
himself the foreign minister:
If Belize became genuinely independent more or less in its present

form, Mexico would be perfectly content with a treaty guaranteeing
access and would not require any change of existing median lines or any
cession of territory . . . But if Belize were to become part of Guatemala
then Mexico would not feel secure as regards access to Chetumal and
would want something more substantial than a treaty. That was what
Rabasa had in mind when he talked about ceding a strip of territory,
and he was determined to keep this option open.11
British ambassador John Galsworthy then told Tello of the extent

of the Guatemalan demand for territory, assured him that this would
never be accepted, and sounded him out on the British idea of limit-
ing cession to the area south of the River Moho. Tello replied that
in the first scenario Mexico would assert her historical claim to the
northern part of Belize, but if Belize went to independence with, say,
95 percent of her territory, he did not think Mexico would press its
claim.12
The Echeverria Aberration

When President Luis Echeverría met Guatemalan President Laugerud
at the Mexican/Guatemalan border on May 31, 1975, however, he
appeared to radically alter Mexican policy, declaring that
leaving aside any possible Mexican requirement based on rights to

Belizean territory . . . we prefer without reserve and without conditions
the friendship of our Guatemalan brothers . . . we want the demands
of the Guatemalan people to be satisfied, in accordance with history,
reason and right.13
It is difficult to say what accounted for this totally discordant note

on the part of Echeverría. Tello told Galsworthy that Echeverría
had become quite unpredictable in foreign affairs. He had declined
to read the brief prepared for him prior to his meeting with the
Guatemalan president, and as a result had spoken completely out
of line with established Mexican policy on Belize.14 Decades later,
Rabasa was still hard put to explain Echeverría’s attitude, claiming
that he contradicted himself publicly and officially in an improper

manner, tended to look only at the immediate and not the long term,
and didn’t have a historical perspective. Rabasa presented his resig-
nation because of the president’s inconsistent attitude to the Belize
issue.15
In October 1975, the Belize offensive at the UN was in full swing,
with a strong resolution being promoted, and Price was in Mexico for
the Pan American Games at the invitation of Echeverría, who, however,
refused to meet him. Echeverría, accompanied by the Guatemalan vice
president, told the press that Mexico had no territorial claim to put
forward to Belize and that he had great respect for the historical rights
of Guatemala.16 The Mexican press gave considerable coverage to the
Belize issue and published an interview with Price, who expressed
his concern about the president’s position.17 On October 17, 1975,
the Mexican Senate fully endorsed the president’s stand, completely
ignoring “the fact that this position implies a complete reversal of the
traditional and established Mexican policy toward the Belize issue.”18
That same night Galsworthy met with Rabasa, who expressed his
disagreement with his president’s statements; he had pleaded with
Echeverría both before and after he met Laugerud to take a more
careful line, but had made no impact. Galsworthy worried that the
Guatemalans might be encouraged to invade if they had “the convic-
tion they had got Mexico in their pocket.”19 Rabasa later reported that
“he had had a real go at the President, who had refused to change his
line.”20 Rabasa, however, told the press that Mexico maintained her
claims and called for a peaceful solution in accordance with the prin-
ciples of peaceful coexistence and the nonuse of force.21 In November,
Echeverría announced that he would be visiting Guatemala at the
invitation of Laugerud. Tello told Galsworthy that Rabasa and him-
self were “now engaged in a battle with the President” to dissuade
him from supporting the Guatemalan resolution. Tello hoped that
the pro-Belize resolution (known as the Caribbean resolution) could
be voted on before Echeverría’s visit to Guatemala, since the over-
whelming support it was bound to get would “greatly help to deter
Echeverría from making a fool of himself.”22
On November 10, Rabasa sent for Galsworthy urgently, and told
him that he had been struggling with the president for days and had
finally got him to agree to allow Mexico to put forward a compro-
mise resolution, which he felt would be acceptable to Guatemala. He
“shuddered to think” what line Echeverría would take in Guatemala
if the Mexican proposal proved unacceptable to Belize, as this was the
only hope they had of “gagging Echeverría.”23
British Trade Secretary Peter Shore was in Mexico at the time,

and discussed the issue at length with Echeverría. By then Britain
had reinforced its garrison in Belize (see below). The president noted
that the Guatemalans were “dangerously excited” and had a “mania”
about the danger of Cuban penetration via an independent Belize,
although he himself did not think that Cuba posed any threat. He
referred to the proposed Mexican resolution as a way of taking the
heat out of the present situation. Shore explained that the Caribbean
resolution was not an Anglo-Cuban initiative, as the Guatemalan’s
were saying, but one sponsored by 55 countries, and it was doubtful
that they would consider Mexico’s proposal a sufficient substitute for
theirs.24 Echeverría proposed to ask the Guatemalans to withdraw
their troops from the border, but said that he would have to be able to
tell them that the British would reciprocate; he was prepared to go to
Belize for that.25 The Mexican press was covering the Belize issue
extensively, with “a steady increase in the volume of editorial com-
ment in favor of the right of Belize to self-determination”; this was
making a significant impression on Echeverría.26 The British ambas-
sador informed the Mexicans that the president’s visit to Belize would
be welcomed.27
During his visit to Guatemala, President Echeverría failed to
express unequivocal support for Guatemala’s claim, much to the cha-
grin of the Guatemalan press, which relentlessly pursued him during
the press conference, even asking whether he was working for the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Echeverría finally lost his cool
and told them that
[i]t seems to me that your questions are not put with goodwill, sympa-
thy or good faith, but rather that they are venomous and unhelpful. I
am unable to reply to your lack of courtesy, of hospitality and respect.
I have no more to say to you.28
Echeverría offered to meet with the British and the Guatemalans in

Cozumel, but the British refused, since they had already programmed
Ted Rowlands, the minister in the FCO responsible for the negotia-
tions, to visit Guatemala and Mexico.29 When Rabasa received this
message in Guatemala City he was furious and “bitterly hurt” at the
British snub, and said that in the circumstances the president would
not be visiting Belize.30
Rabasa himself, however, went to Belize and proposed that there
be a consensus resolution that would not mention independence
or territorial integrity. When that was rejected, he proposed that
the newly tabled Mexican resolution, which would be amended to

include Belize’s right to self-determination, be allowed to pass along
with the Caribbean one; Guatemala would support the Mexican draft
and, therefore, be moving a step forward by accepting the principle
of self-determination. That too was rejected, and Rabasa said that
Mexico could not support the Caribbean resolution, which he thought
would drive Guatemala further away than ever from the negotiating
table. The Belizean ministers explained that after 12 fruitless years
at the table, mere readiness to talk was a discredited concept; only
talks recognizing the essential principles would be worth holding.
They regarded the Mexican draft as contrary to the best interests of
Belize.31 During this time, there were constant consultations with
the Mexicans and others at the UN on the several draft resolutions,
which will be referred to below.
U.S. Attitudes to the Guatemalan Claim

The UK was always very concerned about how the United States
viewed the Belize issue. As one high official at the time has remarked,
“one of the first questions we asked in an office meeting was, what
will the Americans think of this?”32 While the “special relationship”
with the UK could be counted on to make the U.S. government
cooperative in defense and military matters, its political support for
Belize’s independence in the face of the Guatemalan claim was ambig-
uous. Washington did not want to get involved in the issue again and
preferred the status quo to any alternative that would entail “painful
decisions and choices.”33 London believed that if Belize became inde-
pendent without Guatemalan agreement and the British forces with-
drew and the Guatemalans invaded, “the Americans would not . . . lean
on the Guatemalans and force them to withdraw. The most to be
expected from them would be noises in the OAS [Organization of
American States].” And should Guatemala be successful in absorbing
Belize, the United States “would prefer such a solution to the creation
of yet another potentially unstable mini-state, particularly on the
mainland.”34 The U.S. government was sympathetic to Guatemalan
concerns about the Caribbean resolution, arguing to Richard that it
would be taken by the Guatemalans to mean that there was no hope
of agreement on territorial concessions. Richard told them that “we
do not entirely exclude border readjustments,” but he reported to
London that he did not think he could approach the Caribbeans and
propose any amendments; the United States and others could do so
if they wished.35
In mid-1975, the British learned that the U.S. government planned

to sell Guatemala patrol boats and C47 aircraft, and asked them to
delay the sale while there were still prospects for a negotiated settle-
ment.36 U.S. Assistant Secretary Rogers noted that the Guatemalans
had purchased 10 Arava light transport planes from Israel, for delivery
at the end of the year, and agreed that if the U.S. government sold
the C47s as requested this “would alter the balance of forces in the
area, something the U.S. was not disposed to do.” The United States
would, therefore, block the sale of the C47s, but the patrol boat sale
would proceed, unless the UK “solemnly” asked that it not, in which
case they would reconsider. Rogers “seemed particularly impressed
by the degree of Third World support which Price is gaining.”37 In
September 1975 the United States informed that three patrol boats
would be delivered to Guatemala in mid-1976. The Guatemalans
were upset about the denial of the aircraft sale, but U.S.-Guatemala
relations were still generally good, and the United States would be
able to give Britain advance warning of any major offensive build-up
of Guatemalan forces.38
The British were worried about the Israeli aircraft, which they
believed “will seriously increase the problem of defending Belize,”39
and the Ministry of Defense (MOD) recommended that the gar-
rison be reinforced; the FCO agreed, but urged that this be post-
poned until after the UN action.40 By late August 1975 the U.S.
government had still not made up its mind about selling aircraft to
Guatemala. The U.S. embassy in London told the FCO that the
United States “enjoyed close relations with Guatemala with whom
they cooperated in matters of military supplies, military training and
intelligence.”41 Washington had decided to deliver some of the C47
aircraft requested by Guatemala, but had reconsidered, anxious to
“avoid a situation in which they would be on the opposite side of the
table from ourselves in a Guatemala/Belize squabble.”42 The timing
of the planned reinforcement of the Belize garrison worried British
officials considerably. They felt that Guatemala’s military capacity
would be “formidable” once they took delivery of the Israeli aircraft
early in 1976.43
In September 1975 the commander of the British forces in Belize
reported that there was a
substantial build-up at Melchor de Mencos/La Pólvora . . . Their aspira-

tions appear to be directed at an incursion into south Belize, probably
Punta Gorda, which is particularly vulnerable & would place HMG in
most embarrassing situation requiring major operation to resolve.44
The Kissinger Package

Britain turned to Kissinger for help, and the U.S. secretary of state
asked the Guatemalans not to take any military action until he had an
opportunity to speak to Callaghan; he hoped this would keep things
quiet until after the UN debate.45 A few days later, Callaghan informed
Kissinger that because of evidence of saber-rattling in Guatemala the
UK would begin a low-key and slow reinforcement of the British gar-
rison in Belize.46 When the British reinforced the garrison in Belize
in early November, Kissinger wrote to Callaghan:
Your recent reinforcement will increase the pressures within Guatemala

to attack . . . The likelihood of an attack is also increasing, we think,
because of the increasing likelihood of passage by the UN of your
draft resolution. As we now see it, the resolution, by appearing to
the Guatemalans to leave nothing of substance to negotiate, may have
so weakened the position of moderates within the Guatemalan gov-
ernment as to make it impossible for them to prevail against military
adventurism.47
Kissinger then went on to outline ideas for “positive and immedi-

ate measures which you might wish to consider in an effort to head
off resort to force”: recourse to the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) and agreeing to negotiate “matters of vital security and eco-
nomic concern to the GOG [government of Guatemala].” While dis-
claiming the idea that he was putting forward any sort of “package,”
he set out several proposals: limits of both countries to enter into
military accords with third countries; cooperation on security infor-
mation; pledges not to allow the territory of one state to be used as a
base for attack against the other; and a commitment that an indepen-
dent Belize would adhere to the Rio Treaty. On economic matters,
he proposed a maritime boundary for guaranteed access; fishing and
seabed rights in the Gulf; and Guatemalan access to Belizean ports.
Kissinger repeated that “I am not at all certain that an initiative along
either of these lines would stave off a Guatemalan military move.”48
A few days later Callaghan wrote Kissinger, pointing out that
ideas similar to his had been proposed by Britain and rejected by the
Guatemalans in July, and added:
I wish to bring Belize to secure independence as soon as possible and I

am under mounting pressure from the Belizeans, the Commonwealth
and the Non-Aligned Group. A reference to the ICJ would be
regarded by these groups as a transparent attempt to deprive Belize of
its independence by putting the whole issue in cold storage for several
years. It would appease one of our customers but would stir up the
rest of them.49
The United States and Britain had failed to see eye to eye on the
critical political issues involved. One consequence would be that in
1975 and for the next four years the U.S. government would not sup-
port the pro-Belize UN resolutions.
The Carter Era

It is generally recognized that President Carter attempted to imple-
ment a change in U.S. foreign policy by his emphasis on human
rights, and that during the first half of his term he accomplished
this to some extent, while in the second half he was forced to revert
to the traditional “national security” agenda.50 Carter’s priority in
Latin America was to conclude treaties with Panama ensuring U.S.
withdrawal from the Canal Zone while maintaining the U.S. right
to safeguard the neutrality of the Canal. Kissinger had negotiated a
joint statement of principles in 1974 that became the framework for
the new Canal treaties,51 the importance of which was recognized by
Foreign Secretary Cyrus Vance, who understood that “we could not
hope to have a better relationship with our neighbors if we failed to
work out a fair settlement with Panama.”52 One of Carter’s first acts
was to reduce aid to countries for human rights reasons:
Four Latin American governments protested the new policy by end-

ing their military assistance agreements with the United States. Such
actions aroused some Americans, including Ronald Reagan, who
wrote: “Little wonder that friendly nations such as Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador have been dismayed
by Carter’s policies.” Each of these governments was then a military
dictatorship.53
The Belize government was delighted with this new policy, which
reduced U.S. military aid to Guatemala and raised hopes of U.S. sup-
port for Belize’s objectives. When Carter addressed the Organization
of American States (OAS) General Assembly in Washington in con-
nection with the Panama treaties, he encouraged the leaders to
tackle the outstanding territorial disputes in the hemisphere and
pledged “to join in the effort to find peaceful and just solutions
to other problems.”54 By the following year, however, the Carter
administration was overwhelmed by events inside and outside of the

region that propelled it on a different course:
in its last two years, the administration addressed a traditional secu-

rity agenda: war, revolution, instability in the Caribbean Basin, and
Soviet-Cuban expansionism. This was an uncomfortable set of issues
for the administration, and there was no consensus on how to deal
with these issues.55
Throughout the period of Belize’s internationalization efforts at

the UN, it had to bear in mind the changing U.S. policy scenario,
and attempt to navigate a course that would not bring it into overt
conflict with that country and eventually lead to gaining its support.
The Belize Mission to the UN

In September 1975, Belize Minister of State Assad Shoman led
a mission to the UN to lobby for Belize’s independence and ter-
ritorial integrity. At that time there were a number of particularly
propitious circumstances favoring Belize—both the UN and Non-
Aligned Movement (NAM) were at the apex of their influence, there
was détente between the United States and the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR), and both the Commonwealth Heads
of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and NAM had held important
meetings in the region in which Belize gained significant support.
There was no guarantee that these circumstances would persist, so it
was necessary to get a first resolution supporting Belize’s strongest
position in relation to independence and territorial integrity, although
a balance would have to be struck between the strength of the resolu-
tion and the need to get as many countries as possible to support it.
The Belizeans recognized that it would be impossible to gain U.S.
support for a resolution favoring Belize; similar considerations applied
to the Latin American countries (except Cuba). The Caribbean
Community countries were solidly behind Belize, and would agree
to any resolution Belize itself proposed; to a lesser extent this also
applied to the Commonwealth countries and to most of the Non-
Aligned countries. It was understood that certain countries would
have reservations because of their own peculiar circumstances, and
as the work progressed the Belizeans learned that others would have
their own reasons for not supporting the Belize resolution. But the
most important country that would have to be nudged into accept-
ing Belize’s proposed resolution was Britain itself. It was absolutely
essential for Belize to have Britain fully on board, because Britain was
crucial to the defense of Belize and influenced the votes of European
Community countries.
Britain, although aware of the importance of these factors, could
not simply ram any resolution down Belize’s throat. For one thing,
the broad support Belize had gained from so many countries dur-
ing the previous months forced Britain to show respect for Belize’s
position. Britain also had to pay special heed to the sentiments of the
Commonwealth countries. An important factor that enabled Belize
to get the resolution it did was its enlisting of Rashleigh Jackson of
Guyana, Frank Abdullah of Trinidad and Tobago, and Don Mills of
Jamaica to join the Belize delegates in backroom negotiations with
Britain over the wording of the resolution.56 These men had tremen-
dous prestige at the UN, not only because of the high standing of the
leaders of their countries in the Third World, but also because of their
own diplomatic skills and their finesse in negotiating accords.
Richard wanted to have a fairly mild resolution, even one that
could achieve consensus, since “we didn’t think we could get much
support for a strong resolution, and if we did get a strong resolution
it would affect the negotiation.”57 Britain was anxious to avoid riling
Guatemala, especially for security reasons, and so as not to appear
to the other Latin Americans as an old-style colonial power. In this
context, Britain’s skeleton in the closet was the Falkland Islands (Islas
Malvinas). But Britain had a hidden agenda: it had come to the firm
conclusion that the best way to get out of the situation would be for
Belize to agree to give up some of its territory in the south, and so
it did not want “territorial integrity” mentioned in the resolution.
Britain’s priority was to achieve a negotiated solution with Guatemala,
which would allow it to withdraw its defense responsibility, not only
because it was costly and potentially dangerous, but also because
the British thought it did not sit well with Latin Americans that a
European power maintained troops on the American mainland. For
Belize, on the other hand, the priority was not a negotiated solution,
but the achievement of independence with security. However, as this
security could realistically be supplied only by Britain, the situation
was fraught with interconnections and potential conflicts, where each
side felt it might lose if it gave in too much to the other.
The most difficult issue that the Belizeans had with the British on
the wording of the resolution was that relating to territorial integrity,
not just because Britain wanted to maintain land cession as a pos-
sible element in a negotiated settlement, but also because Resolution
1514 appeared to be ambiguous on the issue, and Guatemala had
struck the first blow by arguing that its own territorial integrity was
at stake. But the Belize delegation had come to the UN prepared to
argue the point in Belize’s favor, and it did so to all delegations in
written form as well as in verbal presentations. The Belizeans argued
that although Article 6 of Resolution 1514 rules out “any attempt
aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the
territorial integrity of a country,” what the principle proclaims is that
existing international borders should not be violated by force. The
principle protects the status quo against forceful violation, whereas
the principle of self-determination privileges change in colonial situ-
ations. Furthermore, Resolution 2625 of 1970, the Declaration on
Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and
Cooperation among States, reaffirms “the principle of equal rights
and self-determination of peoples,” and declares the following:
Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which
deprives peoples referred to in the elaboration of the principle of equal
rights and self-determination of their right to self determination and
freedom and independence.58
The Declaration further deals specifically with the territory of a

colony:
The territory of a colony . . . has, under the Charter, a status separate and
distinct from the territory of the State administering it; and such sepa-
rate and distinct status under the Charter shall exist until the people of
the colony . . . have exercised their right of self-determination . . . Nothing
in the foregoing paragraphs shall be construed as authorizing or
encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in
part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign independent
States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal
rights and self-determination of peoples as described above and thus pos-
sessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the
territory without distinction as to race, creed or color.59
The Belizeans argued that the whole purpose of Article 6 in

Resolution 1514 was to protect the territorial integrity of a colonial
country before it became independent, and Resolution 2625 made it
absolutely clear that Guatemala was under a duty to refrain from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of Belize. There
was no conflict between the two principles; they complemented each
other and required respect for the right of the people of Belize to
self-determination and that the territorial integrity of Belize remain
inviolate. The Belizeans convinced the vast majority of UN members

of the validity of their arguments, and finally persuaded Britain to
include territorial integrity in the first resolution.
At that time, there were 141 member states of the UN. The
European Community members could be expected to sup-
port Britain’s position on the issue. Likewise, the members of the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM), of the Commonwealth, and,
most significantly, of the NAM, were committed to Belize. In addi-
tion, Belize could count on Cuba to secure the support of the mem-
bers of the Socialist Bloc, including the USSR, a permanent member
of the Security Council. Of the other three permanent members apart
from Britain, France could also be counted on to support Britain’s
positions, and China would likely follow the Non-Aligned position.
That left only the United States among the permanent members; its
position as a close ally of Guatemala was countered by its “special rela-
tionship” with the UK, and it would, therefore, remain equivocal.
At the UN, there also exist important country groupings based on
geography or culture, such as the African Group, the Latin American
Group, and the Arab Group, which were all addressed by the Belizean
delegates in closed meetings.60 From the beginning, with a very few
exceptions related to the peculiarities of the policies of some coun-
tries at the time, Belize was able to gain overwhelming support from
the members of the UN, with the exception of most Latin American
members.
The Draft Resolutions at the Fourth Committee

In the Fourth Committee, the first draft resolution was submitted on
behalf of Guatemala on October 24, 1975, cosponsored by Bolivia,
Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, and
the five Central American countries (not including Panama). It stated
that Resolution 1514 was designed to end colonialism “while at the
same time ensuring the maintenance of the national unity and territo-
rial integrity of Member States,” and called on the UK and Guatemala
to continue negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the prob-
lem, taking into account “the interests of the people of Belize.”61
On October 31, a meeting in Guatemala of heads of state of Central
America, including Panama, issued a declaration requesting support
for the resolution.62 On November 20, a revised draft was submit-
ted, omitting the words italicized above, and with two additional
sponsors, Panama and Ecuador.63 The deletion of the phrase dem-
onstrates the degree of success the Belize delegation had achieved in
convincing UN delegates to adopt its interpretation of the term “ter-

ritorial integrity.” As it then stood, the resolution was not obviously
offensive to Belize, except that it referred to “the interests” rather
than “the rights” of the people of Belize. Nonetheless, it did not con-
tain the essential elements required by Belize, and so the Belizeans
and their allies lobbied against it.
On November 4, the Caribbean draft resolution was circulated
in the Fourth Committee. It was finally sponsored by 62 mem-
ber states, and survived without amendment despite attempts by
several countries, including Britain and Mexico, to amend it. The
draft urged all states to respect the right of the people of Belize
to self-determination, independence, and territorial integrity and
to facilitate the attainment by them of their goal of a secure inde-
pendence. It called upon the governments of Guatemala and of the
UK in close consultation with the government of Belize to pursue
urgently their negotiations “in order to remove such obstacles as
have hitherto prevented the people of Belize from exercising freely
and without fear their inalienable right to self-determination and
independence.” It further declared that any proposals for the reso-
lution of the dispute must abide by the principles enunciated in the
resolution.64
Mexico was in regular consultation with the British and Belizean del-
egations, seeking to amend the Caribbean resolution to ensure the sup-
port of Mexico and other Latin American countries, but the Belizeans
felt that they had enough support to pass their resolution by an over-
whelming majority, and that they needed to get, at the outset, the stron-
gest possible resolution, to send a clear message to both Guatemala and
Britain that Belize would not make concessions on the key issues of
territorial integrity and full sovereign independence. Mexico, therefore,
submitted its own draft resolution on November 10, which called on
the UK and Guatemala to negotiate a peaceful solution to the problem,
taking into account “the rights of the people of Belize,” and requested
the parties concerned to refrain from any unilateral action that might
jeopardize stability and harmony in the region.65 A few days later Mexico
submitted a revised resolution making more specific “the rights of the
people of Belize” by adding “to self-determination.”66
By early November, the British, convinced that the Guatemalans
were contemplating an attack on Belize,67 and despite the reluctance
of the FCO to do so until after the debate at the UN, decided to
go ahead and reinforce. The reinforcements brought the number of
British troops in Belize to more than a thousand men, and Royal
Navy Frigate HMS Zulu was brought into the area.68
It is in this context of heightened world interest that the debates on

Belize, and the presentation of the different resolutions, took place a
few days later in the Fourth Committee.
The Fourth Committee Debates

The Belize issue dominated the Fourth Committee hearings on
decolonization for about a week in November. The hearings began
with Premier Price reminding the Committee that Belize was to
have become independent many years before, and that the only rea-
son for the delay was Belize’s “fear for its survival, a fear engendered
by the unfounded and unjust claim of Guatemala to the territory of
Belize and its thinly veiled threats to pursue their claim by force if
necessary.”69 Price spent very little time defending the British title to
the territory, and instead focused on the right of the Belizean people
to self-determination:
Belizeans . . . have a distinct national personality, which is a blend of

various origins and cultures very much like that of the nations of the
Caribbean Community. They are a people of predominantly African
descent, with a rich admixture of Maya, Mestizo, Carib, Asian and
other elements, living together in peace and harmony, and they have
no desire to become a disadvantaged minority living in the midst of a
majority whose way of life is alien to them.70
He added that more than 95 percent of the current population had

been born in Belize; they had a unique national identity, and handing
them over to Guatemala would amount to an act of cultural geno-
cide. Belize’s economic development had been seriously hampered by
deliberate policies of Guatemala, which had gone so far as to ask the
OAS three years earlier to impose economic sanctions against Belize.
This had been averted with the help of the Caribbean representatives
in the OAS. Belize was bound to these countries not only by ethnic,
historical, and cultural ties, but also by membership of the Caribbean
Community.71
Ambassador Richard noted that in negotiations over the years
Guatemala had always made demands that neither Britain nor
Belize could accept, as they all made a mockery of the principle of
self-determination. Because of the undue delay in Belize achieving
independence after self-government, Belize had assumed, with the
full support of Britain, a number of responsibilities in the field of
foreign affairs, such as its relations with the Caribbean Community.
“But a situation of half-dependence and half-independence,” he

added, “is by its very nature impermanent and unstable and cannot
be maintained in perpetuity.”72
Ambassador Jorge Skinner-Klee then spoke on behalf of
Guatemala, giving a long and detailed account of Guatemala’s ver-
sion of the roots of its claim and its legal arguments. He insisted that
the Fourth Committee was not competent to take decisions on a
matter that was legally a dispute between states, accused Britain and
Belize of frustrating all attempts at finding a solution to the contro-
versy and charged that the UK had resorted at every opportunity to
intimidation, sending troops and warships to Belizean waters. He
also accused the local Belizean leaders of torpedoing secret nego-
tiations by their continued tendency to reveal partial aspects of the
negotiations in order to use them to support parish-pump politics.
He asserted that Guatemala was not opposed to independence for
Belize; what it opposed was any unilateral granting of independence
to the territory and any act that would alter the status quo in Belize
behind Guatemala’s back. He claimed that Belize had never been a
colony, but rather a territory of Guatemala illegally occupied by the
UK; it was, therefore, not subject to the UN process of decoloni-
zation. The resolution purporting to limit the scope of the nego-
tiations to be held between the UK and Guatemala was illegal and
Guatemala would not comply with it.
Skinner-Klee suggested that Belize’s close links with the Caribbean
Community served only as “a pretext to keep Belize within the
Commonwealth, and thus perpetuate a colonial presence for the
purpose of imperialist exploitation.” Indeed, he added, Guatemala
had never doubted the neoimperialist intentions of the states of the
Caribbean Community, which were perhaps seeking with such an
adventure to gain a footing on the mainland.73
In the Fourth Committee debates, a total of 31 other countries
intervened, 22 for Belize and 9 for Guatemala. Tanzania’s Salim Salim
declared that the application of the principles of the Charter nulli-
fied all legal claims by other countries; an eminent South American
jurist had affirmed that legal ties arising out of colonization could
not obstruct the principle of self-determination.74 Rashleigh Jackson
of Guyana noted that in 1964 the assembly of heads of state and gov-
ernment of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) held in Cairo
had declared that its members would respect the borders existing on
their achievement of national independence. That principle, he said,
lay at the heart of what the UN stood for, and was applicable to the
case of Belize.75
The states that supported Belize included countries from Latin

America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Guatemala’s supporters were con-
fined to Latin American countries, including all the Central American
countries except Panama, and one country from outside the region,
the Philippines. The Latin American countries relied on Guatemala’s
allegations that what was involved was an extra-continental power ille-
gally occupying American territory. The delegate of the Philippines
correctly noted that the Caribbean resolution prejudged the nego-
tiations by seeking to dictate what the results should be, requiring
the entire territory of Belize to become independent, regardless
of whether or not Guatemala’s claims were justified. This, he said,
was a dangerous mockery. Perhaps the UK believed it could present
Guatemala and Latin America with a fait accompli as it had done to
the Philippines in connection with North Borneo.76
On November 21, 1975, prior to the votes on the substantive
resolutions, Guatemala put forward a motion calling for a decision
on the competence of the Fourth Committee to adopt the propos-
als contained in the Caribbean resolution. This was rejected by a
vote of 108 to 11, with 8 abstentions. In addition to the six Central
American countries (including Panama), those that voted in favor of
Guatemala were Brazil, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay,
and the Philippines. Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela were the Latin
American countries that voted against; the other Latin American
countries abstained, along with Israel and Spain. Significantly, the
United States also voted against Guatemala’s challenge to the compe-
tence of the Fourth Committee to adopt the proposals contained in
the Caribbean resolution.77
Before the vote on the resolutions, Mexico’s delegate explained
that Mexico had introduced a draft resolution to facilitate the imme-
diate renewal of negotiations aimed at ensuring the people of Belize
the free exercise of the right of self-determination. Since neither the
pro-Guatemalan nor the Caribbean drafts had been able to achieve
consensus, his delegation would be obliged to abstain on both of
them, although he particularly regretted abstaining on the Caribbean
resolution, since the concepts reaffirmed in it were among the funda-
mental principles of Mexico’s foreign policy.78
The Committee then voted on the pro-Guatemalan resolution, and
rejected it by a vote of 62 to 22, with 41 abstentions. In addition to
the Latin American countries, those voting in favor included Greece,
Israel, Morocco, and Spain. Most European countries abstained, but
the Scandinavian countries, along with the UK, voted against. Mexico
also abstained, as did the United States. This resolution, it will be
recalled, merely invited the UK and Guatemala to hold negotiations

to settle the dispute concerning sovereignty over Belize.
The Caribbean resolution was adopted by a vote of 103 to 12, with
13 abstentions. In addition to the six Central American countries,
including Panama, the votes against included Bolivia, Colombia, the
Dominican Republic, Paraguay, and Uruguay from Latin America.
The sole extra-regional vote against came from Morocco.79 The other
Latin American countries (except Cuba) abstained, as did the United
States. Israel, Japan, and the Philippines were the extra-regional
members abstaining.80
On December 8, 1975 the Report of the Fourth Committee was con-
sidered by the General Assembly. The foreign minister of Guatemala
made a lengthy presentation, in the course of which he made bitter
allusions to the delegations that had supported the Caribbean resolu-
tion in the Fourth Committee.81 He insisted that the United Nations
General Assembly (UNGA) had no competence to pass a resolution
that arrogated to it the attributes of a jurisdictional body, and that a
motion of no-competence should be submitted to a vote before vot-
ing on the resolution.82 The matter of the General Assembly’s com-
petence was put to the vote, and the six Central American countries
along with Paraguay and Uruguay supported Guatemala’s conten-
tion. Spain, Israel, and nine Latin American countries abstained. The
other 114 countries present rejected the motion.83
The Assembly then proceeded to vote on the Caribbean resolu-
tion. Morocco, Paraguay, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, and
the Central American countries voted against (but Guatemala did
not participate in the vote). Sixteen countries abstained: Israel, Japan,
Malawi, Mauritania, Philippines, Spain, the United States, Mexico,
Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
and Ecuador. The resolution was adopted by 110 votes to 9, with
16 abstentions.84
Bypassing the Resolution

After the vote in the Fourth Committee on November 21, and
with victory for Belize assured in the General Assembly, the
British attempted to stabilize the situation with the major players,
chiefly through visits by Rowlands in late November to Guatemala,
Belize, and Mexico. In Belize, options for negotiations expected to
start early in 1976 were discussed. In Guatemala, Rowlands told
President Laugerud that he did not regard the UN resolution as “all-
embracing,” and that he was prepared to deal with matters of vital
concern to Guatemala in the fields of security and foreign affairs;

“the Guatemalans were clearly relieved at this interpretation of the
resolution.”85 Laugerud insisted that a territorial arrangement—at
one point he referred to “a small slice”—would be necessary, and
although Rowlands stressed the difficulties of that for Belize, he
said that the territorial question could be looked at later. Rowlands
came away “with the impression that the Guatemalans are anxious to
achieve a settlement. But their overriding concern is how to sell it at
home and they clearly look to us to help them over this.”86 Rowlands
then moved on to Mexico, where Rabasa said that if Belize wanted
independence soon, she might well have to face a cession of territory,
although he would not formally advise Belize along those lines. In his
view, a small territorial concession would not oblige Mexico to revive
her claim. Echeverría advised he would favor a British reduction of
forces to strengthen the hand of the Guatemalan moderates (in which
he included Molina and Laugerud), and Rabasa said that Price would
now be welcome to visit Mexico.87
Rowlands summed up the main results of his visits: Guatemala had
agreed to resume negotiations in February and urged that Britain
reduce its reinforcements; and “the Mexicans are back on course.”
He stated that Britain would soon have to decide whether to press
the Belizeans to make a small territorial concession, and recom-
mended that Britain withdraw one company of troops from Belize.88
Callaghan, no doubt having a better political handle on the situation,
told Rowlands that “you should not press the Belize Government on
concessions,” and that “I am not in favour of withdrawing troops
yet—or aircraft.”89
* * *
In the first year of its campaign at the UN, the Belize mission relied
very heavily on the argument that the Belizean people had been forced
to wait too long for a right that had been won many years before in
international law. Ironically, the delay also played in favor of Belize,
since with every passing year as more countries became independent
and members of the UN, there was a greater number of states sup-
porting the Belize case and greater sympathy in the face of the intol-
erable delay that the Belizean people continued to be subjected to
before exercising their inalienable right to independence. The Belize
case was also helped by the perceived threat of a Guatemalan invasion
and the British decision to reinforce the garrison, propelling Belize
into the international spotlight just at the time when the moment
of decision was approaching at the UN. And the success Belize had
achieved with garnering the support of international organizations,
and particularly the NAM, assured it a significant victory at the UN.
Its one weakness, which was significant, was its failure to win sup-
port for its position among the Latin American countries, although
this was tempered by the fact that the majority of them did not vote
against the Caribbean resolution, but rather abstained.
Guatemala, meanwhile, refused to recognize the validity of the
UN resolution and publicly declared its determination to stop a “uni-
lateral” independence of Belize by force if necessary. Britain persisted
in its refusal of a defense guarantee, insisting that a negotiated settle-
ment was necessary and that this could be achieved only with some
territorial adjustment, despite their support for the resolution that
clearly forbade it. Indeed, Rowlands had perverted the meaning of
the resolution, indicating to Laugerud that it did not necessarily mean
what it said. This British attitude bedeviled relations with Belize for
the next six years. The Belize government concentrated its efforts on
getting Latin American countries to support its bid for independence
with all its territory and on pressing Britain to change its policy with
regard to a military guarantee, while seeking other means of achiev-
ing the security of an independent Belize. But it was forced to spend
much time and effort on negotiations with Guatemala.
Chapter 6
Internationalization Ascendant
(1976–1977)
Talks had been scheduled to take place in February, but the earthquake
that devastated Guatemala on February 5, 1976 forced their postpone-
ment until the end of April. The British used the time to reflect on
their policy options and to devise proposals that would be sufficiently
attractive to the Guatemalans and still be acceptable to the Belizeans,
while the latter concentrated their efforts on gaining Latin American
support and firming up some sort of defense guarantee. There were
serious misunderstandings between London and Belmopan, as British
negotiators drifted further and further from the mandates of the United
Nations (UN) resolutions and the Belizeans opened up more fronts in
the international arena to bolster their position.
Negotiating Options
In February the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) Patrick
Duff prepared a discussion paper on British policy, taking account of
Callaghan’s desire for a settlement by the end of 1976.1 He wondered
whether
[t]he Guatemalan government would find it easier in the new circum-

stances to accept the independence of Belize if it were to be decided
by us unilaterally rather than for them to have to justify their accep-
tance of Belizean independence by means of a Treaty which, however
worded, would acknowledge their “surrender.”2
Duff considered several options, but favored moving ahead

with independence in March 1977, and asking the Ministry of
Defense (MOD) to start considering the “granting of a short term

(18 months—two years) defence guarantee to Belize as an alterna-
tive to maintaining a garrison in Belize indefinitely.”3 The FCO
called a meeting with MOD and Treasury representatives to discuss
the possible options.4 The MOD complained that the FCO had not
considered the possibility of “forcing Belize to give up a slice of ter-
ritory in order to get a settlement.”5 The Treasury representative said
that the defense budget was under strain and that it was necessary to
pull back from all non–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
obligations; he asked about “the option of abandoning Belize.” The
MOD added that “we have considered abandoning other territo-
ries,” and that “if principles were too expensive they were sometimes
abandoned.”6 FCO Undersecretary Stanley argued that the status
quo was more expensive, what with escalating costs and having to
reinforce the garrison on occasion, as had happened twice within the
previous five years. Some flexibility was required to carry forward the
negotiations, which necessitated the offer of a continued, if limited,
British presence after independence. The MOD noted that such an
offer would require clear ministerial consent, and suggested that the
negotiations could be taken further on the basis agreed until then.
Stanley yielded on the defense guarantee, but insisted that some
movement on the Belize Defense Force (BDF) was necessary, or else
the Belizeans would back off from the negotiations. It was agreed to
submit an urgent case to the Treasury for assistance with the costs of
creating a BDF.
In preparation for the talks, the British and the Belizeans had
been discussing drafts of the two-treaty package.7 Callaghan con-
ceded that “the prospects of the talks leading to a successful conclu-
sion are poor,” as the Guatemalans were demanding about a fifth
of Belizean land, which was unacceptable to the Belizeans and to
himself.8 He acknowledged that the draft treaty “pays lip service to
the defence of Belize,” but that the Belizeans knew it did not satisfy
their needs for security. He had given the MOD an undertaking that
the draft treaty would not commit the United Kingdom (UK) to the
military defense of Belize after independence, but warned that there
may be “a need to consider some sort of interim short-term defence
arrangement . . . immediately following independence.” 9
Rowlands informed the United States that in order to improve
the atmosphere for the coming negotiations Britain had agreed to
withdraw one infantry company from Belize, although this deci-
sion “was not in fact justifiable on military grounds.” Britain
would be putting forward proposals, many of which were “very
I N T E R N AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N A S C E N D A N T 123
close to Kissinger’s ideas while some go further in trying to meet

Guatemala’s fears for security.” The British offer would not include
land, and the hope was that Molina would not raise that issue
“at this early stage of the negotiations.”10 When Kissinger visited
Guatemala after the earthquake, however, Molina told him that
“some cession of territory would be an indispensable part of a
settlement.”11 Kissinger’s position was that the U.S. government
regarded both Guatemala and the UK as friends and did not want
to have to choose between them, but if negotiations reached the
point where the United States could “tip the balance,” he would
be prepared to step in, provided that would not cause problems for
U.S./Latin American relations.12
The talks were held in New Orleans in April 1976; Rowlands
felt that the fact that both the Belize and Guatemala delegations
included Opposition members inhibited frank discussions, and he
decided to have private meetings alone with Molina. He proposed
that Belize would sign a treaty with Guatemala and the UK limit-
ing its right to enter into military accords, establish a Joint Defense
Council and agree to consult on matters of foreign policy. There
would also be provisions for economic cooperation, “with agreement
on territorial waters, access to ports, free transit of goods, etc., and
a Joint Development Fund to which the UK would pay a substantial
sum.”13 Molina did not present any proposals himself, but he made it
clear that the British offer was insufficient, principally because there
was no territorial element. Rowlands reported to Callaghan that “we
should not necessarily slam the door on territorial adjustments,” and
added:
But in the last resort we shall have to be in a position to appeal to

the UN and to “threaten” to bring Belize to independence without a
settlement. This might involve us in some sort of military confronta-
tion and raises the question of a defence guarantee for a period of time
after independence. This, I fear, may be our only real hope—either of
compelling Guatemala to negotiate reasonably or of achieving inde-
pendence for Belize. I hope my pessimism is unfounded.14
It was not, but London was so entrenched in its refusal to provide

a defense guarantee after independence, and so persistently hope-
ful, against all evidence, that it was possible to reach a negotiated
settlement with Guatemala, that it took another five years and a
change of government in the UK before the British faced up to the
realities.
Getting Torrijos
Although the Belizean ministers in the External Affairs Committee
(EAC) were fully immersed in the negotiations, what was foremost
in their minds was how to expand their support base, particularly
in Latin America, which was essential for the strategy of interna-
tionalization to succeed. In Central America, guerrilla movements
were struggling against massive odds that included U.S. support
for the repressive regimes, and there seemed to be no prospect of
immediate victory. In Latin America, authoritarian regimes and mil-
itary dictatorships predominated. The only major Latin American
cause that appeared to have a resonance on the Belizean struggle
for sovereignty and territorial integrity was that of the efforts of the
Panamanian people, led by General Omar Torrijos, to regain the
Panama Canal territories from the United States. Price had been to
Panama several times attempting to meet Torrijos, but had never
succeeded in doing so.
Then in May 1976 a small Nicaraguan delegation came to Belize
clandestinely, headed by Catholic poet-priest Ernesto Cardenal,
seeking support and arms for the revolution. Although all that
Price could offer was quiet solidarity, he and Cardenal struck
up a friendship, and Cardenal came away with a commitment to
Belize’s struggle for independence. He thought highly of Price:
“apart from being a great leader and statesman he is also a saint,
which is something very unusual in a statesman.”15 Cardenal felt
that international solidarity for Belize would make a Guatemalan
attack impossible, and in his future solidarity work for Nicaragua
in Europe, he would always mention the Belize cause, convinced
that a democratic independent state in Central America would aid
the cause of democracy in Nicaragua and elsewhere in the isth-
mus.16 Cardenal was close to Torrijos, and after he spoke to him
about Belize, Price could see Torrijos whenever he wanted to; they
became fast friends.17 Torrijos, whose government had the year
before supported a declaration affirming Guatemala’s rights to
Belize, became a total convert to the Belize cause, and with the
convert’s zeal he did everything he could to further that cause,
including putting his resources at the disposal of Belize for lob-
bying Latin American governments and offering to send troops to
defend Belize. He had a team of collaborators that he put to work
on the Belize case, urging them on with statements like “Price is
the José Martí of Belize.”18 Torrijos’ support turned out to be a
critical factor in Belize’s internationalization strategy.
The New York Meetings: Going Off Course

In the meantime, the Belizeans had to continue negotiating. A
meeting of officials was held in New York in June: Aycinena led the
Guatemalan team, while Richard headed the British delegation and
Rafael Fonseca represented Belize. The Guatemalans presented a new
draft that they said merely “filled in the gaps” of the British draft
from the New Orleans talks; but that actually included significant new
elements.19 It was a single bilateral treaty, the territory of Belize was
not specified, the economic clauses proposed a much closer relation-
ship, and Guatemala would have “the automatic right to send troops
into Belize whether invited to or not and some power to intervene
in Belize’s internal affairs.”20 Nonetheless, the British went through
the draft with the Guatemalans and pointed out their concerns, and
the following day presented what they called a “marriage” of the two
drafts. The British side accepted the Guatemalan proposal for a bilat-
eral treaty and agreed that the entire treaty would be incorporated
in Belize’s independence constitution, thereby ensuring its compli-
ance.21 The following day the Guatemalans came back with revised
proposals; they dropped their demand for the right to send troops
into Belize and interfere in its internal affairs. But they made sev-
eral changes to the British draft designed to give them greater influ-
ence in Belize, and proposed that in the case of deadlock in the Joint
Defense Council (JDC) the matter must be submitted to the Central
American Defense Council. Richard reported that his preliminary
impression was that “we have at last begun a genuine negotiation
which might conceivably lead to an acceptable settlement.”22 This,
despite the fact that he had reported the day before that he had “no
doubt that the Guatemalans continue to have in mind a substantial
cession of territory.”23
Richard had significantly exceeded what the Belizean govern-
ment had agreed as the remit for negotiations. Price had learned that
the Guatemalans were delighted to have achieved a bilateral form of
treaty; that they believed the British would help them get at least two
of the Sapodilla Cays and some land in the south; and that Kissinger
was pressing Callaghan to bring about an early settlement.24 In July
he visited London and told Rowlands that he believed the British
had gone off course since January, when it had been agreed that “we
would proceed in accordance with the UN resolution.”25 He had
understood this to mean that concurrently with the negotiations,
arrangements would be made to provide for the security of an inde-
pendent Belize. Belize had gone along with the British and agreed to
several articles in the two-treaty package, and had allocated money

for the BDF. On the British side, there was no news about support
for the BDF; Britain had proposed a bilateral treaty and promised to
include its provisions in the Belize constitution (which he declared to
be “out of the question”); 26 the position on territorial integrity had
been eroded; the JDC had become an executive body; the foreign
policy provisions were unsatisfactory. Furthermore, Richard had indi-
cated that Belize would have to make further concessions on defense
arrangements with other parties. Despite this impressive list of diver-
gences, Rowlands replied that he did not share Price’s view that the
UK had gone off course; he felt that although some changes had been
made to the treaty provisions, he did not believe these conflicted
with the guidelines laid down in January or with the terms of the
UN resolution.27 But Price insisted that “certain basic and inviolable
principles had been set aside” and that the failure to provide security
arrangements could also be described as going off course.
Rowlands backed off and announced that the British would meet
Belize’s wishes and return to the trilateral treaty formula. But he
explained that they had moved away from the multilateral security
concept because the UK had sounded out certain friendly countries
and it appeared that no major powers would agree to become parties.
Price reiterated the demand for a defense guarantee and Rowlands
again declared that this was impossible. At a later meeting with offi-
cials, Price and his team 28 went through the British draft treaty and
reached agreement after the British accepted several amendments that
more clearly referred to the preservation of the territorial integrity
of Belize, stripped the JDC of any executive function, and made it
clear that Belize was to be in total control of its foreign policy.29
Commenting on an article excluding Cuban troops from an indepen-
dent Belize, Price said that Belize could not exclude the possibility
of Belize seeking Cuban help in extremis. The British assured him
that the article would not prevent this, since if Guatemala invaded
Belize the treaty would no longer be binding and Belize would be
free to take whatever measures it wished. The Belizeans agreed to the
amended draft treaty, but warned that none of the articles should be
changed by the British without consulting Belize.30
Price set out three basic requirements for independence: no land
cession; no diminution of sovereignty; and real security arrange-
ments to guarantee its future existence, not just a treaty document. 31
Rowlands regretted that previous British governments “had lacked
the vision to settle the problem at a time when it would have been less
difficult,” and admitted that Belize’s action in internationalizing the
problem had “galvanised the UK government to deal more seriously

and urgently with it.”32 He too was committed to the independence
of Belize, but still believed that the only way of achieving this was by
negotiation, and it was necessary to make some concessions to arrive
at a settlement. At the same time, he insisted that Belizean sover-
eignty would not be eroded by the treaty, and declared that he had
never said anything to undermine the territorial integrity of Belize;
he had told Molina that he could make no proposals on territory.33
Price said that Belize was willing to accept the British draft treaty
only on the understanding that some separate arrangements would be
made for Belize’s security and that no land would be ceded. He was,
however, prepared to cede seaward areas and part of Belize’s exclusive
economic zone.34
The British side was shaken up by what they regarded as Price’s
irrational outbursts, and admitted feeling “a little bruised at the
end of the visit.”35 They also thought, however, that Rowlands “had
restored Mr Price’s faith in Her Majesty’s Government’s (HMG)
determination to seek Belize’s independence,” despite his insistence
that a defense guarantee was quite out of the question.36 This was
certainly a naive assumption; Price knew of the British willingness
to settle the dispute by entertaining land cession and of their resolve
not to provide a defense guarantee—and his purpose was to defy
them. But he absolutely needed to keep the British on board, and
so he alternated his “outbursts” with polite assurances: for example,
when Rowlands said that “he would strongly object if the Belize gov-
ernment criticised the UK’s actions” at the upcoming Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) Summit in Colombo, Price assured him that he
had no intention of doing so.37
In July 1976 British ministers approved “the agreed settlement
plus assistance to the BDF and a defence guarantee for up to one
year after independence.”38 But it was very unlikely that Guatemala
would accept the British draft treaty without land cession, and the
defense guarantee was tied to such agreement. Duff suggested that
the Cabinet decision be withheld from Price, since they would want to
deploy it in dealing with Price at a later stage of the negotiations.39
Another meeting of officials was held in August in New York;
both sides tabled new versions of the draft treaty. The Guatemalan
draft “backtracked in various ways on what they had agreed at the
last session.”40 A working group produced an amalgamated draft,
and although no agreement was possible on the defense provisions,
Richard repeated “the same modest confidence I felt after the June
meeting.”41 British officials spent much time in the ensuing weeks
working on the draft treaty,42 apparently assuming that there was

now a good chance of reaching a settlement with Guatemala. But the
land factor was still lurking, although it had not been mentioned in
the meeting of officials.
The Panama Talks: A Charade, But Serious

Price addressed the NAM Summit in Sri Lanka, at which Belize was
given special status, and the following resolution ensued:
The Conference welcomed the participation of Belize whose aspira-

tions for independence continue to be frustrated by territorial claims.
It expressed its unconditional support for the inalienable right of the
people of Belize to self-determination, independence and territo-
rial integrity. In urging the strict implementation of United Nations
General Assembly Resolution 3432 (XXX), the Conference called
upon the parties concerned to pursue the negotiations in conformity
with the principles laid down therein.43
Torrijos was also at Colombo garnering support for the Panama

Canal to be returned to his country, and he discussed with Price how
they could help each other. By a happy coincidence, the next ministe-
rial negotiating session was held in Panama, where Torrijos took the
opportunity to present an interesting proposal to Rowlands.44
In preparing for the Panama meeting, Secretary of State Anthony
Crosland noted that “it is becoming increasingly clear that we shall
be unable to offer territory as part of the price of a settlement,” but
“since the Americans seem likely to continue to urge cession of terri-
tory,” perhaps they could be assuaged by offering to hold a plebiscite
in the area demanded by Guatemala.45 British officials pointed out,
however, that such a concept would be unacceptable to Belize and
to many members of the UN.46 Rowlands admitted “that we should
have to accept the unlikelihood of Belize agreement to cession of ter-
ritory and work for a settlement on a different basis.”47 Price, mean-
while, in his National Day address on September 10, again publicly
declared that Belize would not give up any territory or compromise
on its sovereignty, and that the negotiations could not be drawn out
indefinitely.48
The ministerial meeting in Panama was a rather surreal affair: the
large delegations49 exchanged speeches and worked in great detail on
articles of the draft treaty, reaching agreement on many of them, but
all this was rendered nugatory by the fact that, at a private meeting
before the talks, Molina told Rowlands that Guatemala was demand-
ing an even larger territorial cession than before: the border must be
just below Dangriga. They agreed not to discuss territory in the ple-
nary meetings, in order to avoid breakdown.50 Rowlands said nothing
to Price about the Guatemalan demand,51 but Price must have sus-
pected something, for he made a special declaration at the close of the
plenary affirming that Belize would not accept any proposal involving
the cession of land.52 The Guatemalans replied that Price’s statement
had “distorted the situation”; it was Guatemala that was giving up
territory, and Guatemala’s national honor, security and integrity were
involved.53
In another private meeting after the talks, Molina handed Rowlands
a map showing the Guatemalan claim to the rivers Riachuelo,
Chiquibul, and Sittee.54 Rowlands told him that his proposal was
quite impossible, and tabled the British proposal for a seabed conces-
sion, but “Molina was appalled at how little we were offering and said
he would have expected at least the Sapodilla Cays to be included.”55
A copy of the map was sent to Governor Peter McEntee, but with
instructions not to show Price.56 Rowlands described the Panama
talks to his secretary of state as
frankly another charade, though this time with serious implications.

I doubt if we shall be able to play the tactic again of treaty negotia-
tions in plenary with my talking privately to the Guatemalan Foreign
Minister, Dr Molina, about the issues of substance . . . We made modest
progress on the Treaty, but there was a totally unreal air to it.57
Indeed, Rowlands confessed that both he and Molina “tacitly

acknowledged that we were staring defeat in the face,” and specu-
lated on possible options. Indefinite postponement of independence
was costly and dangerous, as “Guatemalan military capacity is con-
tinuing to grow, while ours is decreasing as our commitments are
concentrated nearer home.” A financial settlement would have to be
large and it would be difficult to get approval for it, and anyhow the
Guatemalans would not consider that sufficient. A cession of south-
ern Belize in addition to seaward concessions was another possibility,
but it was doubtful that the UK could “produce enough land to sat-
isfy the Guatemalans,” and the Belizeans as well as the international
community would not accept it. Finally, there could be a “unilateral”
move to independence, with a postindependence defense guarantee
of up to three years. He did not rule out nor propose any option,
but expressed greatest caution with regard to the “unilateral” option,
and seemed to lean toward land cession. He considered that “there

is no way we can negotiate the Guatemalans ‘down’ to the Moho in
conventional talks,” but rather that the UK should put the proposal
to Guatemala at a high level on a “take-it-or-leave-it” basis. The UK
would then put the proposition to Price. Rowlands admitted that
“the chances of his agreeing are very slim and the arguments against
forcing him to agree are formidable,” but added that “if the territorial
slice were the only thing between us and a settlement, I would wish
to bring maximum pressure on Mr Price to accept.”58
Rowlands did not inform Price about the Guatemalan demand
until October 13, but asked him not to make it public.59 On the same
day, Rowlands wrote to Molina explaining that although their views
on the territorial question differed greatly, he believed that alternative
proposals could be examined. He suggested that the next ministe-
rial meeting be postponed until after the UN debate, and reminded
him of their agreement in Panama that neither side would say or do
anything that could heighten tension while negotiations were still in
train.60 Molina replied confirming this agreement.61
Rowlands was especially concerned to receive this commitment
because, for much of the second half of 1976, the FCO and the MOD
were engaged in a lively debate about the need to reinforce the Belize
garrison in light of intelligence reports that suggested Guatemala’s
readiness to attack Belize. But Rowlands asked that reinforcement
be deferred until after the next ministerial round of talks because
he did not want any action to inhibit the ongoing dialogue with
Guatemala.62 The MOD persisted, because a study had concluded
“that the force level in the colony can no longer meet our concept of
defence.”63 Defense Secretary Fred Mulley argued that
[i]t was the responsibility of FCO Ministers to make their political

judgment on the desirability of deploying more men to Belize; but
if we failed to take the necessary military measures and as a result
suffered a defeat he, as Defence Secretary, would be also answerable
to Parliament and the country. It would be a serious decision con-
sciously to put British troops at risk in the manner Mr Rowlands was
suggesting.64
Strong words indeed, but Rowlands remained untroubled and

proceeded to bargain down the stated requirements of the Chiefs of
Staff.65 Although Callaghan inclined to the view expressed by Mulley,
he was content to accept whatever compromise was agreed between
Mulley and Crosland.66 The compromise, in which the FCO’s views
dominated, allowed only a small reinforcement of 25 gunners; all

other moves would be held up until after the Rowlands/Molina
meeting.67
Belize’s Efforts on Defense and the Torrijos Initiative

Throughout 1976, the question of finding a defense alternative was
uppermost in Price’s mind. He had discussed with his Caribbean
Community (CARICOM) colleagues the possibility of their joining
a defense pact, but the British felt that an arrangement whereby after
independence “odd platoons” of troops from Jamaica, Barbados, and
Trinidad and Tobago would visit Belize “will achieve only a ridicu-
lously unimpressive defence arrangement in military terms and will
considerably irritate Latin American governments,” who were already
concerned about the existence of so many independent ministates in
the Caribbean, regarding them as “unviable and potential sources
of instability.”68 Rowlands himself was a little blunter in his reac-
tion, describing the idea as “a dangerous nonsense in terms of Belize/
Latin American relations.”69
Rowlands took a different view, however, of the “Torrijos
initiative.”70 Torrijos told Price in Panama in September 1976 that
he had devised a plan with Oduber of Costa Rica and Venezuela’s
Carlos Andrés Pérez, in which the three countries, possibly with
others, would make a public declaration for Belizean independence
and send a composite military force there. He offered to send 1000
Panamanian troops, with Venezuelan and possibly Jamaican partici-
pation in order to defend Belize against external attack and to train
her own troops.71 Price was prepared to consider the proposal, and
while Rowlands noted that there were some dangers involved, par-
ticularly that Guatemala should hear of the plan and stage a preemp-
tive strike, he felt that the proposal should not be rejected out of
hand, and that Britain should seek further clarification from Torrijos
as well as from Pérez. Torrijos had arranged for Price to meet Pérez in
Venezuela after the talks in Panama.72
The British ambassador in Caracas felt that the Venezuelan govern-
ment accepted the inevitability of Belizean independence and was con-
cerned that the failure to reach an early settlement could radicalize the
situation in Belize; they were genuinely worried about Cuban involve-
ment.73 When Price told Pérez of the Torrijos initiative, the president
suggested that these ideas be discussed within a general agreement.74
Price reported to Governor McEntee on his return from Venezuela
that Pérez had promised not to support Guatemala in her case over
Belize at international forums. Price explained the British seaward

offer in some detail, and President Pérez suggested joint development
of the seaward area rather than making a concession of it.75
Manley gave his full support to the Torrijos initiative and stood
ready to help in any way if the idea should develop.76 He suggested
that Price present the idea to Burnham (Guyana) and Eric Williams
(Trinidad and Tobago). Price sought British clearance for this,77 but
Crosland “preferred Price not to tout the Torrijos plan around any
further at this stage,” because of the risk of disclosure; he wished “to
stress to Price the dangers of committing himself to an ill-thought
out scheme which could collapse at any time.”78 The British them-
selves gave an account of the Torrijos initiative to Washington and
got conflicting reactions. One State Department official said that
“the Torrijos Plan was an interesting and unexpected development.
It was difficult to say how the Guatemalans would react if their
Latin American support was seriously eroded.”79 On the other hand,
another called the Torrijos plan “a pipedream” and warned against
expecting much from the Venezuelans, whose traditional policy and
bias toward Guatemala was hardly likely to have changed.80
Action at the UN in 1976

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) season started soon
after the talks in Panama. The British were anxious that Price not
reveal the extent of the new land demand by Guatemala and that the
Belize resolution not be too strong, lest it “alarm the Guatemalans
(not to mention the Americans), and make a pre-emptive invasion by
them more likely.”81 But the UK Mission at the UN noted that
if Price and Shoman represented to the Caribbeans and Africans that

there was a risk that Belize’s territorial integrity might be put in jeop-
ardy they could, I think, expect a large measure of third-world support
for a strong resolution.
The Mission also warned that “we must clearly do all we can to
avoid a situation in which future UN resolutions are directed as much
against ourselves as against Guatemala,” and concluded that “from
the evidence we have, [Price] is playing for a breakdown and for a
defence guarantee from HMG.”82 Despite British opposition, Belize
was able to strengthen the resolution; it repeated the fundamental
principles of the 1975 resolution and added three elements: early
independence; the call for states to refrain from any action that would
threaten the territorial integrity of Belize; and the request that Britain
and Guatemala report at the next session of the General Assembly
on such agreements as may have been reached in the negotiations.
The second and third elements were aimed at Britain as much as at
Guatemala: Britain should not compromise Belize’s territory, and
there should be transparency as well as speed in the negotiations.83
The debates in the Fourth Committee were less intense than the
year before, with little new ground covered. Rogers addressed the
Fourth Committee and charged that Guatemala was interfering in
the internal affairs of Belize and increasing its military capacity near
the border. He denounced Guatemala’s “preposterous proposal that
Belize should surrender a substantial part of its territory as the price for
independence.”84 Guatemala’s Skinner-Klee warned that the proposed
Caribbean resolution would harden the position of the parties, inflame
public opinion, and undo the real progress that had been made.85
Peru floated a proposed consensus draft resolution in the Fourth
Committee that reaffirmed the inalienable right of the people of
Belize to self-determination,86 but the Belizeans and their allies
rejected it as being far too weak and in effect retrograde.
The Caribbean draft resolution had 53 cosponsors, and the vote,
taken on November 17, 1976, was 111 in favor, 9 against, and 15
abstentions. The most important addition to the “yes” votes was that
of Panama, which had voted against in 1975. The Philippines, which
had abstained in the General Assembly vote in 1975, also voted in
favor.87 At the plenary meeting of the General Assembly, the resolu-
tion was adopted by 115 votes to 8, with 15 abstentions. The reduc-
tion in the “no” votes was due to Guatemala’s nonparticipation in the
vote at the General Assembly.88
As the year came to a close, the British struggled to determine
what to do with the land issue. Despite their cosponsoring two UN
resolutions that specifically excluded land cession, they continued to
promote it as a solution. When Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés
Pérez visited London in December, Prime Minister Callaghan and
Mr. Rowlands told him that they believed that a minor “frontier rec-
tification” might be acceptable as part of a settlement on Belize.89
FCO officials were concerned about the effect on Price if he should
hear of this from the Venezuelans, since he would probably “suspect
that we have reverted to the ideas . . . for cession of territory up to the
Moho River . . . [although] we have again co-sponsored a UN resolu-
tion which endorses Belize’s territorial integrity.” 90 They accordingly
instructed the governor to tell Price that it was the Venezuelans who
suggested that frontier rectification might be necessary in order to
obtain a settlement and that the British had replied that they would
be prepared to consider that.91
In November 1976 the FCO prepared a paper setting out future
possible actions on Belize that the MOD found “quite acceptable.”92 At
his meeting with Molina in January, Rowlands would seek to establish
the minimum Guatemalan requirements for a negotiated settlement:
in particular we would explore whether their ambitions would be sat-

isfied by the cession of some uninhabited islands (the Sapodilly [sic]
Cays), some land south of Punta Gorda and/or the offer of a substan-
tial sum of money—perhaps £25–£30 million over several years. Price
must then be told that if he rejects such a territorial cession there will
be two options possible: a) to postpone independence indefinitely or
b) to announce the intention to bring Belize to independence without
Guatemalan acquiescence.93
The paper suggested that option b) “could well be the only way to
put a term to our commitment to defend Belize and end the present
cycle of tension and reinforcement.” 94 The Cabinet Office, however,
felt that a more promising approach would be “to offer a more dura-
ble bribe” such as an oil pipeline, and came out against independence
without an agreement.95 The British government was profoundly con-
fused and divided about what Guatemala’s intentions were, whether
they seriously posed a military threat to Belize or not, what sort of
settlement might be achievable, or what should be Britain’s preferred
option for bringing Belize to early independence. This did not augur
well for the meeting between Rowlands and Molina.
Molina met Rowlands in New York on January 9, 1977 and told him
that cession up to the Monkey River was essential. Rowlands rejected
that idea and urged Molina, unsuccessfully, to settle for a smaller slice
of territory. Still, the British reported that the atmosphere at the meet-
ing was good and that negotiations would continue.96 The British were
convinced that once negotiations broke down and Guatemala assumed
that Belize would go to independence “unilaterally,” the likelihood of a
Guatemalan invasion of Belize would be bordering on certainty; hence
the need to pretend that negotiations were fruitful and to agree on
continuing them. The Belizeans, who had long ago concluded that no
agreement could ever be reached with Guatemala, kept busy expanding
the scope and size of their international support.
Price kept in close contact with regional leaders in the greater
Caribbean, especially Manley, Burnham, Williams, Tom Adams of
Barbados, Torrijos, Pérez, and the new Mexican president, José López
Portillo, who was publicly taking a stand in favor of Belize. Price and
other members of his team also kept up contacts with leaders in Africa
and Asia. The lobbying efforts were not limited to members of gov-
ernments in power; especially in Central America, lobbying included
political parties in and out of power, civil society, the press, trade
unions, students, and etcetera. Often these efforts had a ripple effect,
with one set of contacts leading to others.
In May 1977 the government of Guatemala formally broke dip-
lomatic ties with Panama, a belated response to Panama’s vote in
the UN and its very active support for the Belize cause thereafter.
President Laugerud made very bitter and personal attacks against
Torrijos, and accused him of being the bridge for Fidel Castro to have
a foothold in Belize.97
The General Assembly of the Organization of American States
(OAS) was held in Grenada in June 1977; Belizean representatives
were present at the invitation of the government of Grenada. All the
CARICOM delegates referred to the Belize question during their
addresses, and Panama, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, and Trinidad and
Tobago issued a Joint Communiqué in support of Belize’s indepen-
dence and territorial integrity, expressing their “grave concern at the
threat of aggression against Belize.”98 No country spoke out in favor
of Guatemala’s claim. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance said that “the
question of Belize is of great importance and we observe it with great
care. We have discussed it with our friends and colleagues during this
Assembly.”99 There were indeed many private discussions in the corri-
dors that advanced the cause of Belize. For example, Costa Rica’s Facio
expressed the view that the issue could not be settled by negotiation,
and that Guatemala should be faced with a fait accompli: Belize should
proceed to independence and British forces should remain for a period
of about six months. He believed that “the Guatemalans, though they
will demonstrate outrage, will in the end accept such a situation in light
of the overwhelming international support for Belize.”100
One of the most important events for the Belize cause was the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held
in London in June 1977. Belize had lobbied heavily with African
and Asian members of the Commonwealth, as well as with Canada,
with whose Premier Trudeau Price had a special relationship. The
Belizeans felt that Britain was not telling Belize everything it was
doing to reach a settlement with Guatemala, and that more effective
pressure could be brought to bear by the Commonwealth. Adams of
Barbados expressed concern that Britain seemed to be considering
land cession, asked that Britain not make any concession on behalf of
Belize without its consent, and urged Britain to press the UN for a
guarantee of Belize’s territorial integrity.101 Prime Minister Callaghan

gave the assurance that there would be no settlement with Guatemala
without the full consent of the government and people of Belize.
To have wrested this promise from Callaghan in that forum was a
major victory for Belize; British officials would constantly refer to it
in future as a limiting factor.
Manley asked the British government whether it would be pre-
pared, in the event of negotiations failing, to allow independence for
Belize and leave a military presence for a certain period. Callaghan
said he had serious reservations about that, but reminded the Heads
that in Kingston they had discussed the idea of a Commonwealth
force; perhaps this could be broadened to include Latin America.
Most importantly, the meeting agreed to set up a Commonwealth
Ministerial Committee on Belize (CMCB), comprised of Barbados,
Canada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Tanzania;
the mandate of the committee was
to assist the parties concerned in finding early and effective arrange-

ments for the independence of Belize on the basis of the views
expressed at Meetings of the Commonwealth Heads of Government
and in accordance with the Charter and relevant resolutions of the
United Nations; to make recommendations; and to render all practi-
cable assistance in achieving these objectives.102
Guatemalan Bellicosity and the British Response

Even as the Commonwealth meeting was being held, there were
reports of Guatemalan preparations to attack Belize. On June 12,
1977, the Guatemalan government issued a communiqué declaring
that if Belize were to unilaterally proceed to independence, Guatemala
would use its military to protect its rights over the territory. It charged
that Price had subordinated himself to the expansionist interests of
Cuba, whose intention was to establish a beachhead to intensify its
communist subversion in Central America, and that he had also facili-
tated the opportunistic intervention of Omar Torrijos. The commu-
niqué claimed that Britain, in complicity with Price and through him
with Cuba and Panama, was plotting actions of subversion, terrorism,
and agitation in Guatemala City with a view to creating a public order
crisis and obliging the government to displace troops and thereby
weaken the offensive capacity of the army in areas bordering Belize.
It went on to declare that all those who participated in treasonous
activities against Guatemala would be proceeded against with all
the vigor of the law, which declared such crimes to be punishable by

death.103
The government of Guatemala had purchased arms from Portugal,
Spain, West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, and Israel. On June 30,
President Laugerud declared that “the armed forces are ready to pre-
vent Great Britain from despoiling our country of the territory of
Belize,”104 and on July 2, in his annual report to Congress, he asked
the population to be prepared to face sacrifices and hardships if the
army had to act to recover Belize.105 Such declarations and the mood
of war being developed in Guatemala were the subject of press cov-
erage throughout the world. In late June the Barbados government
seized an aircraft loaded with Israeli arms and ammunition that had
stopped in Barbados on the way to Guatemala from Lisbon.106 The
Guatemalan government protested that this was a clear violation of
international law and that Guatemala would take steps to have its
rights respected.107 The British, meanwhile, told the United States
that Israel now appeared to be Guatemala’s main arms supplier, and
asked the State Department to approach the Israelis and ask them to
stop supplying arms to Guatemala.108
On June 24, 1977, the British military warned of “the risk of a
severe military reverse at Guatemalan hands if the talks break down
by 7 or 8 July,”109 and the Chief of the Defense Staff noted that
U.S. pressure on the UK not to reinforce before the talks had served
to consolidate force ratios in favor of Guatemala.110 Mulley wrote
to Foreign Secretary David Owen relaying these fears and request-
ing support for reinforcements, adding that “the situation is vola-
tile . . . if the Guatemalans do attack, the colony will have become
indefensible.”111 Owen refused, arguing that reinforcement would
convince the Guatemalans that Britain intended to move Belize to
independence, and this would increase the likelihood of a preemp-
tive strike.112 The debate between the FCO and the MOD raged on,
while the evidence of Guatemalan intentions to attack mounted.113
It was not until July 4 that—despite a message from the U.S.
government that they had conducted an all-sources intelligence
check that revealed no indication of imminent military action by
Guatemala114 —the Cabinet, at the personal insistence of Prime
Minister Callaghan,115 decided to immediately reinforce the garrison
at Belize with Harriers, tactical headquarters, an additional company,
and HMS Achilles.116 Callaghan “went to elaborate lengths not to con-
fide in the U.S. until the stuff was well on the way.”117 Informed the
following day, the U.S. government “repeatedly stressed that the U.S.
did not think reinforcement was necessary,” and expressed concern
about Guatemalan reaction to the reinforcement.118 Callaghan wrote

Laugerud, assuring him that “it remains our aim to reach an agreed
solution about the future of Belize that will be mutually acceptable
and by peaceful means.” He explained, however, that recent pub-
lic statements in Guatemala, including the communiqué that had
accused Britain of complicity in planning subversion in Guatemala,
coupled with a number of military moves, left him with no option but
to reinforce the garrison.119
Meanwhile, the talks had begun in Washington on July 6. A few
days prior to the talks, and before the decision to reinforce had been
made, Vance had written to Owen stating his “belief that a negotiated
settlement must inevitably involve some territorial offer to which the
Guatemalans could respond positively,” and asked that Rowlands talk
to Philip Habib, U.S. undersecretary of state for Political Affairs, both
before and after the talks “because of the sensitivity of this issue and
its disruptive potential in the region.”120 Although only the British
knew about the ongoing reinforcement, the atmosphere was extremely
tense because of Guatemala’s saber-rattling. The British repeated their
previous proposals, but excluding land cession,121 and Rowlands took
pains to assure Molina that there could be no question of a sudden or
secret move to make Belize independent. Molina promised to study
the British proposals, but insisted that any agreement must include
territorial cession; he again proposed cession of territory up to the
Monkey River. Price declared that a settlement could not involve terri-
torial cession. On the second day, Rowlands was summoned by Vance,
who complained that he had checked as requested and assured the
UK that there was no danger, yet “you went behind our backs and
reinforced, and now the Guatemalans will be inflamed and the nego-
tiations will break off.”122 Rowlands assured him that his remit was to
keep negotiations going. Back at the talks, he informed Molina about
the ongoing reinforcements, and took advantage of Molina’s fear that
the UK meant to make a preemptive strike against Guatemala to assure
him otherwise and to propose that both of them seek the approval
of their governments to issue a communiqué announcing continued
negotiations.123 This was agreed, and the talks ended.
Remarkably, the British believed that “the Washington negotia-
tions had achieved far better results than had been expected and left
the door open for further discussions,”124 and the United States was
said to be “very pleased with the outcome of the talks.”125 This could
only be explained by assuming that both the British and the United
States had feared a total breakdown followed by war, and that any
real progress was not within their expectations.126 Rowlands later
visited Guatemala and agreed with President Laugerud to continue

the negotiations, seek to reduce tensions, and make special efforts
to ensure that border incidents did not occur, although Laugerud
insisted that cession up to the Monkey River was essential.127
Belize Consolidates Support

Belize, meanwhile, continued its efforts to increase support for its
cause among the Latin American countries, and on August 6, 1977,
at the conclusion of a Summit Meeting of Colombia, Costa Rica,
Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, and Jamaica the following communiqué,
known as the Bogotá Declaration, was issued:
After listening to the statement of the Prime Minister of Jamaica on

the question of Belize they agreed that a solution should be found by
the peaceful methods consecrated in the Charter of the OAS and the
UN and in accordance with respect for its territorial integrity and with
the principle of the free self-determination of peoples.128
What is remarkable about this declaration, given the countries that

signed it, is that, in addition to specifically supporting the territorial
integrity of Belize, it nowhere refers to the need for negotiations to
continue.
Price visited Mexico a few days after the Bogotá Declaration, where
he asked Foreign Minister Santiago Roel to help further by partici-
pating in a proposed multinational defense guarantee. Roel empha-
sized that Mexico fully supported Belize’s aspirations, but that “to
join in a defence guarantee would bring about a war with Guatemala,
which Mexico did not want.”129 The Mexicans had done some serious
thinking about the problem, and were making every effort to devise
a solution that would meet with the approval of all parties. Roel, in a
paper entitled “Bases to Resolve the Question of Belize,” presented an
interesting attempt at decolonization by multilateral determination:
a solution would consist of Belize attaining independence not through

the normal procedure by which Britain would bring a territory to inde-
pendence (a constitutional conference followed by Parliamentary Act)
but by means of a Treaty signed by the United Kingdom, Guatemala,
Mexico and Belize.130
The paper set out “the essential clauses” of the treaty, including rec-
ognition of the independence of Belize within the boundaries defined
in the Anglo-Guatemalan and Anglo-Mexican treaties, the neutrality
of Belize, a guarantee of the territorial integrity of Belize, “special

agreements between Belize and Guatemala,” free access for Mexico
to the Bay of Chetumal, and “specific obligations of the United
Kingdom.”131 Nothing ever came of this interesting initiative, wherein
Mexico would have taken the unprecedented step of guaranteeing the
territorial integrity of another country, no doubt because Guatemala
refused to even consider it. It is interesting to note, however, Mexico’s
continued preoccupation with access to the Chetumal Bay.
But Guatemala had more than Mexico to worry about. During a visit
to Costa Rica in August, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN,
Ambassador Andrew Young, was quoted as saying that “the government
of the United States supports the desire for independence of the peo-
ple of Belize.” Although the U.S. government later issued a clarification
in the sense that it supported the independence of Belize only if that
resulted from a negotiated solution between Britain and Guatemala, the
impact of Young’s statement was not lost on Guatemala.132 Meanwhile,
public declarations of support for Guatemala’s cause by her Central
American sister republics were becoming increasingly tepid: a Central
American Foreign Ministers meeting in Guatemala in August 1977
merely noted the decision of the Guatemalan government to find a
solution to the controversy “in accordance with the methods estab-
lished by international law that harmonize the rights of Guatemala
with the interests of the people of Belize.”133
Immediately after the Washington talks, the British and the
Belizeans began to strategize for the UNGA sessions in the fall.
The British proposed that there be no debate, or a debate without
a resolution, or a short resolution simply reaffirming those of 1975
and 1976, but recognized that the Belizeans were working in the
opposite direction. Price had asked the United States to support a
resolution endorsing Belize’s right to independence with its territory
intact, and “Shoman’s mind seems to be moving in the direction of
a resolution which calls for Belize’s early independence and which
omits, or plays down, any reference to further negotiations.”134 The
British officials at the UN Mission also made the revealing point that
it was unrealistic to hope for no debate or resolution, “the more so
if Price be informed or gets wind of the ideas which are now in our
minds.”135 Most probably, those ideas included getting Guatemalan
acceptance for cession up to the Moho and then pressuring Belize
to accept this or go to arbitration. Vance had told Owen that he had
broached the idea of arbitration to Molina, who had reacted positively
to it,136 and Owen later revealed to Prime Minister Callaghan that at
the July talks Rowlands had “again floated privately with Dr Molina
the idea of settlement based on cession up to the Moho River.”137

Owen informed Callaghan that he would be attending the meeting
of the CMCB in September, and that he expected “to come under
considerable pressure from the committee to find some alternative
means of achieving independence.”138
Commonwealth Pressures Britain

Belize was very fortunate in that in the very year that it launched
its internationalization strategy, Shridath Ramphal became the sec-
ond secretary general of the Commonwealth, a post he was to hold
for 15 years; as Guyana’s foreign minister from 1973 to 1975, he
had been the first to bring the Belize issue before the UNSC, and
his familiarity with the Venezuelan claim to Guyana made him very
understanding of, and sympathetic to, Belize’s cause. His great diplo-
matic skill and his strong influence with the African and Asian coun-
tries were absolutely crucial in getting the Commonwealth to assist
Belize in very practical ways, not least in its relations with the UK and
later in negotiations with Guatemala.
Indeed, an important part of Belize’s strategy was to use the
CMCB to pressure Britain to agree to provide a defense guarantee.
The committee met on September 28, at the UN, and Owen was
immediately put on the defensive: he declared that the British govern-
ment would not act behind the back of Premier Price, even though
the U.S. government had constantly put pressure on Britain to dis-
cuss territorial adjustment.139 He urged Belize and the committee to
look open-mindedly at the issue, and noted that if Britain was not
willing to look at this possibility U.S. support could not be attracted.
Owen insisted that Britain had never told Guatemala that the inde-
pendence of Belize was subject to agreement with them, and declared
that if it were possible to provide a security guarantee to which other
members of the Commonwealth or the UN could contribute, Britain
would play its part; but it would not do this alone. Mr. Price then
noted that the Guatemalan government claimed, after Rowlands’ visit
in July, that it had received a commitment that Belize would not go to
independence without the consent of the government of Guatemala.
Despite Owen’s denials,
there was growing evidence that the Guatemalan Government was

somehow led to believe, or pretended to believe, that Belize could
get its independence only through a bilateral settlement between the
United Kingdom and Guatemala.140
Owen claimed that “even Premier Price had accepted that they
might have to discuss [land cession], although he had raised all the
objections that were bound to be raised on any cession of territory.”
That was too much for Price, who, overcoming his natural civility
and his hesitation to openly defy Britain in public, took the floor
to state that although he did not have the power to prevent Britain
and Guatemala from discussing territorial cession, Belize had made
its stand very clear: discussions of Belize’s territorial integrity must be
in accordance with UN resolutions. Owen sought to paper over the
difference by saying that “obviously, at this juncture, Belize should
hold on to their position. It was right tactically as well as in every
other way.” He also said that Britain would do nothing that Belize or
the committee were not aware of.141
Price asked the committee to consider setting up a multinational
peace-keeping force for Belize made up of forces from Commonwealth
countries as well as some Latin American countries. He got support
for this from Caribbean and African members, but the Asians sided
with Canadian Foreign Minister Jamieson, who advised caution.
Tanzania said it would not support any settlement that proceeded on
the basis of cession of territory, no matter how small; India, Jamaica,
and Malaysia concurred. The committee agreed to make a concerted
diplomatic approach to the U.S. government; to work diligently in
Latin America to further isolate Guatemala; and to explore, within
the framework of the UN, the possibility of an international arrange-
ment for guaranteeing the independence and territorial integrity of
Belize.142
U.S. Pressures Belize

U.S. Undersecretary Philip Habib had asked Owen to consider giving
a bit more than the Moho to Guatemala, since this had been suggested
at a meeting of President Carter with Laugerud. Rowlands was wor-
ried that the nature of the Carter/Laugerud talks would set back the
progress he thought the UK had made in pushing the Guatemalans
to a settlement on British terms.143 He lamented the fact that Britain
had gone “as far as we have to meet the Americans merely to find that
they are now asking for more.” He suggested that the only way they
could bring the United States round was
to appear adamant (even if in fact we may have some flexibility) rather

than by showing any sign of taking their bad advice. If they think that
we can be pushed further they will try to do that, taking comfort from
our ambivalence, rather than applying pressure on the Guatemalans to

accept the only solution possible for us and the one which an increasing
number of Latin Americans would back.144
Prime Minister Callaghan supported this line,145 and Rowlands

drafted the following reply to Habib:
If they do not [accept the Moho offer] I see no alternative to telling

them that we must now start the process of unilateral independence,
from which they will get nothing, and mobilise support for this in the
United Nations and elsewhere. I hope that we shall have your support
in convincing the Guatemalans before David Owen’s meeting with
Molina that we are as adamant as they are and that they must take
what is on offer now or lose all.146
Rowlands asked Owen to send that reply at once, because “if I am

right about the Carter/Laugerud talks the rot will set in quickly.”147
The British plan was that if Molina accepted their ideas in principle,
Britain would do its best to keep the UN discussion low-key and go
for a quick settlement that Owen would try to sell in Belize, with
a view to a joint announcement at the UN before the end of the
General Assembly.148
Owen met Vance in New York on September 27, immediately after
the meeting of the CMCB, and Vance later told Molina and that he
could not hope to get more than the Moho.149 Owen had a secret
meeting with Molina the following day, however, and made an even
more generous offer: cession of territory up to the Moho River, ces-
sion of some of the cays, an accommodating maritime frontier and
some mutually acceptable tripartite development project in the area
between the Moho and the Monkey Rivers.150 He also offered to
look at the possibility of consulting the people in the area between
the two rivers over whether they wished to remain Belizean or move
under Guatemalan control. Molina stuck to the claim for territory
up to Monkey River. When Owen absolutely ruled this out, Molina
reverted to a line based on Orange Point that the British had put for-
ward as a possibility at the recent talks at officials level in London.151
He was told that discussion of this line had developed out of a pre-
vious conversation in Washington and could not be said to be the
suggestion of one side or the other, but in any case it involved an
unacceptably large area of territory and would not be saleable to the
Belizeans.152
Thus did Owen—on the day after he had assured the CMCB
that Britain would do nothing that Belize or the committee were
not aware of, and without consulting or even informing Price—offer

greater concessions than he had ever proposed to the Belizeans,
including compromising Belizean territory up to the Monkey River,
throwing in some cays, and holding a plebiscite in one area of Belize.
Nor did Owen later inform the Belizeans of this offer; neither did he
mention it when he appeared before the CMCB again on October
3. But the Belizeans always suspected that the British were seeking
to make deals behind their backs despite their protestations, and so
Belize’s delegate declared that Belize
had not asked or authorised anyone to conduct negotiations or discus-

sions on the basis of territorial cession, and that on all relevant occa-
sions, they had made it clear that they were not prepared to consider
territorial cession . . . The position was final and irrevocable.153
The British delegate, Ivor Richard, made no reply. Various del-

egates informed the committee of the steps they had taken to lobby
the U.S. government as well as some Latin American governments,
and it was agreed that the Commonwealth Secretariat should act as
a coordinating agency to collate and share the diplomatic approaches
made by the members. It was also agreed to set up a contact group
in New York of Permanent Representatives of the members of the
committee along with representatives of Britain and Belize.
The committee considered the question of an international guaran-
tee, which proved to be very contentious and divisive. Richard argued
that it would be inconsistent to ask delegations to vote for a resolution
that called upon the governments of the UK and Guatemala to pur-
sue their negotiations and at the same time consider setting up some
kind of UN peace-keeping force, which suggested that the negotia-
tions were bound to fail. Shoman argued that the Belizean govern-
ment was convinced that negotiations would fail, which was why they
thought the committee had been set up, to look at alternative ways
of Belize achieving independence. The committee finally settled on a
formulation agreed by Richard and Jackson:
members of the Committee should be asked to consider instruct-

ing their Permanent Representatives at the United Nations to meet
together and advise them as to the practicability within the framework
of the United Nations of an international arrangement for guaranteeing
the independence and territorial integrity of Belize.154
The meetings of the CMCB revealed some important differences

between Belize and Britain, although the committee was never aware
of the extent to which Britain was breaking its word about keeping
it, and Belize, informed of its discussions with Guatemala. Belize had
made it clear that it would not budge on the land issue, and that the
committee’s task was to find a way to guarantee the independence
of Belize against Guatemala’s wishes. It had become obvious that
Belize meant to use the committee as a means of pressuring Britain
to respect the Belize positions.
Action at the UN in 1977

Despite Britain’s protestations, Belize and the Caribbean succeeded in
getting a stronger resolution than the year before.155 The resolution
ended up with 51 sponsors, including Panama, and added 2 critical
features: it called on the UK and Guatemala to continue negotiations
“in consultation as appropriate with specially interested States in the
area,” which was designed to get Mexico involved; and it stated that
the negotiations should be carried out “with a view to concluding the
negotiations before the next session of the General Assembly.”156
Guatemala submitted a draft resolution cosponsored by El Salvador,
Honduras and Nicaragua calling on Britain and Guatemala to arrive
at an early settlement of the dispute, and urging them to “take due
account of the vital interests of the people of Belize.”157 An amended
version three days later, urging that a settlement be reached before
the opening of the next session of the General Assembly, attracted
three more sponsors: Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and
Paraguay.158
Opening the debate in the Fourth Committee on November 9,
1977, Richard stated that negotiations had failed to produce a settle-
ment and that the UK had been obliged to reinforce its garrison in
Belize in order to meet its obligation to provide for the security of the
territory. He also reiterated the commitment made by Callaghan, that
any settlement must be acceptable to Belize.159 On November 11, Price
told the committee that Belize had offered various concessions and
proposals aimed at allaying the fears and concerns, and meeting the
needs, expressed by Guatemala, but Guatemala continued to demand
land cession, which Belize could never agree to. He declared that
Belize was prepared to assume independence without first reaching a
settlement with Guatemala, as long as it had suitable security arrange-
ments that would preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity.160
The committee then heard statements from two Belizeans from
Toledo in southern Belize who were brought and paid for by the
Guatemalans in the hope that they would convince members of the
Fourth Committee to reduce their support for Belizean indepen-

dence. Their declarations had no effect whatsoever on the members
of the Fourth Committee, however, since it was widely known that
Guatemala had sponsored their appearance at the UN.161
The Mexican delegate referred to the Bogotá Declaration, which
had supported the independence and territorial integrity of Belize,
and announced that Mexico would vote in favor of the Caribbean
draft.162 The Chairman of the Latin American group asked that
voting on the two resolutions be postponed to enable their Latin
American sponsors to reach agreement on a consensus draft.163 At
the next meeting, however, he reported that it had not been possible
to reach consensus.164
It was decided to vote first on the Caribbean draft. El Salvador
introduced two amendments to that draft, but they were both
rejected by large majorities. The vote on the draft resolution was 115
in favor, 5 against, and 16 abstentions. Both Mexico and Venezuela
voted in favor. Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and
Nicaragua voted against. Argentina and Peru were among the 16
abstentions. The draft sponsored by Guatemala and others was then
put to the vote, and was defeated by 91 votes to 18, with 26 absten-
tions. Venezuela voted in favor, but Mexico abstained.165
The General Assembly debates featured some of the sharpest
attacks yet made in that body against the government of Guatemala.
The Barbados delegate said that Belize was denied independence
“because of the obduracy of a belligerent neighbour, Guatemala.” In
an obvious reference to Israel, he declared that
it is criminal hypocrisy for nations to utter pieties about the right of all
peoples to live in security and at the same time surreptitiously to pro-
vide weapons to aggressive countries for the purpose of extinguishing
that same right. Barbados calls upon all those countries which supply
Guatemala with arms to desist from supporting it in its evil intention
of invading Belize.166
Cuba’s minister of Foreign Affairs stated that Belize “does not

accede to independence because the reactionary dictatorship which
oppresses Guatemala is prepared to annex it by force.”167 Guatemala’s
foreign minister replied that Guatemala was not intimidated by
Cuba’s veiled threats, despite Cuba’s flagrant interventions in Africa
and in various countries of Latin America. He charged that it was
Britain that was employing gunboat diplomacy.168 The vote in the
Assembly, on November 28, 1977, was 126 in favor, 4 against, and
13 abstentions. The yes votes this time included Argentina and Peru.
The no votes were reduced to the core Central American countries
except Guatemala, which did not participate in the voting.
Torrijos, meanwhile, remained true to his word to do everything
possible to support Belize; he was in close contact with Price, visited
Belize in 1977 and took every opportunity to promote the Belize
cause. He agreed with Price that the Guatemalans would never settle
on terms acceptable to Belize, and that is why he had taken the initia-
tive to propose establishing a force to defend Belize; until his death
on August 1, 1981, he kept alive his offer to send 1,000 men with
the appropriate weapons to defend Belize. He was aware of the high
value Price placed on maintaining British troops in Belize after inde-
pendence, and in October 1977 when he called on Prime Minister
Callaghan in London he brought up the question of Belize and said
that it would be impossible to give Belize its independence without an
assurance that it would not be invaded. He told Callaghan that he had
visited the advance posts of the British army in Belize and knew that
“they were posts of dignity and not of occupation.”169 Torrijos helped
to promote a special meeting in December in Jamaica, attended by
foreign ministers and other representatives of Barbados, Grenada,
Guyana, Jamaica, Panama, Surinam, and Venezuela, with a represen-
tative of Mexico as observer. The meeting issued a strong declaration
of support for Belize’s early and secure independence with territorial
integrity; insisted that the government of Belize be fully involved in
all consultations and negotiations aimed at achieving a solution (this
was obviously targeted at Britain); and pledged continued support, by
diplomatic and other methods as appropriate, to secure a solution.170
Britain still needed a lot of encouragement if it were to agree to
maintain troops in Belize after independence, although its own offi-
cials and even ministers had sometimes advised that this might be
the only, and also the cheapest, way to get out of Belize. Although
the Cabinet had agreed in July 1976 to provide a defense guarantee,
this was conditioned on their being a settlement; the task for Belize
was to convince the British to provide a defense guarantee because
there was no settlement, which would not be an easy task, since the
British, against all evidence, kept interpreting Guatemalan responses
as hopeful signs that they really wanted to reach agreement.
The panorama in 1977 was totally different from what it had
been at the beginning of 1975. The Belizeans had accomplished a
great deal since they had decided to fully internationalize their case,
against British advice. With each passing year they were not only able
to achieve stronger resolutions, but also to increase the number of
countries voting in favor. Since from the outset the main obstacle
to complete international support was the Latin American vote,
Torrijos’ enthusiastic adherence to the cause was critical. By 1977
four major Latin American countries supported the Belize resolution,
and there was cause for hope that the following year others would
follow suit and that as a consequence the vote of the United States
would change.
The biggest challenge for Belize remained the British insistence,
fanned by pressure from the United States, that Belize must give up
territory. Even though Secretary of State Crosland stated in 1976 that
“it is becoming increasingly clear that we shall be unable to offer
territory as part of the price of a settlement”171—a sentiment echoed
at various times by Callaghan, Owen, Rowlands, and others—the
British kept trying to reach agreement with Guatemala based on land
cession. This led them to break their promises about keeping the
Belizeans informed of their various consultations and to engage in
acts of perfidy. The Belizeans, who understood this, began to include
in declarations the responsibility of Britain to keep them informed
and not to make any offers without their consent.
As 1977 came to an end, the Belizeans knew that they faced an
uphill struggle, but there were also signs of hope and comfort: the
CMCB was playing a pivotal role, the Latin American countries,
pushed by Torrijos, were beginning to openly adhere to the Belize
cause, and the Carter administration’s campaign for human rights
held out the hope, despite the State Department’s insistence on ter-
ritorial cession, that the United States would eventually support the
secure independence of Belize with its territory intact in spite of
Guatemalan objections.
Chapter 7
Internationalization Triumphant
(1978–1981)
Between 1978 and 1981, the Belize government went through

some of the most difficult moments in its struggle for sovereignty
and territorial integrity, during which the United Kingdom (UK) and
the United States colluded to agree on a settlement that would have
truncated Belizean territory and compromised its sovereignty. At one
point the UK effectively handed a veto to Guatemala over Belize’s
independence, while a strong Opposition in Belize did the same and
declared a 10-year moratorium on independence. And while Belize
continued to make unrelenting progress in winning ever greater
global support for its cause, at home the situation almost got out of
hand, seriously compromising the possibility of achieving indepen-
dence. Even as a change of government in Britain in 1979 turned
out to be propitious for Belize’s cause, so too did the outcome of the
U.S. election in 1980 threaten it. The strategy of internationalization
clashed with the might of a Great Power, and the outcome was never
assured.
The U.S. Package

In November 1977, the UK and Washington struck a deal by which
Guatemala would be granted territory up to the Moho as well as the
island ranges of Sapodilla and Ranguana, along with territorial seas and
continental shelf. In addition, there would be treaty provisions com-
promising Belize’s sovereignty. Britain would also throw in a financial
package, of “pounds sterling 7—9 million.”1 The mechanism would
be to use a U.S. mediator, who would propose the agreed package.
The deal had been accepted by the Guatemalans.2 Price was told about
this but sworn to secrecy, although he expressed his opposition.
Price was put under extreme pressure by both Britain and the
United States to accept the November proposals. He was made to
understand that rejection would annoy the U.S. government and even
endanger Belize’s security, and he felt constrained to not appear to
be intransigent. The British records are, therefore, contradictory, in
some places stating that Price was willing to consider territorial cession
from the Temash river, at others making it clear that he rejected any
cession at all. And while appearing, especially to U.S. representatives,
to be conciliatory, he colluded with his CARICOM colleagues, and
increasingly with Mexico, to ensure that his real position against any
cession or diminution of sovereignty was maintained, and also made
public statements in Belize that would bind him to that position.
In January 1978 Price met with Rowlands in Kingston, and told
him that he could not accept the proposals, thanked him for his
efforts, and said he would go on a new offensive to win over more
Latin American States. Rowlands reported that “it looks as if we
have come to the end of the road on the present negotiations.”3
He later added that “the whole tenor of his [Price’s] remarks was
along the line ‘not one inch,’ ” but lamented that “I felt that I could
not open up this issue because it would be reneging on the Vance
meeting.”4
Price was very worried about U.S. reaction to his rejection of their
proposals, and asked to meet Terence Todman, the U.S. assistant
secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, in Miami on his way
back from Kingston on January 19. Todman reported that Price was
against the “mediation” idea, but that “he did not rule out acceptance
of a territorial concession up to a line below the Moho River (pre-
sumably the Temash) if it were accompanied by aid and if the treaty
concessions were put aside.”5 Price has forcefully denied that he ever
gave Todman such an understanding,6 and subsequent events tend to
bear him out.
It is clear that Price had been working very closely with the Mexicans
to help him maintain his position. For what it considered its own
national interest, Mexico was against Belize giving up any land or sover-
eignty to Guatemala, and provided Belize “with maximum diplomatic
support, viewing such support as a necessary counter-balance to what
it considers to be US support for Guatemala.”7 When Todman met
President Lopez Portillo on January 21, the president told him that
Mexico would insist that any solution be based on basic international
principles; he also made it clear that he was against a U.S. mediator,
I N T E R N AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N T R I U M P H A N T 151
preferring “a recognized international body.”8 A high Mexican official

revealed that Mexican dislike of U.S. mediation “stemmed principally
from the fact that the Belizean government disliked it and that it would
be seen as a means of applying pressure on Belize.” In reporting this,
the British ambassador added that “both Todman and I have been
impressed by the closeness of Mexican and Belizean thinking.”9
The British, determined to apply more pressure on Price, sum-
moned him to a meeting in London on January 24 and 25. Price
again took Shoman and Courtenay with him, and they rejected both
the Washington proposal and any land cession. British records of
the meeting state that while Price “made it clear that he remained
opposed to any form of territorial cession,” he explored the ques-
tion of cession up to the Temash river and of the southern Sapoldilla
cays. Owen had already impressed on him that he “thought it most
unlikely that the Guatemalans could be brought to accept anything
less than the Moho line,”10 and it seems that Price’s tactic was to state
his readiness to consider what he knew would be unacceptable to the
Guatemalans, as a device for keeping the British on side, his major
concern always being for the security of Belize.
In the joint statement after the meeting,11 Price reiterated the Belize
position that the negotiations must be in accordance with the United
Nations (UN) resolutions, while Owen admitted that discussions would
continue between the British and the Guatemalans, and that these dis-
cussions included the possibility of territorial adjustment, but that any
settlement must be acceptable to the government and people of Belize.
At Price’s insistence, it was agreed that any proposed settlement would
be put directly to the people of Belize and that the Commonwealth
would be associated with this process of consultation.
Upon his return to Belize Price embarked on a series of pub-
lic meetings, having first made a radio broadcast that stressed that
his government had always maintained its firm stand on territorial
integrity and full sovereign independence. He informed that at the
London talks, despite disagreements, “we got the renewed assurance
of the British government to defend Belize and we maintained our
friendship with the British government, for it is the British who are
committed to our defence.”12 He explained that he had not previously
revealed details of the British proposals because
this confidence was required by the United Kingdom government

which is responsible for the defence of Belize. One wrong step or one
irresponsible word could lead to border incidents which must be avoided
because our first concern is the safety of our land and its people.13
He then stated that the British had been discussing land cession
with Guatemala:
In November of last year I was informed in the strictest confidence

about these discussions . . . and as the Foreign Secretary has confirmed
in the House of Commons I protested and reaffirmed the determina-
tion of the government of Belize to maintain the territorial integrity
of Belize.14
High officials of the U.S. government, he said, believed that any

solution must involve land cession. He explained that the British had
insisted that once there was a proposal they thought should be con-
sidered, they themselves would put it to the people of Belize in a
referendum, but they would continue to defend Belize regardless of
its outcome.15
In public meetings throughout the country, Price was taking
a harder line, stating that “his government would be mad to give
up part of its territory,” and that “it is unthinkable that the United
Kingdom should be advocating land cession when the U.K. has
repeatedly co-sponsored UN resolutions supporting the territorial
integrity of Belize.”16
Meanwhile, in the British Parliament, Owen defended his gov-
ernment’s position, and affirmed that Vance had taken a great deal
of interest and was helping to resolve the problem, and “if agree-
ment could be reached, the fact that it would be underwritten by the
United States would be one of the greatest safeguards for an indepen-
dent Belize.”17 Owen was very clear about Price’s position:
The Premier of Belize and the Government have constantly, consis-

tently and rightly held their position on territorial integrity and on the
United Nations resolution. I think they recognise that the British gov-
ernment have the ultimate responsibility for attempting to bring Belize
to independence. Premier Price has attended all the formal negotia-
tions and has been kept fully informed of all our informal discussions,
but he has not shifted from his basic position.18
Owen was questioned about the problem of reconciling “territo-

rial integrity” (as stated in Commonwealth and UN resolutions) with
“territorial adjustments” (which Owen said he was negotiating), and
asked whether he could assure Parliament that he would not use the
“defence lever” to force the Belizean people “into accepting . . . an
unacceptable arrangement.” Owen replied with words that would be
used by the Opposition in Belize to argue that Price was endangering
Belize by pushing for early independence:
Many people want independence immediately without any form of ter-

ritorial cession and no negotiation. That is what we have been unable
to achieve over the last few years. They must grapple with the problem
whether, in order to achieve independence, they will have to make
some compromise. That is a choice which I think they can make.19
A week later, when Rowlands met with Vance and Molina, he told
them about his meetings with Price and other Caribbean leaders,
which once more revealed their total opposition to land cession, and
about Price’s “internal political problems” and the buildup of opin-
ion in Britain itself against any form of territorial change.20 Both the
United States and Guatemala said they could reconsider the November
proposals, although Molina rejected the idea of a cession only up to
the Temash. Rowlands felt he had succeeded in “the limited aim of
ensuring that negotiations continue without our having made any
specific commitments.”21
Todman later reported that Molina told Vance that he was “dis-
turbed that after two years of lengthy discussions an agreement was
finally reached on security aspects and then all the effort seems to be
wasted.” He emphasized that Guatemala was very concerned about
security, since Belize was its boundary with the Caribbean, and “once
Britain leaves there will be a vacuum which they felt others would fill,
possibly Cubans.”22
In Belize the UDP continued to accuse Price of compromising
Belize’s sovereignty and territorial integrity because of his “mad rush”
to independence. As usual in Belize, such allegations were believed
by many and caused concern to all. The PUP had lost the Belize
City Council elections in December 1977; elections for the other
municipalities were due in 1978, and the UDP appeared to be in the
ascendancy. Price worried about the charges of “sell-out” and was
determined to keep the record straight. He wrote to Owen reminding
him that “I stood firm on territorial integrity.”23
At Rowland’s request, the U.S. State Department presented two
documents to Britain on February 10, 1978: one suggesting pos-
sible ways of meeting security concerns, and a “draft agreement of
amity and mutual security between Belize, Guatemala, Honduras
and Mexico.”24 On the security issues, as the British themselves
pointed out, the U.S. government went further to meet the concerns
of Guatemala than those of Belize.25
Meanwhile, Price was drumming up support, not only for a mul-
tilateral force but also for territorial integrity, in a manner that tried
the patience of the British. Although Governor McEntee had warned

him that any strong statement of support for Belize’s position by
CARICOM foreign ministers, who were due to meet in Belize, would
create difficulties “in the security field,” and although he had agreed
to a very mild statement being emitted from the meeting, 26 he engi-
neered just the opposite. He told the foreign ministers about Owen’s
plan to reach agreement with the Guatemalans based on land cession
and to submit this to a referendum, and asked for support against this
plan. The ministers issued a communiqué declaring that land cession
was unacceptable and agreeing to support the quest for a multilateral
defense guarantee, including “the preparation of a basic plan outlin-
ing the required military capabilities,” although in private conversa-
tions with the Commonwealth representative, Abass Bundu, “none
of them seemed to think that an international defence arrangement
was practicable.”27
Neither, of course, did the British, who became particularly
incensed over Price’s insistent attempts to secure military support
from countries of the region. In March 1978, Price stated at a press
conference in Guyana that Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, and a Latin
American state had agreed to take part in a multilateral security
arrangement to defend Belize on independence.28 The British wor-
ried about this initiative and sought to contest and discredit it.29 Price
was due to meet Vance, and Owen asked that Vance “stress to Price
that the only real way forward to early and secure independence is
a negotiated settlement, and point out to him the unreality of his
present campaign to drum up a defence guarantee.”30
Price met with Vance and Todman at the State Department in
Washington on March 24, 1978, a Good Friday, and told them that
he could not agree to any cession of territory and that the status quo
was not tolerable, as it would lead to Guatemala subverting Belize
over time. The only way forward was through a multilateral defense
guarantee, which was supported by the Commonwealth Caribbean
and Panama; the UK had undertaken to participate. Vance tried
very hard to get Price to agree to some small cession of land, but
Price adamantly refused to consider it.31 In his remarks to the press
in Washington after the meeting, Price repeated that land cession
was not on, and that he was in search of a multilateral force in which
the UK would be involved. He admitted that the UK was in favor
of land cession, but that “they would respect the decision of the
Belizean people not to accept the land cession and we do not accept
it.”32 When the State Department asked the British to confirm
whether they had in fact agreed to join the multilateral force, their
reply was that
Price was being disingenuous to say the least. We have made no

undertaking other than that given by the Secretary of State to the
Commonwealth Committee in New York last September when he
said that if some kind of international security guarantee could be
obtained, Britain would play her part.33
London should not have been surprised, therefore, that Price took
that comment to mean that if a credible multilateral force could be
assembled, Britain would take part in it.34 In any case, the British
were incensed, and Rowlands sent a message to Price saying that
“we are now seriously out of step on the question of an international
defence guarantee,” and added that
[c]ontinued misunderstanding on this can be dangerous. The idea of

a multilateral force is tied up with that of unilateral independence. As
you know, the assessment that we and the Americans make is that the
Guatemalans will be bound to react militarily to unilateral indepen-
dence. Consequently any talk of a multilateral force, however bland,
raises the temperature and increases the possibility of British troops
being shot at, a matter for which we not you share responsibility.35
Price was undaunted. He insisted that his clear understanding was

that Britain would participate in a credible multilateral force provided
it comprised at least one other Latin American country in addition
to Panama. McEntee told him that this was a fallback position, but
that the effort now was to achieve a negotiated settlement, and by
publicizing that position he was prejudicing the chances of success
of negotiations.36 The United States added that another reason for
negotiations to continue was “the concern of the countries in the
region over the potentially explosive situation”; President Pérez of
Venezuela had pressed on Carter the need to find a solution soon to
the Belize dispute based on “boundary rectification,” and warned of
the potential danger of Price’s pursuit of a security guarantee. Pérez
believed Guatemala would invade if Belize declared UDI, and Price
might then turn to Cuba for help.37
Price opened the widening gap with London some more in mid-
April, when the PUP Convention passed a resolution revealing that
the UK was conducting negotiations with Guatemala involving land
cession and stating that the government of Belize had at no time given
its approval for such discussions to take place. It requested the UK
to “stop immediately” any such discussions, and “to actively pursue

the alternative road to independence by concluding suitable security
arrangements that will ensure the safety of the Belizean people and
preserve the independence of Belize.”38 Price told McEntee that he
was very unhappy about the way Britain was “appeasing Guatemala,”
and that “his government could no longer cooperate or take part with
Britain in any discussions in which land was an issue or if the terms of
the UN resolution were breached.”39
Owen was infuriated because his plan to reach a quick settlement
with Guatemala based on land cession was made impossible by Price.40
He told the governor to convey to Price
the strength of my feeling about his recent activities and deny firmly
that we have been dealing with the Guatemalans behind his back . . . I
am fed up with Price’s behaviour and intend to do a little plain speaking.
He must decide whether to go fishing or simply to cut bait.41
Owen asked for a meeting with Price and with Dean Lindo, the
leader of the Opposition, in New York in early June.
The “MOU”: No Independence without Settlement?

Owen’s decision to bring the Opposition into the negotiating process
on an equal footing with the government was probably prompted
by the widely held view that the UDP would win the next general
elections and by Price’s decision to not participate in any further
negotiations that violated the UN resolutions.
On February 8, 1978 the UDP had issued a declaration pro-
claiming that independence should be deferred for a period of not
less than 10 years. Neither the British nor the Belize government
could agree with that timetable, and if it favored anyone it was the
Guatemalans—at least that seemed to be the view of the governor,
who wrote that “we cannot discount altogether the possibility that
the UDP statement in fact reflects Guatemalan views.”42
The meeting between Owen, Price, and Lindo in New York on
June 2, 1978 produced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
that defined the positions of the three parties in six points: the
Guatemalan dispute would be put above party politics in Belize and
the search for a solution would be treated as a national objective; both
the Government and the Opposition would be represented at future
talks between the British and Guatemalans; any final agreement
would be put to the people of Belize in a referendum; “the present
series of talks have come to an end and the parties are not bound by
any previous proposals”; the attendance of the three parties at future
talks would be “without prejudice to their respective positions or to
the rights and responsibilities of the British government.” The final
article of the MOU was rich with the seeds of controversy:
It is agreed that a solution to the Anglo-Guatemalan dispute is highly

desirable for progress to be made towards the independence of Belize.
It is understood that the solution of the Anglo-Guatemalan dispute,
and the independence of Belize, are separate issues.43
For the Belize government, this meant that Guatemala could not
be allowed to hold a veto over Belize’s independence, since the solu-
tion of the dispute, being a separate issue, need not be consummated
before independence; the Opposition, on the other hand, claimed
that it meant that there must be an election before independence, and
touted the MOU as a major victory.44 The British were concerned
that Guatemala and the United States not interpret that clause to
mean that independence would precede a settlement, since this would
disturb Guatemala in particular, smacking of “unilateral indepen-
dence.” To that extent, on this issue, the Opposition, the British,
the Guatemalans, and the United States were on the same page. In
describing that paragraph to the U.S. government, Owen said that it
was devised
to meet the desire of Lindo that the question of independence should

be considered only after a settlement had been reached, thus giving
them more chance of winning an election between the two and of
being in power before the country goes to independence. There is
no implication that independence might precede a settlement and Ted
Rowlands has already reassured Molina on this point by telephone and
will do so again when he meets him.45
Owen must have known that by proffering this interpretation to

the Guatemalans he was handing them a veto on Belize’s independence
and making a negotiated settlement impossible. Once Guatemala was
assured that there would be no independence before a settlement, it
could dictate the terms, since they were happy with the status quo.
Further reassurance was provided by Owen, who informed the State
Department that in the coming negotiations,
all options remain open, including those that have been discussed
so far . . . As far as territory is concerned I have made it clear to the
Belizeans that I reserve the right of the British government to discuss

territory as part of the negotiations.46
Rowlands met Molina on June 18, 1978; Molina lamented that

talks had not been productive, blaming this on Price being “rather
inflexible,” while Rowlands noted that Price had created a UK
domestic problem by his lobbying, which made any discussion of
territory difficult.47 But Molina was assured that “it was implicit in
the Memorandum of Understanding that a settlement would come
before independence.” Molina described Price’s idea of a multilateral
security force as “damaging,” and suggested that only Cuba would
support it.48
Given the fact that British ministers were interpreting the MOU to
mean that there must be a settlement before independence, the policy
of the Belize government to achieve independence with territorial
integrity was in severe jeopardy. The Guatemalans had been handed
a veto over the independence of Belize, since they could obstruct
it simply by not reaching agreement. This was compounded by the
active role of the U.S. government in promoting land cession and
the UK’s commitment to that position. Both those positions would
have to change if Belize were to achieve secure independence with
its territory intact. The international campaign was refined to reflect
this new reality, and at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meet-
ing of foreign ministers in Belgrade in late July 1978, a resolution
insisting that independence was in no way dependent on a settlement
with Guatemala and emphasizing the UK’s responsibility was passed
unanimously:
The Ministers endorse the policy of the Government of Belize aimed

at achieving the early and safe independence of the territory and note
that this can be done either by means of a negotiated settlement
acceptable to its people or by establishing security arrangements that
may be necessary for guaranteeing the independence and territorial
integrity of Belize. In this connection, the Ministers also note the
special responsibility of Great Britain to assist Belize in attaining a
secure independence.49
This was a most difficult moment in the struggle of Belize for

independence, and it would last until there were significant politi-
cal changes in both the UK and Belize. In the meantime, Belize
would have to cooperate with the British in the negotiations with
Guatemala and seek to maintain and strengthen its international
support.
The New British Proposals: The Cart Road Revisited

President Fernando Romeo Lucas García took office on July 1, 1978,
and in late August made a significant statement about Belize:
The Constitution of the Republic is clear in respect of territorial

integrity . . . However, we must recognise that it will be impossible to
obtain all of Belize . . . as we have over us the opinion of hundreds of
countries which support its independence. The geographic position of
Belize has us closed in on the bay of Amatique and we do not have an
exit to the sea, and that has to be resolved.50
The president alleged that there had been no settlement because

of Price, who was opposed to any solution, but that talks with Britain
were to be held soon. It is clear that the Guatemalans were confident
that the new British position after the MOU, and the U.S. support for
territorial adjustment, made it possible for Guatemala to gain some
Belizean territory. President Lucas was attempting to explain to his
countrymen that it was no longer possible to insist on “recovering” all
of Belize, while assuring them that enough territory would be gained
to satisfy Guatemalan interests and pride.
The talks were held on September 25, 1978 in New York; Owen’s
new proposals to Guatemalan Foreign Minister Rafael Castillo Valdés
did not include land cession, but rather a seaward boundary to give
Guatemala access to the high seas through its own territorial sea,
free port facilities, a treaty of regional security, and the proposal to
pave a road from the Petén to Belmopan.51 Owen informed the State
Department that Castillo had shown interest in the idea of “a road
paving scheme which could be presented as the equivalent and there-
fore the fulfilment of the 1859 Treaty, thus enabling Guatemala to
accept recognition of Belize’s boundaries.”52 He asked the U.S. gov-
ernment to send a special emissary to President Lucas encouraging
him to go for a quick settlement.
But the United States, obviously aware that the Guatemalans
would never agree to that proposal, was slow to react to the British
appeal, and Rowlands became impatient with their procrastination.53
The United States indicated that “for the U.S. government to get off
the fence now and encourage President Lucas to accept our propos-
als would be premature”; the best time to intervene would be when
Guatemala presented counterproposals, which they would probably
not do soon, since they were playing for time “partly to get through
the Fourth Committee without too much trouble, partly in the hope
that elections in Belize will produce a new, and more amenable,
government.”54 When Owen pressed Castillo to come to an early con-

clusion on the proposals,55 he replied that Guatemala would submit
its own proposals to him in due course, and warned that a “harsh and
aggressive debate in the Fourth Committee” would not be helpful.56
Owen then became aware that the Guatemalans were stalling, and
pressed Vance to tell Castillo that he had tried but failed to get the
Belizeans to accept land cession, that international, including Latin
American, opinion was against any cession of territory, and that “there
is no chance of an agreement except on the terms I have offered.”57
Vance spoke to Castillo the following day and urged Guatemala to
give Owen’s proposal serious consideration, but Castillo simply told
him that he was preparing a counterproposal, without giving any hint
of what that might be, and Vance said he could do no more until the
counterproposal was received.58 The counterproposal never came.
Renewed Commonwealth Pressure

The Commonwealth Ministerial Committee on Belize (CMCB) met
in New York on September 28, 1978, and considered a paper submit-
ted by the Belize government advising the members that “the British
government had been having discussions with the Guatemalans which
implied a possible land cession.” The Belizeans reiterated their firm
position against such discussions and called for consideration of a secu-
rity arrangement for the independent Belize. Owen admitted that the
British did conduct such negotiations with Guatemala, but declared
that he “had never asked the government of Belize to shift their own
position which was and had consistently been one of total opposition
to such land cession.”59 He admitted that it had become increasingly
evident that “any referendum on land cession was extremely unlikely
to get through” and that that many of the Latin American countries
themselves were against changing the map. He added that it seemed
that the new Guatemalan government might like to get a settlement,
and that he had put new proposals to the Guatemalans that he knew
would be acceptable to the people of Belize.60
For Belize, Rogers noted that the history of talks with Guatemala
showed that a feeling of optimism had invariably ended in disap-
pointment, and so, while his government supported the principle
of negotiation, it felt that the committee should actively pursue a
defense arrangement in the event that negotiations failed.61 The dis-
cussion on this point was again inconclusive, especially with Owen
insisting that it would be very damaging for the negotiations if
the committee came out with a resolution to create such a force.
Canada’s foreign minister intervened on four occasions, finally stat-

ing that Canada would find it impossible to become involved in a
defense arrangement in the present scheme of things. The consensus
emerged that the idea be kept alive, but that the outcome of the talks
be awaited.62
In September 1978, two highly regarded British international
lawyers delivered a Joint Opinion on the question of title to the ter-
ritory of Belize in relation to Guatemala’s claim, which had been
commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat at the request of
the government of Belize. The Opinion set out the historical facts
and examined the legal basis of the arguments of both parties, and
concluded
that the territory was British before 1859; that the 1859 Treaty is,
therefore, not a treaty of cession; that it is arguable that Britain may
have been in breach of Article 7 of the 1859 Treaty, but that any such
breach can in no way establish a title to Belize in Guatemala; and,
finally, that in any event contemporary international law requires
regard to be had to the principle of self-determination—the effect of
which is emphatically to exclude the Guatemalan claim.63
The Opinion, published by the Belize government in the form of

a pamphlet, was used for lobbying support at the UN and elsewhere.
The 1978 UN Debate and the Guatemalan Response

On November 28, in the Fourth Committee, Richard took the
highly unusual step of making public the proposals that Owen had
presented to Castillo in September. He noted that the dispute sprung
from Guatemala’s contention that Britain had not complied with the
“road” obligation and said that
the United Kingdom had therefore proposed in September 1978 that

it would help with a major road project which would aid in developing
the Petén. That project would be the modern equivalent of the provi-
sions of article VII of the 1859 Treaty.64
Rogers, accompanied by Lindo, alerted members to the fact that
while Guatemala has purposely prevaricated and refused to give a for-

mal response to [the new British] proposals, they have made clear in
other ways that they have certainly not abandoned their expansionist
ambitions and neo-colonialist designs over Belizean territory.65
Rogers also refuted the Guatemalan pretension, which had become

part of the lexicon of the British as well, that it would be wrong if
Belize were to move to independence “unilaterally,” meaning with-
out Guatemala’s agreement; he asserted that “it is for the people of
Belize to decide when to request the independence of Belize.”66
In 1978 there were again two draft resolutions before the commit-
tee. Owen was determined that the Belize draft not include a call for
a multilateral force and that it not condemn Guatemala; he insisted
on considering the draft resolution personally.67 After some hard bar-
gaining between Belize and its Caribbean allies on the one hand and
Britain on the other, it was agreed to include the following opera-
tive paragraph, which hinted at the need for an alternative road to
independence and placed the responsibility on Britain:
[The General Assembly] 6. Recognizes that it is the responsibility of the

United Kingdom, as the administering Power, to take all necessary steps
to enable the people of Belize to exercise freely and without fear their
right to self-determination and to a firm and early independence.68
The Caribbean draft, sponsored by 45 states, was approved on

December 5, 1978 in the Fourth Committee by 116 votes to 5,
with 12 abstentions. The other, pro-Guatemalan draft, sponsored
by 9 states, was rejected that same day by a vote of 82 against and 15
in favor, with 33 abstentions. The General Assembly (GA) approved
the Caribbean draft on December 13, 1978 by a vote of 127 to 0,
with 12 abstentions. Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El
Salvador did not take part in the voting. The most significant addi-
tion to the yes votes was that of Costa Rica, which became the first
core Central American country to vote for the Caribbean resolution.
Colombia also voted in favor for the first time.69 The defection of
Costa Rica was a serious blow to Guatemala’s pretensions; it could no
longer claim to have even Central American solidarity.
The Guatemalan government never presented counterpropos-
als to those the British had made in September 1978. Instead, on
November 30, Foreign Minister Castillo Valdés, in a radio broadcast,
“solemnly declared” on behalf of the government of Guatemala that
“it categorically rejects” the proposals, and that Guatemala was “pre-
pared to continue the process of negotiations” with Britain and “find
by way of direct negotiations with the people of Belize” a solution
to the dispute. He also said that the government would not resume
diplomatic relations with Britain “so long as that nation insists on
staying on Central American soil by subterfuge.” 70
Changes in the Region

Although there were no formal negotiating sessions in 1979, and in
Belize itself the push for independence appeared to falter, the Belize
independence cause was greatly advanced by the triumph of the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua, after which only El Salvador and Honduras
in Central America still supported Guatemala, a situation that had
seemed impossible just three years before. Guatemala also had
increasing difficulties with obtaining support in the Organization
of American States (OAS). At the General Assembly held in Bolivia
in October 1979, the organization recognized Belize as a colonial
possession in the Americas, and not, as Guatemala asserted, a terri-
tory occupied by a foreign power. Significantly, only Guatemala voted
against, 5 countries abstained and 17 voted in favor.71
In 1979 there was only one draft resolution on Belize before the
Fourth Committee; Guatemala’s strategy was to recommend exten-
sive amendments to the draft resolution rather than promote one of
its own. The Caribbean resolution was once again strengthened by
the addition of the following operative paragraph, which was directed
as much at the UK and the United States as at Guatemala:
[The General Assembly] 4. Calls upon the parties concerned to refrain

from exerting any pressure or the use of threats or force against the
Government and people of Belize to prevent the full exercise of their
inalienable right to self-determination, independence and territorial
integrity.72
In the Fourth Committee, Guatemala alone put forward a doc-

ument containing seven proposed amendments to all the substan-
tive paragraphs of the Belize Resolution.73 On November 5, at
Guatemala’s request, each was put to the vote separately by roll call,
and they were all defeated by huge majorities.74 On the same day, the
Caribbean resolution, sponsored by 50 member states, was approved
by 123 votes to 1, with 9 abstentions. Guatemala was the only coun-
try to vote against. Those abstaining were Chile, El Salvador, the
Dominican Republic, Israel, Mauritania, Morocco, Spain, Uruguay,
and the United States. Honduras was absent from the voting.75
The votes in favor of the Caribbean resolution increased significantly
in the General Assembly on November 21, 1979 and it was adopted
by 134 to 0, with 8 abstentions.76 Guatemala did not participate in
the vote. Those abstaining were Chile, El Salvador, Israel, Morocco,
Paraguay, Spain, Uruguay, and the United States. The Dominican
Republic, having abstained in the Fourth Committee, changed its
vote to a yes in the General Assembly. Eleven Spanish-speaking Latin

American countries were then supporting Belize, including, crucially,
three Central American countries. Apart from El Salvador, the only
Latin American countries that abstained were those then considered
the most reactionary and least prestigious: Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay.
After the vote, Guatemala noted that the opposition party in Belize,
“which tends to be the majority party,” had asked for a moratorium
on independence, that Guatemala had taken the same position over
the years, and it took as a positive sign that there was a convergence
of views. Elections in Belize, he reported, were taking place even as
he spoke.
Independence with or without a Settlement

The vote in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) took
place on the day that elections were held in Belize, contested squarely
on the issue of independence: the UDP proposed that independence
be delayed for at least 10 years, whereas the PUP promised to move
quickly to independence with or without a settlement.77 The PUP
won the election comfortably, taking 13 of the 18 seats in the House
of Representatives. That result, and the virtually unanimous support
for the strongest resolution ever, convinced the government of Belize
that it must move quickly and achieve independence while the inter-
national situation was so favorable.
The May 1979 elections in Britain had produced a change of gov-
ernment, and the Conservative Minister, Nicholas Ridley, seemed to
have a more realistic attitude and a harder negotiating stance vis-à-vis
Guatemala. Although Britain continued to press Belize to consider
land cession, Ridley soon realized that it would be as impossible to
convince Belize to give up land as to get Guatemala to withdraw
that demand. The Belizeans also believed that, with Latin America in
Belize’s camp, the U.S. government would find it harder to continue
abstaining on what was becoming the Caribbean/Latin American
resolution. It was President Carter’s last year in the White House, and
by mid-1980 it was fairly clear that Ronald Reagan would be the next
president, and that he would impose a different worldview and make
it increasingly difficult for Belize to gain the support of the U.S. gov-
ernment. Internally, the PUP had a fresh mandate to lead Belize to an
early independence. It seemed to be one of those moments in history
when risks are taken or nothing is done and all is lost. The Belizeans
decided to move forward, knowing that the hardest part would be to
overcome Britain’s reluctance to defend Belize after independence.
At a seminal meeting with Price in London in January 1980,

Ridley indicated that Britain was at last ready to contemplate “uni-
lateral independence” for Belize, and that “it was a UK responsibility
to put any kind of defence guarantee together.” He insisted, how-
ever, that serious efforts to reach a settlement with Guatemala must
continue. Price wanted to renew the pledge to submit any proposed
settlement to a referendum, but Ridley noted that if in the end Belize
were to proceed to “unilateral independence . . . we would not wish
this to be put to a referendum and therefore no commitment to hold
a referendum should be made.”78
Ridley referred often to the Guatemalan fear of communist infil-
tration through Belize, and wondered how they could be given a
guarantee that this would not occur. He suggested that at the begin-
ning of the next round of talks the UK should announce its intention
to go to independence with a time limit, and that
we should try immediately afterwards to start the independence proce-

dures and get the Bill on the Statute Book. If the talks failed, we could
then proceed . . . As long as we continued to behave as if Guatemalan
sanction was necessary for independence, they had a veto.79
Ridley insisted, however, that it was essential for negotiations

to take place and to last at least one or two days before they broke
down, in order to show good faith attempts. Price suggested that
what could be offered was sea access in the south, a modern equiva-
lent to the cart road of the 1859 Treaty, and a continued inter-
national or British military presence after independence to allay
Guatemala’s fears about communist infiltration. Ridley wondered
whether this was enough.
In May 1980 Ridley and his advisers went to Belmopan for meet-
ings with Price and his team to agree on the parameters for the
upcoming negotiations with Guatemala. Ridley said that the UK
had been working with the United States, and “can look forward
to getting more help from them in the future.”80 He repeated that
“we are ultimately prepared to move to independence without agree-
ment, but we must spend much time on negotiations.”81 He said
that the Cabinet had agreed to keep a purely British force in Belize
after independence, but the UK would like a sovereign area or two
for military bases. Shoman asked whether the sovereign bases were
to be in perpetuity; Ridley replied that “sovereignty is sovereignty.”
Said Musa said that it was difficult to accept sovereign bases in an
independent Belize, and asked whether the idea of a Commonwealth
force could be explored further. This prompted an angry outburst

from Ridley: “there aren’t so many mugs and fools as we are to com-
mit millions to defend people like you. If you’re not prepared to help
us, why should we be prepared to help you? We’re going a very very
long way to help you.”82
Ridley added that the U.S. government had made it known to
Guatemala that “the UK will not give Guatemala a veto over indepen-
dence and that if necessary we’ll go ahead unilaterally.”83 He noted
that the United States would welcome an independent Belize if its
policy was “democratic middle of the road,” but that they were terri-
fied of the Cubans taking control. That was the main U.S. concern,
he insisted, and whatever else they said about Belize was peripheral.
He asked Price whether if at the end of negotiations a small strip of
land would seal an agreement, Belize would agree; Price replied that
there would be no land cession.84
The following day, Ridley reported that he had told the new
Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Theodore Aranda,85 that the MOU
was dead because both he and Price were against renewal. He again
asked Price whether he was willing to consider land cession, perhaps
of the cays; Price said his position against any cession was unchange-
able.86 Ridley went back to the fear of Cuba, which he said the UK
shared, and asked Price whether he would accept some of the Cubans
in the Peruvian embassy in Havana, since “it would be helpful if you’d
take enemies of Castro. This would be a plus in Guatemala’s eyes”;
Price absolutely refused.87
Talks were held in Bermuda on May 19 and 20, 1980. Ridley prof-
fered a six-point agenda: security, economic matters, maritime bound-
aries, land communications, constitutional problems, and territorial
boundaries. After discussion on each of these topics, separate com-
mittees were appointed to explore the questions of land, security, and
maritime boundaries.88 In an unprecedented move, Ridley offered
to invite Guatemalan observers to the constitutional conference on
Belize and also to Parliament when the Act for Belize’s independence
constitution was discussed.
At the meeting of the committee charged with discussing land,
Ridley proposed looking at “cosmetic solutions,” such as that the UK
retain part of Belize and freeze it for 25 years, its eventual fate left
open; or it could be transferred to Guatemala and Guatemala imme-
diately leased it back to Belize for 999 years. Castillo said he didn’t
see how that could lead to a solution, since territory was the key to
the problem. Ridley then said that the UK would have to go ahead
with the independence of Belize, and it seemed a pity for Guatemala
to lose the advantages offered by the UK.89 Shoman laid out Belize’s
position:
Belize did not recognize any rights whatsoever in Guatemala to decide

on the future of Belize or to negotiate over Belize . . . [and] no amount
of threats or military might could shake us from our commitment
to preserve our sovereignty and territorial integrity . . . we are not pre-
pared to allow Guatemala to exercise a veto over our independence for
much longer.90
Guatemalan delegate Skinner-Klee put forward the idea of a con-

dominium. Ridley, clutching at any straw, speculated on several pos-
sible alternatives along those lines, but Shoman insisted that Belize
was not prepared to consider any proposals that would either involve
cession of territory or affect its absolute sovereignty over all its ter-
ritory.91 The next morning, Castillo Valdés stated that he had been
instructed to suggest that they examine the 1859 Treaty to provide
an answer to the problem. It was agreed that a committee of experts
study the 1859 Treaty with that perspective, and at the same time
take into account the sea boundary proposals of the British.92
The committee assigned to deal with security issues reported
that they had defined the objective as “the necessity to cre-
ate a force that prevents communist infiltration into Belize and
Guatemala.” They had agreed that this could be accomplished by
Britain maintaining “the necessary forces after independence to
stop the communist threat until Belize is in a position to take on
this responsibility”; along with a military aid treaty between Belize
and Guatemala, and mutual commitments not to allow the terri-
tory of one to be used by mercenaries intending to invade the other.
Belize would also become a signatory to the Rio Treaty and hope-
fully (for Guatemala) join the Consejo de Defensa Centroamericano
(CONDECA) as well.93
When the experts met in July to examine the 1859 Treaty in search
of a possible solution, Guatemala demanded all land south of Monkey
River in full satisfaction of its claim. When it was made clear that
all proposals involving the cession of land were not on, the meeting
decided that there was little point in searching the treaty’s provisions
for a solution. Indeed, the whole exercise had been a farce from the
beginning, clearly a delaying tactic on the part of Castillo Valdés.94
A few days after that meeting, the House of Representatives in
Belize passed a resolution urging the government of Belize “to ini-
tiate the measures necessary to bring Belize to a safe and secure
independence with or without the agreement of the Government of

Guatemala”; and calling upon the UK
to discharge its responsibility to protect an independent Belize against

the imperialistic demands of the Government of Guatemala for
Belizean land and its threat of military force arising out of the Anglo-
Guatemalan dispute.95
In August 1980 Ridley once again visited Belize and said that
“in New York the Guatemalans put forward some positions which
were not so unreasonable.” He urged Belize to bear in mind “the
balance between the concessions we need to make and going ahead
unilaterally . . . a settlement is better than the risk of going it alone.” 96
Price retorted that
[t]he proposals do not square with the UN resolution for they include
land cession of the Sapodilla and Ranguana Cays and the propos-
als involve a violation of the sovereignty of Belize . . . It was therefore
important to plan for alternative routes to independence.97
Ridley complained that “there is no use negotiating if when

things are negotiated and people go home then what is negotiated is
promptly repudiated.” 98 No agreement between Belize and the UK
emerged from this meeting, but some common positions were agreed
before the next negotiating session scheduled for mid-October.
Before those talks, the CMCB met on September 30, 1980, and
Price emphasized that although Belize would cooperate fully with
Britain in the forthcoming negotiations with Guatemala, it would do
so in accordance with the terms of the UN resolution, and insisted
that if the negotiations failed, “Belize must be prepared to move
on without further delay to independence with a peaceful security
arrangement.” 99 Ridley, who was attending a meeting of the com-
mittee for the first time, confirmed that Britain had come to accept
the “parallel procedures” of negotiations and progress toward inde-
pendence, and hoped that the UN resolution would urge the “con-
tinuation of negotiations and of progress towards independence with
perhaps a terminal date for independence mentioned for the first
time.”100 Rashleigh Jackson, who had become deputy prime minister
and minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana, urged the committee to
also plan as if the negotiations would fail and decide on an appro-
priate resolution and the necessary arrangements to provide for the
future security of Belize.101
Price got strong support from the extraordinary meeting of the

ministers for Foreign Affairs of the NAM, which
reiterated its unconditional support for the early and secure indepen-
dence of Belize with all its territory. It was agreed that the indepen-
dence of Belize should no longer be delayed and that the Non-Aligned
Movement will give its full support to an early time-table for the inde-
pendence of Belize.102
At the negotiating table on October 13, 1980, Castillo Valdés

repeated that a solution that took the territorial aspect into account
must be sought. Ridley noted that pressure was mounting from the
Commonwealth and at the UN for early independence for Belize,
and that
[W]e should see the negotiations in future as being two parallel

courses—one, the process to independence, and the other a series of
negotiations to meet the problems that still remain . . . Some items can
be negotiated now, some in the next few months, some after Belize is
independent, at which time the UK would cease to play a part.103
This was exactly the position that Price had been advancing for years,
which he called “parallel roads”; he stated that he “endorsed” Ridley’s
suggestion.104
Castillo replied that the proposal of parallel roads would be a trag-
edy if negotiations failed to reach a satisfactory solution.105 Ridley
then put forward a set of 17 proposals he had prepared.106 Price
agreed to cooperate on those points, but noted that Belize’s rela-
tions with Central America would be without prejudice to its rela-
tions with CARICOM. The following day Castillo replied that two
things remained critical for Guatemala: territory had to be part of the
solution and Guatemala would not accept unilateral independence,
so that the only road forward was negotiations.107 Premier Price had
the last word:
We want to be independent. On the road to independence we met this

problem between the United Kingdom and Guatemala. You identify
the problem as territorial. In the last century maybe it was possible to
get land from the UK; but they no longer own Belize, so they cannot
give land. It is up to the Belizean people, and we do not want to give
land . . . So, like good politicians, go back and take this message: change
the constitution. Your fight is between you and the UK. The UK, as
a good UN member, will decolonise Belize. So let us live together in
peace, and an independent Belize will be able to help Guatemala.108
The following day, Ridley reported on this meeting to the CMCB;

he stated that land cession was out of the question and that “he was
confident that this was already accepted” by Guatemala. He con-
fessed that “pressure upon UK at the United Nations on the Belize
question had grown into such a momentum that they neither could,
nor cared to, resist it.”109 Ridley asked that the UN resolution avoid
harsh language and do no more than “administer the ‘first shock’ of
setting a date for independence.” Price and Shoman contradicted this
assessment, however, stating that the Guatemalans still insisted on
land cession, and that the resolution should be a strong one.110
The Final UN Resolution

During the debates in the Fourth Committee of the UN in 1980,
Guatemala’s Skinner-Klee stated that “in 1979 the negotiations had
marked time awaiting the outcome of the elections held in the United
Kingdom and Belize,” and that the elections in Belize had revealed the
Opposition (UDP) there to be “a decisive factor,” which did not sup-
port early independence.111 The UDP leader, Dr. Theodore Aranda,
addressed the Fourth Committee and supported Guatemala’s posi-
tion by arguing that Belize should not proceed to independence until
there was a settlement of the dispute, since any defense arrangement
would be uncertain, and “a military solution by itself would tend to
perpetuate the problem.”112
The British delegate stated that his government had sought a nego-
tiated settlement with Guatemala, but that “it would be unfair to
delay any longer the constitutional processes enabling Belize to move
on to independence.”113 And Rogers declared for Belize that during
the negotiations “Guatemala had tried to hold to ransom Belize’s
inalienable right to independence,” but Belize was not prepared to
allow Guatemala to exercise a veto over Belizean independence.114
Trinidad and Tobago, on behalf of 56 cosponsors, including
Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama, then introduced the Caribbean
resolution. The following day, a revised draft of the Belize resolution
was introduced. The Belize government had for the first time engaged
in intense negotiations with the U.S. government on the wording of
the draft; the last-minute changes were agreed in negotiations with
U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young.115 The resolution included two
new critical elements: Belize should become independent by the fol-
lowing year and its territorial integrity should be guaranteed.116 The
resolution was adopted in the Fourth Committee by 130 votes to
1 (Guatemala), with 8 abstentions (Bolivia, Dominican Republic,
El Salvador, Honduras, Israel, Morocco, Paraguay, and Uruguay).

Spain absented itself from the proceedings.117 The most important
development was that, for the first time, the United States voted in
favor of the draft resolution.
The resolution passed to the General Assembly, where it was
voted upon on November 11, 1980, with a recorded vote of 139 to 0
and 7 abstentions—Bolivia, El Salvador, Honduras, Israel, Morocco,
Paraguay, and Uruguay; the Dominican Republic had changed
its vote and supported Belize. Again, Spain did not participate in the
vote, nor did Guatemala.118 All the members of the Security Council
voted for it and no country voted against. The remarkable thing was
that, in the case of Britain, paragraph 6 called on the UK “to con-
tinue to ensure the security and territorial integrity of Belize”; and
in relation to the United States, paragraph 7 called on the relevant
organs of the UN “to facilitate the attainment of independence by
Belize and to guarantee its security and territorial integrity thereaf-
ter.” Both countries were acknowledging that Belize must become
independent in 1981 and that its sovereignty and territorial integrity
should be guaranteed by the UK and the UN. Even more remarkably,
this victory for Belize was capped by the OAS endorsing the resolu-
tion on November 27, by 18 votes in favor, 1 against (Guatemala),
and 7 abstentions (Bolivia, Chile, El Salvador, Uruguay, Paraguay,
Honduras, and Costa Rica).119
Belize now felt that with virtually unanimous support at both
the UN and OAS, it must forge ahead and ensure that it became
independent in 1981. During the debates in the Fourth Committee,
Britain had said that it would do its utmost to ensure that Belize
achieved independence with its territory intact and its sovereignty
assured, but Belize was not yet in the clear, since Britain, despite
the UN resolution, was still refusing to provide a defense guarantee,
arguing that greater efforts must be made to reach a settlement with
Guatemala.
Heading for the Heads of Agreement

A round of negotiations at technical level was held in February
1981. Courtenay headed the Belize delegation; Britain’s team was
led by Derek Day, deputy undersecretary of state in the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Guatemala’s by Jorge Skinner-
Klee, who declared that no solution was possible without land ces-
sion. The only one of Britain’s 17 points that the Guatemalans
showed any real interest in was the “long lease of some southern
cays.” Skinner-Klee said that apart from the Sapodilla cays, the
Ranguana cays and a part of the mainland had to be part of the
lease. Courtenay replied that the concept of a lease was Belize’s
attempt to go as far as possible to meet the Guatemalan demand
for territory, but that it could never include part of the mainland.
Skinner-Klee insisted that Guatemala wanted sovereignty over the
Ranguana and Sapodilla cays, and that they would be willing to
consider any mechanism that gave them some presence on the main-
land. Day put on record that territorial cession had already been
discussed by ministers and was not considered feasible. When Price
was informed that the discussions had broadened to include the
Ranguana cays, which he had not authorized, he directed that the
talks be suspended for consultations.
The talks resumed the following week, with Rogers and Shoman
added to the Belizean team. Rogers had written instructions from
Price, with 14 proposals, all variations on Ridley’s. The delegates con-
centrated on the lease idea. The Belize offer was for one of the cays on
the Sapodilla range, Lime Cay, to be leased to the UK, with authority
to sublet to Guatemala at an economical rent for 20 years. The cay
must not be used for military purposes, and any development must
be agreed by both parties. On the following day, Skinner-Klee com-
plained that the week before “the British side said it was prepared to
consider the lease of certain cays; now it turns into a sub-lease of one
cay because that cay is pretty. Such a proposal is absolutely frivolous,
tinged with insolence and arrogance.” He said the talks were over,
rose along with his delegation and left. He later agreed not to declare
that the negotiations had broken down, and to fix an early date for a
ministerial meeting in London. The stage was set for what was to lead
to the Heads of Agreement.120
The Lancaster House Solution: Heads of Agreement

The British Foreign and Commonwealth secretary, Lord Carrington,
opened the meeting on March 5, 1981 at Lancaster House in London,
defining its objective as
to terminate our trusteeship in conditions which will ensure the secu-

rity and territorial integrity of a nation which is long overdue for inde-
pendence . . . The British and Belizean governments . . . are ready and
anxious to make a major and final effort to settle this issue . . . And
we really must not let this opportunity pass because if we do, in my
judgment, it may well be that there is no other chance.121
The rest of the sessions were conducted by Ridley; the essential

negotiating point was that relating to the scope and nature of the
lease idea.122 Foreign Minister Castillo Valdés argued that the terri-
tory in dispute was the whole of Belize. All the other matters offered
as proposals to solve the dispute were developmental and would occur
anyway, with or without a dispute. Guatemala was making a gen-
erous effort to leave intact the territorial integrity of Belize within
its geographical frontiers and was only asking for the reintegration
to Guatemala of the Ranguana and Sapodilla chains of cays, which
would have the additional value of defining reasonably, logically, and
permanently the territorial waters of the Gulf. Guatemala was ready
to recognize the independence of Belize and cooperate with the new
State, but only the territorial element could solve the dispute.123
Ridley replied that the British side had always made it clear that
“the actual cession of the territory of Belize was not something that
could be contemplated,” but they wished to be flexible on every other
aspect of discussion, and noted that the proposals on the sea bound-
aries would be in perpetuity. Price124 said that as a sign of friendship,
Belize had offered to negotiate a lease of some cays in the Sapodilla
range after independence. This was not proposed as part of a settle-
ment of the differences between Guatemala and Britain, but in appre-
ciation of Guatemala’s acceptance and recognition of the rights of the
Belizean people; the intention of the proposal was to help the gov-
ernment and people of Guatemala to understand that Belize wished
to determine its own future as a Central American nation endowed
with its sovereign territory, and as a good and friendly neighbor to
Guatemala.125
After this, the negotiations developed into a series of short plenary
sessions interspersed by long periods in which Ridley engaged in a
kind of shuttle diplomacy, going from the Belizean to the Guatemalan
delegations in different rooms at Lancaster House and applying pres-
sure first to one side and then to the other, and often relaying to the
plenary sessions compromise solutions that had not been accepted by
either. At the last session on March 6, Ridley said that he felt that a
possible agreement was that there should be no formal transfer of sov-
ereignty but that arrangements should be made for the Ranguana and
Sapodilla cays, wherein Guatemala would enjoy special rights. Castillo
agreed, provided that the agreement would “practically establish all
the rights of sovereignty” for Guatemala. Price said that his delega-
tion would study the new British proposal carefully and go as far as
possible in accordance with Belize’s stated position. The meeting was
adjourned for the weekend.
Over the weekend, the Belizean delegation was subject to intense

pressures from the British side to satisfy as much as possible Guatemala’s
demand for “practical sovereignty” over the Ranguana and Sapodilla
cays. One early British version stated that “Guatemala shall have rights
of possession, use and administration of the Ranguana and Sapodilla
Cays above low-water mark”; it implied that the laws of Guatemala
prevailed on the cays. Another clause stated that Guatemala would
confine military use of the cays to such activity as may contribute to
the defense of Guatemala and Belize—broad scope indeed for mili-
tarization of the cays.126 Over the weekend British officials proposed
several scenarios, including leases with a time limit or in perpetuity, a
lease for a limited purpose, transferring sovereignty and establishing
an “administrative condominium” where control would be exercised
jointly by Guatemala and Belize.127 The Belizean delegation rejected
all these proposals.
On Monday March 9, Ridley submitted a draft paper containing
17 “Heads of Agreement,” which contained considerable detail on
some of the major points, particularly that relating to the cays, which
stated that “Guatemala shall have rights of presence, use and enjoy-
ment of the Ranguana and Sapodilla cays above low-water mark,”
and gave Guatemala “the exclusive right to develop the cays, for tour-
ist purposes and associated commercial development, and such other
peaceful purposes as may be agreed by the Joint High Commission.”
The law of Belize would continue to apply to Belizean and non-
Guatemalan nationals on the cays, but any Guatemalan national
who was alleged to have committed a criminal offense on the cays
would be transferred to the Guatemalan authorities on the basis that
Guatemalan law applied to his conduct on the cays. Ridley acknowl-
edged that Guatemala would be unhappy about restricting use of
the cays to nonmilitary purposes, and also about the applicability of
law. Belizeans wanted Belizean law to apply and Guatemala wanted
Guatemalan law to apply; he had “endeavoured to use the judgment
of Solomon and to cut not the law but the population in half.” He
proposed a lease for 25 years after which the arrangements could be
reviewed, but if they were terminated by Belize then Britain would
quite understand that the Guatemalan claim to Belize would not nec-
essarily be extinguished.128 This came close to being a lease in perpe-
tuity, since unless the lease was renewed Guatemala would be sure to
revive its claim.
Castillo insisted that a solution should be durable and politi-
cally viable, but the drafts presented by Ridley did not incorporate
Guatemala’s point that the Ranguana and Sapodilla cays should be
“practically under the sovereignty of Guatemala.” Skinner-Klee reit-

erated that Guatemala must also have military use of the cays; it was
incongruous for Guatemala to recognize Belize’s full sovereignty
over the mainland but for Belize to impose limits on Guatemala’s use
of the cays. He also questioned the temporary nature of the leases and
the idea that the treaty had to be submitted to periodic review and
revision. In such a case, it would be better for Guatemala to keep its
claim intact and see what would happen in the next 200 years. Ridley
suggested that there be a meeting of lawyers to work through the
legal arguments, for consideration the following day.
Virtually the entire day of March 10, 1981, however, was taken up
with Ridley’s shuttle diplomacy, his major attempts being directed
at pressuring the Belizeans into accepting more of Guatemala’s posi-
tions. When these attempts failed, Ridley refused to allow the talks
to break down, and he prevailed on both Guatemala and Belize to
settle for a document called “Heads of Agreement,” with all details
removed and merely setting out topics for future discussion. The
Belizeans were assured that if despite all efforts no agreement was
reached, Britain would go ahead with the independence of Belize
without a settlement. The plenary session resumed at 6:30 pm, and
a few further amendments to the Heads were made. On the most
conflictive paragraph relating to the cays, the concept of a lease had
been completely removed, and the final version stated “Guatemala
shall have the use and enjoyment of the Ranguana and Sapodilla cays,
and rights in those areas of the sea adjacent to the cays, as may be
agreed.”129 The following morning, March 11, 1981, the Heads of
Agreement were signed by Ridley, Castillo, and Price.
When the Heads of Agreement were published on Monday
March 16, and despite assurances by the government of Belize that
the details had to be negotiated, that the Belize government would
be firm in the negotiations to protect the territorial integrity and sov-
ereignty of Belize, and that any agreed settlement would be submit-
ted to a referendum in Belize, the Opposition party, the civil service,
and other civil organizations expressed their disapproval of the Heads
by strikes and violent demonstrations. These included the forcible
closure of schools, offices, and businesses that continued for several
days. The situation became so critical that on April 2, the gover-
nor, on the advice of the Premier, declared a state of emergency, with
British forces poised to help enforce it.
It is not difficult to understand why so many people in Belize
were disturbed by the Heads of Agreement. In addition to the deep
and abiding distrust of Price that the Opposition had nurtured for
decades and the memories of the Webster mediation, the very ambi-
guity of the document, which for the Belizean negotiators was of
positive value, allowing them to ensure that none of Belize’s positions
would be diluted, provided ammunition for those who interpreted it
to mean that Belize was to be made subordinate to Guatemala and
its southern cays turned over to the enemy. It is also true that the
Belizean leaders were less effective in gaining the understanding and
support of the Belizean people for the Heads of Agreement than
they were in garnering international support. This had the unfortu-
nate effect of Belize moving to independence with its people deeply
divided.
This is not to suggest, however, that the majority of the people
of Belize did not support the government’s move toward indepen-
dence; this had been clearly demonstrated by the results of the 1979
elections. Indeed, it could be asserted that the majority accepted
government’s assurances with respect to the Heads themselves,
especially after it declared that any agreement would be put to a
national referendum. Those who opposed the Heads and indeed
the move to independence at that time were a minority, but a very
strong minority, for three important reasons. First, because the
Opposition was still to a great extent a one-issue party and all its
resources were directed at mobilizing opposition to the Heads and
at stopping the march to independence. Among the resources at its
disposal was a pamphlet published by the Guatemalan government,
which, in an effort to placate its own constituency, interpreted the
Heads as making significant concessions to Guatemala, including
the virtual cession of the cays. Over the years, the Opposition had
conditioned its followers to distrust Price on the Guatemalan issue,
and its constituency had always represented more than 40 percent
of the population, so that the Opposition could count on automatic
significant support on any issue related to Guatemala that it went all
out to denounce. On the government side, on the other hand, the
ministers directly involved in the internationalization process, and
who could convincingly speak to the Belizean people on the issues,
were also in charge of important ministries that took up much of
their time. In addition, their diplomatic activity in 1981 was neces-
sarily at a high pitch, and they were unable to dedicate the time and
effort needed to effectively counter the Opposition’s spin on the
Heads.
Second, opposition to the Heads appeared more significant than
it was because the public officers called a strike that succeeded in
paralyzing virtually all government offices. The civil service had been
hostile to the independence movement from its inception, and the

perception was always that a majority of public officers supported the
Opposition. At the time of the riots generated by the Webster media-
tion proposals in 1966 and 1968 , public officers were at the forefront
in denouncing the Belize government as selling out to Guatemala.
When government offices, and the services they provide, are shut
down for several days, the effect on the population is considerable,
and adds to the perception that something is terribly wrong with the
policies being pursued by government.
Third, there was a small group of people in Belize City who orga-
nized well to use force and the show of force to intimidate people in
businesses and schools and cause them to close their institutions. This
caused a great deal of fear and a sense of insecurity in the population.
But the disturbances were largely confined to Belize City, where the
Opposition concentrated its efforts, although the UDP had support
countrywide for its stand. On the other hand, for example, in the
Cayo district, immediately bordering Guatemala, a “Cayo Defence
Force” was organized around the PUP representative there, with
some 50 men and women bearing firearms supporting the govern-
ment’s position. Indeed, there were many among the leaders as well as
the rank and file of the PUP who urged Price to call a demonstration
and forcibly face down the rioters in Belize City, but he believed that
this would cause a great deal of civic violence and tarnish the image
of a peaceful Belize, and he instead decided to ask the governor to
declare a state of emergency.
The government also enjoyed the tacit support of the workers’
movement, which refused entreaties from the UDP and others to
denounce the Heads. Instead, the United General Workers Union,
the largest and most militant union, which had been actively pushing
the PUP to take independence, organized a series of radio programs
in which they questioned one of the negotiators of the Heads on
details of the agreement and in the end effectively supported the
government’s positions.130 The incidents around the Heads were a
bad moment in Belize’s history, but it was a moment; although some
have tried to represent it, even 25 years later, as a supreme example
of the PUP’s perfidy, the fact is that a mere 4 months after their
publication it became clear that the pronouncements of those who
denounced them as a sell-out were misplaced, when the negotiations
failed and the British announced that their forces would remain
in Belize to guarantee its security. Nor was the government held
to account by the electorate thereafter; the first general elections
defeat of the PUP that occurred in 1984 was in no way affected by
the Heads incident, but was caused by a number of other factors,

principally economic.
Consolidating International Support

After the agreement was signed, the government of Belize moved
quickly to consolidate international support and to position itself to
resist British pressures in the forthcoming negotiations. Already on
March 13, 1981 U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig had written
to Premier Price congratulating him on “reaching an agreement on
the bases for a settlement of the dispute with Guatemala which paves
the way for the early independence of Belize.”131 Shridath Ramphal,
secretary general of the Commonwealth, published a statement on
March 16, welcoming the agreement and pledging Commonwealth
support in the “hard negotiations [that] lie ahead to give flesh to the
bare bones of the Agreement,” and stating that “whatever the out-
come” of the negotiations, Commonwealth leaders looked forward to
welcoming an independent Belize to their meeting in Melbourne later
that year. On March 17, one day after the “Heads” were announced,
the CARICOM foreign ministers held an extraordinary meeting in
Belize. The meeting, registering the changes already being felt with
the advent of the Reagan administration, noted that
the recent perception of Central America as an area in which there are

strong threats to U.S. interests . . . could seriously influence the ques-
tion of whether the U.S. maintains the support so recently given to
Belize. It could also embolden Guatemala despite the recently negoti-
ated accord to embark on new and aggressive initiatives.132
The meeting agreed to several points of action, including mount-

ing a diplomatic campaign to ensure that the United States main-
tained its support for Belize. It also called for working closely with
the Commonwealth to ensure that the technical assistance required
would be forthcoming and to hold Britain to the 1980 UN resolution,
which set parameters for negotiations. They issued the “Declaration of
Belmopan,” which stated that “the following principles and objectives
should govern the negotiation of the treaty or treaties in pursuance of
the Heads of Agreement:
• the independence of Belize must be achieved before the end of

1981 irrespective of the progress of these negotiations;
• the territorial integrity of Belize must be fully respected and
preserved;
• any privileges granted by Belize in a spirit of goodwill and concili-

ation must not derogate from its sovereignty or be of such a nature
as to undermine the promotion of peaceful co-existence and the
development of stable and harmonious relations among the States
of the region.”133
The declaration also stated that it was the responsibility of Britain

to continue to ensure the territorial integrity of Belize and, in concert
with the government of Belize, to pursue appropriate arrangements
to guarantee the security of an independent Belize.
On March 23, 1981, Shoman embarked on a tour of Panama,
Costa Rica, and Nicaragua to inform and seek the advice of those
governments. In Panama, Torrijos suggested that Belize limit the
arrangements on the cays to 10 years if possible, and certainly not
more than 18 years, since “no se puede comprometer el amanecer
del siglo veintiuno.”134 He also suggested that Belize try to involve
Honduras in the negotiations in order to prolong them until after
Belize was independent. He recommended that the “use” of the
cays be practical rather than juridical, and suggested that when it
came time to submit any agreement to a referendum the government
should neither defend nor attack it, but rather explain fully what was
being gained and what was being lost, and let the people decide: “el
pueblo tiene hambre de historia. Hay que llenar un momento político
con la participación del pueblo.”135 His last recommendation was that
Belize seize the moment and seek to resolve the dispute once and for
all: “la historia es como un proyectil—no te pasa dos veces.”136 Shoman
went on to Costa Rica where he explained Belize’s positions to the
foreign minister, and then to Nicaragua, where he conferred with
Foreign Minister Miguel D’Escoto, who was originally concerned
about the Belize position, but was reassured that Belize would be
firm in the negotiations and strictly abide by the UN resolution. He
made several suggestions about how to deal with Honduras and with
the other countries in Central America, and reaffirmed Nicaragua’s
full support for Belize’s positions.
On March 28, 1981 the premier made a statement to the House of
Representatives affirming that
[o]ur participation in the Anglo-Guatemalan negotiations and the

signing of the London document . . . does not in any way affect our
right to independence or our exercise of that right. The independence
of Belize is set on an irreversible course and it cannot be derailed or
delayed by the negotiations foreseen in the Heads of Agreement.137
The long-awaited constitutional conference for the independence

of Belize was held at Marlborough House in early April. The Belize
delegation was led by Rogers, as Price remained in Belize to deal with
the difficult situation and the state of emergency. The Opposition
boycotted the conference, which was presided over by Ridley and
which emerged with an agreed constitution for the independent
Belize but with no date fixed for independence, as Britain was still
intent on first having the Heads of Agreement negotiated and the
dispute with Guatemala brought to an end. Ridley visited Belize in
May to press the government to accommodate Guatemala, especially
with regard to the waters and the cays, but he made no headway. He
refused to agree a date for independence until after the negotiations
either resulted in agreement or breakdown, but in a press conference
at the end of his visit on May 7, he said that “it is not an option for
Belize to remain a British colony,” thereby undercutting the argu-
ment of the Opposition that it would be better to remain a colony for
at least 10 years.
Before the negotiations on the Heads, the Belizean delegation
met with P. J. Patterson, the former foreign minister of Jamaica, and
his partner R. C. Rattray, retained as consultants for Belize by the
Commonwealth Secretariat. They agreed that the Heads were to be
interpreted as narrowly as possible; that Belize would cede no ter-
ritory to Guatemala; that it would allow Guatemala only so much
and no more of Belizean territorial seas as would be necessary to
ensure Guatemala’s unimpeded access to the high seas under inter-
national law; that after independence Belize would claim a 12-mile
territorial sea limit. With regard to the cays, the “use and enjoyment”
would be such as were already being enjoyed: swimming, sport fish-
ing, and general touristic use; no military use was to be allowed of
the cays or of any other facility covered by the Heads, whether roads,
oil pipelines, ports, or whatever, and it must be made clear that full
sovereignty resided in Belize. Any proposals which did not conform
to sovereignty and territorial integrity for Belize must be rejected,
and it must be made clear that the independence of Belize was a mat-
ter separate from the negotiations.138 Most of these points were later
accepted by the British.139
The first meetings of the Joint Commission to negotiate the Heads
of Agreement were held in New York from May 20 to 28, 1981. The
Guatemalans sought to get as much territory as possible; they argued
that the island at the mouth of the Sarstoon, which was regarded as
belonging to Belize, should become part of Guatemala. They also
argued for a large area of sea becoming Guatemalan territorial sea and
for them to have the use of the cays as if for all practical purposes they
belonged to Guatemala. Free port rights and the oil pipelines were
to be given in perpetuity and Guatemala would have rights to police
them, as well as rights to the use of Belizean roads. In particular, they
would be able to use the cays and waters for defense purposes. On
those matters it was impossible to reach agreement; agreed texts were
achieved in relation to other Heads. It was agreed to meet again in
London in mid-June.
In early June, Shoman and Musa were dispatched to Central
American and CARICOM countries respectively. Torrijos agreed
with Belize’s position on the cays, but advised that Belize should have
several alternatives to keep throwing out in negotiations, so that the
ball would be in the Guatemalan court when the whistle blew.140
Musa’s visits to Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados, and Jamaica consoli-
dated support for Belize’s positions, and the foreign ministers prof-
fered advice as well as practical technical assistance in several areas.141
V. H. Courtenay, who had been dispatched to Washington, met with
Thomas Enders, undersecretary of state elect in the State Department,
who told him that Belize must be more flexible in the negotiations;
in particular it should seek to meet Guatemala’s complaint that Belize
was not prepared to give anything of value on the sea passage, and
that Belize’s offer was a ridiculous one-mile passageway, thus reduc-
ing what Guatemala was already enjoying. He suggested that Belize
limit its territorial seas in the south to three miles. Enders also pressed
Belize to allow Guatemalan coast guard or police patrols in the cays.
He said that the U.S. government was prepared to offer Belize bilat-
eral economic and military aid when it became independent if there
was a settlement. Courtenay told him that Belize was willing to be
more flexible on the territorial seas, but that it could not agree to any
military use of the cays.142
In London, however, the British government was vacillating on
that and other issues, fearful of precipitating a Guatemalan military
reaction if Belize were to become independent without a settlement.
Although Ridley had declared in the House on June 30 that the UK
intended “to make arrangements for the security of Belize which will
be appropriate in the circumstances, whatever they may be,”143 the
British still planned to push for a settlement with Guatemala before
independence. Ridley summoned the CMCB ambassadors in London
to a meeting at the FCO in July, and told them that progress in the
talks over the past 18 months “had surpassed the British govern-
ment’s most sanguine expectations. Guatemala had made conces-
sion after concession in the negotiations leading up to the Heads of
Agreement,” and he was surprised that opposition to the Heads had

come from Belize and not from Guatemala. He informed the ambas-
sadors that Belize had asked for independence on September 21, even
if the treaty was not complete, which was totally unacceptable to
Guatemala; “HMG had therefore decided that the treaty and referen-
dum must precede independence.” He explained:
HMG had put an enabling Independence Bill before Parliament.

HMG would, however, insist that there should be a Treaty before inde-
pendence. If negotiations failed, or if the referendum threw out the
Treaty, a very serious situation would develop which Guatemala would
not take lying down. U.S. arms would begin to flow to Guatemala by
the end of the year. In such a situation he doubted that HMG could
be persuaded to leave British troops in Belize.144
Ridley added that the United States had been very supportive, but
its attitude might be different if the treaty negotiations failed. He
opined that Belize should agree to give Guatemala a wider sea cor-
ridor and allow quasimilitary use of the cays. When pressed, he said
Britain would be prepared to proceed with independence even if the
treaty talks broke down, but added that “if the Treaty was wrecked by
Belize either through the Treaty talks or through the referendum . . . it
should not be taken for granted that the British army would defend
Belize.”145 On the other hand, if the talks failed because Guatemala
was “palpably at fault,” Britain would honor security undertakings to
see Belize through. But he then repeated that Britain would not be
able to defend Belize if the treaty were rejected by referendum, and
appealed to the members of the CMCB to exercise whatever influence
they could on Belize.
When the Belizeans received the report of this meeting, they knew
they had to conduct themselves in the negotiations in such a way as
to appear to be making concessions, but in the end ensure that the
talks failed and that the Guatemalans be held responsible, by their
intransigence, for that failure.
The second session of the Joint Commission was held on July 6,
1981 in New York. Ridley, Castillo, and Price attended, but no meet-
ing of the Joint Commission took place. In private meetings, under
very heavy pressure from the British, the Belize delegation agreed
to offer to maintain its existing three-mile limit in the south, but
with the clear understanding that all the seas between the islands
and the shore were internal waters. It did not budge on the question
of the sovereignty or use of the cays. Guatemala, on the other hand,
continued to insist on virtual cession to them of the cays in perpetu-

ity and for them to be able to use the cays for military purposes.146 It
became clear that no agreement would be possible, and the meeting
adjourned with a Joint Communiqué that recognized that the talks
did not lead to final agreement but that existing channels of com-
munication between the participating governments should continue
to be used. It concluded that “the Ministers reaffirmed their desire
to promote and preserve peace in the Region and are determined to
build upon the understanding and respect which have been created at
this and earlier meetings.”147
The communiqué was a signal to the international community that
the negotiations were being brought to an end, that Belize would
nonetheless proceed to independence and that Guatemala would
not seek to disturb the peace in the region by threatening to pre-
vent Belize’s independence by force or the threat thereof. In a sense
the Guatemalans played into the hands of the Belizeans, who were
banking on their being intransigent with respect to territorial cession.
This allowed Price, who had indeed made the important concession
of maintaining a part of Belize’s future territorial seas at the existing
three miles limit,148 to convince the British that it was Guatemala that
had forced a breakdown in the talks and that Britain should honor its
commitment in the UN resolution and to the Commonwealth that
the UK would secure Belize’s independence. The Guatemalans, in
any case, had painted themselves into a tight corner; their repeated
declarations over the years that Belize belonged to Guatemala and
that it was the duty of the government and the military to recover it
at all costs, and the fact that this claim was entrenched in their con-
stitution, made it politically impossible for their government to agree
to do otherwise. It would take a “strong man” to defy the weight of
that history, and General Romeo Lucas was such a strong man: he
had taken the unprecedented step, shortly after assuming presidential
office in 1978, to publicly declare that Guatemala would have to be
satisfied with a small part of Belize’s territory, but even he was unable
to agree to not get any territory at all. As the FCO’s Patrick Duff had
suggested five years earlier, the Guatemalans would find it easier to
accept that the UK grant independence to Belize unilaterally rather
than to have to justify their “surrender” by agreement. In the new
circumstances where the British government had publicly declared in
Parliament its determination to make Belize independent that year
and to provide the necessary security arrangements, the Guatemalan
government recognized that, given Britain’s superior force and its
clear intention to use it, it would be folly to continue to engage in
saber-rattling. Furthermore, by July 1981 the U.S. government had

decided that, given the turmoil in Central America, it was in its best
interest to have the Belize issue resolved as quickly as possible. The
Thatcher government was more disposed to use its military muscle
in pursuit of its interests than was the Labor government under
Callaghan. The upshot was that Britain, with a wink and a nod from
the United States, and with Guatemalan acquiescence, proceeded
to make preparations to have its military forces remain in Belize to
defend it against any possible Guatemalan invasion.
All that remained was for Britain to agree on the date of indepen-
dence and on the security arrangements for the independent Belize.
Already, even before the July negotiating sessions, Ridley had told the
House of Commons that
Her Majesty’s Government intend to make arrangements for the future

security of Belize which will be appropriate in the circumstances,
whatever they may be.149
Price addressed the people of Belize on July 14, and explained

that it had been impossible to reach agreement but that Belize would
proceed to independence with a suitable security guarantee. Attempts
would continue, either before or after independence, to convert the
Heads of Agreement into treaties of settlement.150 Price held talks in
London with Ridley on July 22, and on his return summoned to his
home those members of Cabinet who had worked most closely with
him on the issue over the years—C. L. B. Rogers, V. H. Courtenay,
Assad Shoman, and Said Musa—and told them that the British were
only prepared to commit forces to defend Belize for up to nine months
after independence, and asked whether Belize should accept this offer.
There was hardly any discussion; all agreed that Belize should move
forward to independence even with such a limited time-frame for its
defense, convinced that as long as a real threat remained, it would be
virtually impossible for Britain to simply pack its guns and go home
after nine months. Of course, it would have been impossible to make
this fact known: it would endanger Belize’s security and probably
lead to another round of civil commotion, which is why Price did not
share that knowledge with any other members of Cabinet. Instead,
he called a convention of the PUP where he read a “Statement on
Defence” agreed with the British government:
It was agreed that British forces would remain in Belize after indepen-
dence for an appropriate period . . . It was further agreed that certain
countries in the region would be invited to participate in arrangements

with the United Kingdom under which, in the event of armed attack
against Belize, they would consult together to consider what measures
should be taken in relation to such an attack.151
Price announced that “in pledge of this defence commitment and

in readiness for any eventuality, the British government is arrang-
ing for the number of Harriers in Belize to be restored to its for-
mer strength by the end of this month.” He then announced that “it
has been agreed that the date for the independence of Belize will be
Monday, the twenty-first day of September, 1981.”
He also revealed that on his way back from London he had met in
Washington with Enders, who assured him that the U.S. government
looked forward to having close and friendly relations with Belize and
would provide economic and security assistance. The United States,
said Price, would augment its presence in Belize and support its ter-
ritorial integrity, while urging Belize and Guatemala to settle their
differences peacefully. From Washington Price flew to Mexico City,
where he was assured of Mexico’s “continuing firm support for the
early and secure independence of Belize in 1981 with all its territory
intact.”152
The struggle for the independence of Belize was over; all that
remained was for the formalities to be carried out.153 The indepen-
dence ceremony was attended by delegates from 63 countries: 11 at
the level of Heads of state or government, 23 at ministerial level and
the rest at ambassadorial level. In addition, representatives were pres-
ent from 14 regional and international organizations, including the
UN, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the European
Economic Community (EEC), though not the OAS.154 The extent of
the international interest in Belize’s independence can be measured
by the fact that there were almost 200 journalists representing the
world media.155 The Guatemalan government, meanwhile, had closed
its consulate in Belize City a few days before, and on September 20,
issued a statement denouncing Britain for stripping Guatemala
of its territory and, by the farce of independence, creating a weak
state to face the just claims of Guatemala, which would continue to
fight firmly for the return of its territory by all peaceful means that
international law and practice allowed it.156
Belize did not relax its diplomatic offensive; it contrived to get a
“Commonwealth Consultative Declaration” issued on September 21,
in which Canada joined Britain and five CARICOM countries
in “pledging their readiness to consult together in the event of
an -externally organised or supported armed attack on Belize.”157

That same day, Belize sent a telegram to the secretary general of the
OAS applying for membership of that organization, and it engaged its
CARICOM colleagues in the OAS to move that Belize be invited to
the General Assembly to be held in Saint Lucia in December. At the
meeting on September 23, the Guatemalan delegate objected to the
invitation, and demanded a roll-call vote. Guatemala was defeated by
24 votes to 1, it being the only country to vote against the motion.
On September 25, Belize was accepted as the 156th member of the
UN. It still had the Guatemalan claim hanging over its head, but its
strategy of decolonization by internationalization had been crowned
with success.
Chapter 8
Conclusions: The Power of

the Conjuncture
T he history of Belize’s achievement of independence shows that it

was the adoption of the strategy of internationalization that made it
possible for a small and geopolitically insignificant country to attain
its objective despite the opposition of Guatemala and the efforts of
the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States to compromise its
sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Although Britain had agreed in 1961 that Belize could become
independent whenever it wished, the UK became a major obstacle to
the attainment of that independence by its insistence on reaching a
negotiated settlement with Guatemala rather than granting a defense
guarantee. As Caribbean delegates decried in United Nations (UN)
debates, the promise of independence was “empty” without the pro-
vision of security.
British obsession with reaching a negotiated settlement led them
to flights of wishful thinking, forever affirming their belief in the
“good faith” of the Guatemalans, although all the evidence pointed
against this. At the same time, their hounding of Price in the 1950s,
accusing him of selling out the country “lock, stock and barrel” and
creating suspicions about his patriotism among a large and vocal
Belizean minority, came back to haunt the British. Governor Posnett
commented in 1975 that
[i]t is a sobering thought that 16 years ago the British Government sacked
Price from the Executive and Legislative Councils for having the disloyal
temerity to talk to the Guatemalans about a possible settlement, and not
perhaps surprising if he takes it less than kindly when now pressed to
expose himself to political risk by giving them a slice of his territory!1
Indeed, Price often used the possible reaction of the Opposition as

justification for rejecting a British proposal he would not have agreed
to anyway. Perhaps Rowlands took a page out of his book when he
told Molina that Price had caused domestic problems for the UK
through his lobbying there, making it more difficult for the UK to
agree to Guatemala’s proposals.
In the 1960s, Britain was eager to disengage from its remaining colo-
nial responsibilities, and especially to reduce its military commitments.
Gone were the hesitations about “viability” and “readiness,” although
officials warned against premature withdrawal where this would create
a vacuum for other powers to move in, thus damaging British prestige.
Britain’s attempts to get Belize to independence met with Guatemalan
resistance, and when bilateral negotiations failed it turned to the United
States to provide a solution. The U.S. mediation proposals would have
allowed Guatemala to effectively dominate Belize, and when the people
of Belize rejected this, the British for a while seemed intent on going
ahead with independence against Guatemala’s objections, with the
apparent approval of the United States. In 1969 Belize seemed poised
to attain early independence, but the obstacle then thrown up was
the refusal of the British government to provide a defense guarantee.
Just the year before, Wilson had announced the abandonment of the
“unique” world power role of the UK and embraced fortress Europe,
and the “no defense guarantee” position hardened as time went by into
something of a dogma that it would be heresy to defy.
But the British were still intent on getting out of Belize. The
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) officials of the 1970s
claim to have felt, in relation to the remaining colonies,
a tremendous sense of loyalty, that we had to do the right thing by all
these countries, which hadn’t asked to come into being by themselves,
we had brought them into being and we had to bring them to the next
stage.2
The readiness of British officials to sacrifice Belizean territory can

thus be understood by their desire to rid themselves of their respon-
sibilities to Belize (or to honor their commitment to decolonize) and
their conviction that this was the only way to do it without violating
UK defense policy. But Price had a different road map: immediately
after the end of mediation he began to press the UK for early inde-
pendence with a defense guarantee, and when that was denied he
embraced the strategy of internationalization.
It is understandable that the British baulked at this; their experience
with the UN on decolonization matters had not been pleasant. They
CONCLUSIONS 189
feared that they would be given a pounding not only by the Latin
Americans but by the Africans as well who had consistently pilloried
them for their policies and actions in Africa. They anticipated a poor
reception at the Fourth Committee, expecting parallels to be drawn
with the Falklands and Gibraltar, which would have resulted in little
support for Belize and much embarrassment for the UK. They were
wrong, and Price refused to be swayed by their arguments. Instead
he opted for the UN route despite Britain’s doubts, and with the help
of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries. Only when it was
realized that Britain would look even worse if Belize went to the UN
and lobbied against it as well as Guatemala did the British govern-
ment reconsider and agree to support Belize’s strategy.
But Britain’s conduct of the negotiations and especially the tactic
of having private talks with Guatemalan leaders and sidelining formal
talks, haggling with them about how much territory should be the
price for peace, made it much harder for Belize to achieve its goals.
British ministers encouraged the Guatemalans to ignore the provisions
of the UN resolutions, gave them assurances that “there would be no
UDI,” that the UK would not give Belize a defense guarantee and
even that Belize would not go to independence without a settlement.
For many years, under Labor as well as Conservative governments,
the UK had consistently held that its defense policy did not allow it to
provide a military guarantee for an independent Belize, but in 1980 it
changed its position and so enabled Belize to accede to independence.
Why did this occur? Clearly the support for Belize at the UN created
immense pressure on any British government, but the fact is that the
decision to reverse the policy was taken by a Conservative government
only a few months after it assumed office. This may have happened
anyhow, because of how the issue had developed after years of intense
diplomatic activity at the UN. But there does seem to have been a mate-
rial difference in the approach of the two parties with regard to their
willingness to commit British forces. Callaghan had been unwilling to
do so in order to bring an end to the Rhodesian crisis, but Thatcher
did not hesitate. And many have wondered whether Labor would have
gone to war in the Falklands. There are indeed good grounds for spec-
ulating that the divergence in approach of the two parties did make a
difference, and this has been reluctantly admitted by two of the key
Labor players in the negotiations. Rowlands notes that
negotiating was very much the Callaghan stance . . . he had an ultra-

cautious view about committing forces, but at the same time an ada-
mant belief that he had to defend Belize [while a colony] . . . Ridley
took the chance at independence that the Guatemalans wouldn’t react;

our assessment was that they would react seriously to any unilateral
declaration . . . So I guess we were ultra-cautious in Belize, because as it
turned out we could have faced them down.3
Richard admits that “in a sense, yes, we lost five years, and we
have to give the Conservatives credit for biting that particular bullet.”
He referred to the case of Cyprus “where the UK was technically a
guarantor of territorial integrity,” but where “Wilson and Callaghan
were not keen to use military force.” He concludes that “the Tories
are more inclined to use the defence card.”4
But there may have been more to it than the Conservatives’ bravado.
It is likely that in 1980 the U.S. government had decided to seek a
speedy end to the dispute, which was causing it unnecessary embarrass-
ment and diversion in the region at a time when guerrilla movements
were in power (in Nicaragua) and in the ascendancy (in El Salvador).
Washington probably indicated to London that the UK should assume
the responsibility for defending an independent Belize, thinking also
that it would prevent Cuba from using the territory for subversive pur-
poses. When Ridley told Price in May 1980 that Britain was ultimately
prepared to grant independence without an agreement with Guatemala,
he confided that he had been working closely with the United States
and that he expected more help from them in the future; their only real
concern, he warned, was the possibility of Cuban influence.
In July 1981, then, it was not surprising that the U.S. government
assured Price that it would provide security as well as economic assis-
tance and support Belize’s territorial integrity. Moreover, just four
months after Belize’s independence, when the British defense blanket
presumably had just about another five months to run, the United
States made it clear to Britain that it wanted British troops to stay in
Belize. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had sent officials to the
United States to discuss Trident, but she notes that the U.S. govern-
ment “also pressed for an extension of our armed forces’ engagement in
Belize, which has now become a virtually permanent commitment.”5
And in 1984, it was reported that “a nervous American government
is virtually begging Britain to postpone, indefinitely, its eventual
withdrawal of the 1,800 British forces now based in Belize.”6
The United States was certainly a most important influence on
events throughout the period. Although Washington kept insisting
that it was impartial in the dispute, the United States clearly favored
Guatemala’s positions, as is evident from the proposals they promoted
from Webster to Vance. They made it clear that Guatemala had a
CONCLUSIONS 191
strategic importance for them, while Belize was seen as another pro-
spective unviable small state in the region that would be susceptible to
Cuban influence. And although the U.S. government kept protesting
that they were not in the business of providing solutions to the dis-
pute, neither Kissinger nor Vance was shy about making quite specific
recommendations to Britain for its resolution, recommendations that
took greater account of Guatemalan “interests” than Belizean rights.
What turned out to be extremely fortunate for Belize, however,
was that Carter appointed Andrew Young as his ambassador to the
UN, and he
was a man who personally always maintained an anti-colonialist and

progressive position. He knew a lot about the issues of the day relating
to the liberation struggles in Africa and also about Belize, and gener-
ally assumed positions that were respectful, correct and positive.7
In addition, and despite the Cold War, U.S. policy and the style
of negotiations during the Carter presidency were “much more sensi-
tive to the international community and to the UN than any other
administration before or after,” so that it was a difficult moment for
the extreme right in Latin America, since the official representation of
the United States at the UN did not correspond with the traditional
U.S. position of supporting authoritarian regimes in Latin America.8
When Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, major changes were
expected, and the Caribbean allies of Belize worried that time was
running out, as they indicated at their meeting in Belmopan after the
Heads of Agreement. It was the luck of Belize’s independence move-
ment that it was able to take advantage of the policy inertia during
the brief period after Carter and while the Reagan policies had not yet
taken root. One year later Reagan’s policies were firmly established,
his obsession with communism in Central America and the Caribbean
was paramount, and he would most likely have not supported Belize’s
unfettered independence in defiance of Guatemala.
Part of the reason why Belize was successful at the UN was that
Guatemala’s diplomacy was ineffective. Guatemala’s ambassador at the
UN in 1975 has said that his country’s positions were excessively legal
and formalistic, ignoring the essential social and political factors of
Belize, Guatemala, and the region.9 At that time, he notes, Guatemalan
politics was dominated by ultranationalist values, which affected not
only the political leaders but also the press, and favored radical posi-
tions and intransigent attitudes. The Guatemalan discourse was obso-
lete; it maintained prewar positions that clashed with the new currents
of thought. Belize, in contrast, developed its policies with great skill;

Guatemala would arrive late at all the forums that the Belizeans had
already approached. In addition, Guatemala’s foreign policy decisively
influenced the negative reaction of the majority of UN members, in
particular because of Guatemala’s support for the United States in all
areas, its association with Israel and its isolation from the Africans.10
Away from international forums, however, the Guatemalans were
heartened by the readiness of the UK and the United States to sup-
port land cession, and once they knew these major players supported
the principle of territorial concessions, they kept pushing for as much
as they could get.11 In addition, U.S. reliance on Guatemala as its stra-
tegic stronghold in Central America encouraged its leaders to believe
that they could take all manner of extreme positions on Belize and
not lose U.S. support. They were also very adept at using the Cuba
card to create a knee-jerk reaction from the United States, although
Francisco Villagrán Kramer insists that the Guatemalan leaders them-
selves had a real fear of Cuban subversion.12 As to whether, for all their
excessive saber-rattling, the Guatemalan government ever intended to
carry out the invasion threats in the 1970s, we shall probably never
know. Dunkerley posits that
while the Belize issue gave a certain frisson to saber-rattling, the esca-
lation of stentorian claims and intermittent incursions over the border
into a full-scale invasion was not a compelling proposition for any but
the wilder elements of the officer corps who believed that they should
act as boldly as they talked.13
But Kissinger seemed to have been convinced in 1977 that there

was a real threat of invasion, and we know that had the Guatemalans
invaded southern Belize in 1975, British forces would have been unable
to prevent their holding a piece of territory, and, as the British com-
mander there said, “it is likely that there would be pressure from UN
for a cease fire and the Guatemalans would be left holding the terri-
tory they desire.”14 And the Guatemalans must have thought that the
U.S. government would not take measures to force them to withdraw;
even the British governor allowed that “the attitude of the USA would
probably be equivocal.”15 If indeed the Guatemalans had considered
invading, they vacillated too long; the British reinforced the garrison
and the Guatemalans lost their chance. As Rowlands has reflected,
referring to the later Falklands war, “we didn’t see the Argentines
coming.”16 Luckily for Belize, they at least thought they saw the
Guatemalans coming. But former vice president Villagrán claims that
they did not actually intend to invade, that it was simply “a tactic of
CONCLUSIONS 193
the Guatemalan powers to change the attitude of the Belizeans in the

negotiations and to put Britain under political pressure.”17
As we have seen, however, this tactic failed to influence the
Belizeans either in negotiations or in international forums. This was
due in large part to the role played by Price in pursuing the goal of
independence. Robert Pastor marvels that although many U.S. poli-
ticians, and U.S. public opinion, were viscerally opposed to “giving
away the Canal,” Torrijos helped to persuade two-thirds of the U.S.
Senate to support the treaties that eventually returned the territory
to Panama, and concludes that “an effective policy by a small nation
can influence a nation as powerful as the United States . . . the size of
the nation is less important than its leader’s approach.”18 Panama, of
course, was hugely important to the United States, while Belize was a
nuisance for Britain and a sideshow for the United States. But Price’s
strength was his appeal to high principle and his holding the British
to account for their historical responsibility, combined with his astute
political savvy, his knack for taking advantage of the conjuncture,
his stubbornness and single-mindedness, his total dedication to the
cause. When he latched on to the idea of a defense guarantee, then no
matter how many times, or how firmly, successive British administra-
tions assured him that this was impossible, he never let go, and kept
repeating the mantra until he eventually began to win converts.
Price was also quite ingenious in using the very weapons ranged
against him to his advantage. To the concern that an independent
Belize could fall prey to Cuban infiltration against Guatemala, he
suggested that the maintenance of British troops would effectively
counter that apprehension—and he seemed to have finally convinced
both the UK and the United States of the logic of that position. The
Belizeans were also resourceful enough to take advantage of certain
undercurrents in international relations that are always left unspoken
but which have tremendous force in influencing people’s reactions.
One case in point is the use of the “race card” against Guatemala. At
Price’s first intervention in the Fourth Committee, he took time to
define the Belizean identity, and emphasized its African and indig-
enous roots as well as its close affinity with the black Caribbean
nations. Belize’s lobbying also highlighted this, and linked it to the
endemic racism of the Guatemalan elite against the indigenous major-
ity in their own country and against black people, and quoted from
those leaders and from the Guatemalan press to prove the point.
The British also recognized this: “it would be extremely embarrass-
ing for U.S. Latin American policies to appear to be backing the
takeover of a small black democratic country by a right wing mili-
tary dictatorship.”19 Maldonado Aguirre has admitted that “some
imprudent politicians expressed themselves as if the only thing that

mattered to Guatemala was the territory and not the people. Race was
indeed a factor in shaping the political image emitted by Guatemala
at the UN.”20 Michla Pomerance has suggested that the massive UN
support for Belize “may not be unrelated to the fact that Belize’s
population . . . consists mainly of Creoles, Mayas and Caribs, and thus
qualifies for the ‘indigenous’ label.”21
What was extremely important in Belize’s successful implementation
of its internationalization strategy was that Price, despite his well-known
history of opposition to the West Indies Federation, was very much
respected and admired by the Caribbean leaders; he won their affection
by his humble bearing as much as by his stubborn stand against the
British, and he was careful throughout the 1970s to constantly seek,
and most often follow, their advice. This was critical because, as Alarcón
points out, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados,
despite their small size, had tremendous influence at the UN and in inter-
national forums, and enjoyed very friendly relations with African and
Asian countries, who would seek their advice on all matters affecting the
region. The committed support of the Caribbean countries, and the great
competence of their representatives at the UN, was absolutely indispens-
able to the success of Belize’s strategy.22 Furthermore, the support given
to Belize by CARICOM was qualitatively superior to what the Central
American states could give to Guatemala. The Central American coun-
tries were riddled with territorial and other disputes among themselves.
Their relations were plagued by rivalries and jealousies, especially against
Guatemala, and in many cases they were preoccupied by states of virtual
civil war. CARICOM, by contrast, was an extremely cohesive group in
its foreign policy agenda and it decided to go all out in support of Belize,
which became a test case and a cause célèbre for the new organization.
The fact that Guyana also had a pending claim to part of its territory
from a neighboring Latin American country served to heighten interest
in Belize’s cause among CARICOM nations.
Belize was also favored by the significant support given to it by
Mexico and especially by Panama’s Torrijos, which resulted in com-
pletely fracturing Latin American solidarity for Guatemala. After
the victory of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the balance tipped
convincingly in Belize’s favor.
For Belize, the strategy of seeking incremental support, first in
CARICOM, next in the Commonwealth, and then in the Non-
Aligned Movement (NAM) as stepping stones to the UN, followed by
inroads to the Spanish-speaking countries of the region, was crucial
to guarantee success at the UN. The nature of the UN resolutions,
CONCLUSIONS 195
which subordinated bilateral negotiations to international principles,

had the effect of tying Britain’s hands in the negotiations. This made
it impossible to reach a settlement, which meant that the only way
forward under the conditions demanded by the UN was by way of a
defense guarantee. This indeed was what the final resolution in 1980
called for, and, remarkably, both Britain and the United States voted
for it, along with almost every member country of the UN.
A fundamental explanation of how Belize succeeded in achieving
a secure independence in 1981 is the importance of the conjuncture:
the specific combination of events and conditions in the key coun-
tries, the region, and in the world, each of which contributed to the
end result, and without any of which it is highly unlikely that such a
result would have ensued.
Twice in a decade—in 1969 and again in 1979—it seemed that the
PUP would lose national elections and the new government would put
the brakes on the move to independence. Indeed, if that had occurred,
it is more than likely that Belize would never again have been able to
achieve independence with all its territory, with no limitations on its
sovereignty, and with a defense guarantee. Had Labor won the elections
in 1979, it may not have committed British troops to defend Belize.
Had Torrijos not been consumed by the desire to return the Canal
and its territories to his country and seen the need to support Belize
in the NAM and UN, had the Sandinista Revolution not triumphed
when it did, had the Commonwealth Secretariat not been headed by a
Guyanese who was totally committed to the Belize cause and who had
the passion and skill to steer that organization effectively in pressuring
Britain to do the right thing, had the international climate not been
one in which the NAM and the UN were at the height of their influ-
ence in world affairs, the story might well have ended differently. A year
later, with Reaganism on the ascendancy, the world had changed.
However, favorable conjunctures can exist without being taken
advantage of. What clinched success for Belize was its conscious deter-
mination to “internationalize” its independence struggle. An impor-
tant stepping stone that made the strategy of internationalization
possible was that Belize wrested from the UK the right to pursue an
activist foreign policy agenda, and have foreign relations with countries
at the highest level, long before it became independent; this surely was
unique in the annals of decolonization. To a large extent, the External
Affairs Committee in Belize was its Foreign Ministry, and although
the governor was the titular chairman, the decisions were made by
the Belizeans; they ran the show. Price even appointed a “minister of
state” to function in effect as his foreign minister. True, the British
sometimes complained about the assumption by Belize of foreign

affairs functions that constitutionally were the purview of the UK
alone, and tried to rein in Price when they thought he was going too
far, as with his push for a multilateral force, but the fact is that it also
suited them, since Belize could get support for its own independence
where Britain could not. As Rowlands has commented,
[y]ou guys, you were fantastic; you weren’t supposed to have diplo-
macy or a foreign policy, but you did. The Commonwealth was a
very important pressure point on us. You were obviously interested
in opening several fronts. We didn’t want that; there was a difference,
because we didn’t know how it would play, how it would affect the
negotiations, or the U.S. They were useful pressure points, but we
didn’t want them to get out of hand; it wasn’t in our interest to have
the issue opened up on too many fronts. 23
But the Belizeans persisted in opening as many fronts as were nec-

essary to realize their strategy, including those that were forever hid-
den from the British, such as direct contacts with the guerrillas in
Guatemala 24 and clandestine meetings with the Cubans. The biggest
front, of course, was the UN itself, which the British strongly resisted
at first; Rowlands admits that “we didn’t want to go, but on balance
I think you ran us rather than we ran you.”25 The Belizeans were obvi-
ously only able to “run” the British because they allowed it, a reflec-
tion of the particular nature of British colonialism and decolonization
policy. It might not have worked with, say, Holland or Portugal, but
an important consideration was that Britain still hankered for world
power status at the time, and was very much concerned with the con-
cept of “prestige.” And so, apart from not wanting to appear to vio-
late international principles in relation to one of its last remaining
colonial charges, it also basked in the glow of international approval
for the Belize cause. As Rashleigh Jackson commented in 1977,
[t]oday the situation is such that the British basically swim along with
the international current. They naturally enjoy being identified with
the mainstream. 26
Still, Belize’s unrelenting international campaign forced Britain to

take the path it had resisted for so long, as Ridley confessed: “pressure
upon UK at the United Nations on the Belize question had grown
into such a momentum that [the British] neither could, nor cared to,
resist it.”27
The story of Belize’s struggle for independence, then, is the story
of a tiny state that outmaneuvered two major powers and a regional
CONCLUSIONS 197
power by opting for the strategy of internationalization, using skilled

negotiation, diplomacy, and coalition building, and taking advantage
of a fortunate international environment. The Belize case demonstrates
how dispute settlement can be sidelined (the dispute with Guatemala
is still far from being settled even in 2010) and subordinated to the
exercise of the right to self-determination and independence.
* * *
An empirical analysis of the Belize case demonstrates that a simple

state-centered perspective fails to explain it. A priori it would have been
expected that the interests of larger powers—Guatemala, the UK and
the United States—should have prevailed over those of a small and
resource-poor country such as Belize, which had no military or eco-
nomic resources worthy of the name, a tiny population, and no prior
experience in diplomatic maneuverings. Yet by the early 1980s the
Guatemalan threat had been effectively extinguished. Belize achieved
this notable success because its leaders seized the opportunity that inter-
national institutions afforded to small states. By appealing to the Non-
Aligned Movement and to states that were trying to distance themselves
either from an ex-colonial master (Britain) or a superpower whom they
believed had neoimperialist ambitions (the United States), Belize was
able to exercise an influence that was out of all proportion to its objec-
tive, political, economic, and, above all, military status. In adopting this
course, Belize was pursuing an internationalization strategy, exploiting
the new opportunities provided by international institutions that offered
possibilities for building coalitions among like-minded groups of states.
The Belize case challenges the strong assumption of both neoreal-
ist and neoliberal theory that what matters most in determining inter-
national outcomes is the power of sovereign states. In this case, Belize
was not a state, and it confronted a state that was determined to deny
the people of Belize the exercise of their right to self-determination,
and two powerful states that wanted to limit its sovereignty and vio-
late its territorial integrity, and the outcome was determined by the
nonstate actor.
Belize effectively utilized what was really a new norm of international
relations, that of self-determination, which had acquired an enhanced
meaning after 1960 with the passing of Resolution 1514, one given to
it not by the more powerful, but indeed against their will .
One of the more significant conclusions to be drawn from the
Belize case relates to the importance of international institutions in
determining outcomes in certain cases. This has been a tenet of the
neoliberal school, although Walt notes that “the core claims of institu-
tionalist theory have become more modest over time. Institutions are
now said to facilitate cooperation when it is in each state’s interest to
do so, but it is widely agreed that they cannot force states to behave in
ways that are contrary to the states’ own selfish interests.”28 A strong
argument can be made, however, to show that Britain’s selfish interests
in 1981 would not have led it to provide a costly and antipolicy mili-
tary guarantee to Belize, and that it did so precisely as a result of the
persuasive power of international institutions and because its govern-
ment was influenced by the power of ideas.And this is where construc-
tivism’s approach has a strong appeal in explaining at least part of the
reasons why certain outcomes prevail in international relations:
Whereas realism and liberalism tend to focus on material factors such

as power or trade, constructivist approaches emphasize the impact of
ideas . . . constructivists regard the interests and identities of states as
a highly malleable product of specific historical processes. They pay
close attention to the prevailing discourse(s) in society because dis-
course reflects and shapes beliefs and interests, and establishes accepted
norms of behavior.29
The cause of Belize was also greatly aided in its internationalization

project by the political skills and the “stubbornness” of Price and by
the acquired diplomatic capabilities of his team, honed of necessity on
the march. This illustrates the point made by alternative approaches
to IR theory, which emphasize the role of nonstate actors, including
individuals, networks, and institutions.
Of course, it is not possible to understand international relations by
relying on any one of the extant theories that seek to explain it; each has
an important perspective to contribute, and indeed it has been noted
that in the literature today there are obvious signs of convergence:
Most realists recognize that nationalism, militarism, ethnicity, and

other domestic factors are important; liberals acknowledge that
power is central to international institutional behavior; and some
constructivists admit that ideas will have greater impact when backed
by powerful states and reinforced by enduring material forces. The
boundaries of each paradigm are somewhat permeable, and there is
ample opportunity for intellectual arbitrage.30
Belize’s decolonization by internationalization is a case study that

demonstrates that in a particular international conjuncture, one set
of variables may count more than another; here, power politics gave
way to other considerations, prominent among which are the power
of ideas and the efficacy of international organizations.
APPENDIX
Table 1 Population of Belize, 1790–1980
Year Population
1790 2,656
1803 3,959
1823 4,107
1832 3,794
1835 2,543
1845 9,809
1861 25,635
1901 37,479
1931 51,347
1946 59,220
1960 90,505
1970 119,645
1980 145,353
200 A PP ENDIX
Chetumal
r y Treaty of 1893
Area in green 1783 convention da
un
Corozal
can Bo
Area in red 1786 convention
edi
lo-M
ng
A
Orange Walk
Anglo-Spanish Treaty of 1783 Ambergris
Cay
MEXICO
Booth’s River
2 (Lat. 17˚ 49')
vo
Treaty of 188
alao Boundary
o Bra
Mexican-Guatem
Ri St. George’s
r
Cay
ive
iver
lize R
nR BELIZE
Sibu
Chetumal
Be
Anglo-Spanish Treaty of 1786
Manatee
Bar
Anglo-Gualemalan Boundary
r
R Rive
io ins
San Pedr
o El cayo Mull
C reek
Stann Sam Creek
tén
de pe -Flores
na
L a gu
Sapodilla
Lagoon
Treaty of 1859
EL PETEN
Rio de la pasión Deep Mo
nke
River
yR
iver
Rio
d e la p
as
Rio
ión
Gra
nde
Ma
no R Punta Gorda
ive
r
Cabode
as on River
Tres Puntas Puerto Cortés
lin Sarsto
Sa
io Omoa
R Livingston
VERAPAZ Puerto Barrios

al Santo Tomás
Iz
ab
a
gu
de
a
Lago Rio Moc
GU AT E MAL A
Rio Polochia
HONDURAS
Map 1 The areas defined by border treaties affecting Belize.

A PP ENDIX 201
Chetumal
Corozal
Orange Walk
Ambergris
cay
MEXICO
s River
Booth
o
rav
B
Rio
St.George’s
r
ive
Cay
er
n Riv
eR
Sibu BELIZE
Beliz
Ri
oS ro
an Ped
a depetén-Flo
un
g
re
La
s
Sapodilla
Lagoon
EL PETÉN (1975)
16°30 (1975)
Dee Mo
Rio de la Pasión p nke
River
y Riv
er
Ranguana
Rio d
ela
Rio
Pa
Mo
Gra
sió
ho
Rive
n
r
de
Sapodilla Cays
(1977) Punta Gorda
Orange Point
s Cabo de
li na Tres Puntas Puerto Cortés
Sa toon River
o Sars
Ri Omoa
Livingston
l Santo Tomás
ba
a
za gu
el ca
od Ri o M o
Lag
GUATEMALA
c
Rio polochi
HONDURAS
Map 2 Guatemalan demands during 1975–1981 negotiations.

202 A PP ENDIX
Chetumal
Corozal
Orange Walk
Ambergris
cay
MEXICO
s River
Booth
o
rav
B
Rio
er
St. George’s
Riv
er Cay
n Riv BELIZE
Sibu
e
Beliz
Manatee
Bar
iv er
Ri
o EI cayo sR
San edro llin
P Mu
Creek
Stann
depetén-Flore Stann Creek

ua
g
sv
La
Sapodilla
Lagoon
EL PETÉN (1976)
Dee
Rio de la Pasión p Mo
nke
River
y Riv
er Ranguana
81)
Rio d (1976)
ela
- 19
Rio
Pa
76
Mo
G
sió
h
(19
ran
oR
n
iv e
de
r Sapodilla Cays
(19
75) Punta Gorda
Temash (1978)
Ri Cabo de
ve
as r Tres Puntas Puerto Cortés
lin
Sa Sarsto
on River
o
Ri Omoa
Livingston
Santo Tomás
l
ba
a
za
e
l gu
od ca
L ag Rio Mo
GUATEMALA
Rio polochic
HONDURAS
Map 3 Main UK and U.S. proposals during 1975–1981 negotiations.

Notes
1 Introduction: Decolonization by Internationalization

1. British Guiana (later Guyana) was subject to territorial claims by
Venezuela and Surinam, but only to parts of its territory. The Falkland
Islands and Gibraltar are claimed in their entirety, but their people do
not want independence.
2. Gary Thorn, End of Empires: European Decolonisation, 1919–80, London,
2000, p. 2.
3. John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in
the Post-War World, London, 1988, p. 42.
4. Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation,
1918–1968, Cambridge, 2006, p. 95.
5. White, Nicholas J., Decolonization: The British Experience since 1945,
Longman, London, 1999, p. 6.
6. Ibid.
7. Lord Keynes warned that Britain was “virtually bankrupt” and that it
had “not a hope of escaping . . . a financial Dunkirk”; Hyam, p. 130.
8. Ibid., pp. 130–131.
9. White, p. 6.
10. Marc Ferro, Colonization: A Global History, London, 1997, p. 350.
11. White, p. 25.
12. Ibid., p. 11.
13. Ibid., p. 65.
14. J. H. A. Watson to M. C. G. Man, August 31, 1954, cited in ibid.,
pp. 123–124.
15. D. George Boyce, Decolonisation and the British Empire, 1775–1997,
London, 1999, p. 114.
16. Thorn, p. 46.
17. Quoted in W. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs:
Problems of Nationality, 1918–1936, London, 1937, p. 54.
18. White, p. 45.
19. Kwame Nkrumah, Towards Colonial Freedom: Africa in the Struggle
against World Imperialism, London, 1962.
20. This is not to deny the long tradition of resistance and rebellion stretching
back to the imposition of colonial rule or slavery in many British colonies.
21. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, p. 28.
204 NOTES
22. John Gallagher, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire,
Cambridge, 1982, p. 144.
23. Hyam, p. 131.
24. White, p. 11. Darwin suggests that “well before the war ended the idea
that Britain could only match the power of her two mighty partners in
the Grand Alliance by welding the Commonwealth into a ‘third force’
had exercised a considerable attraction for British leaders”; Darwin,
Britain and Decolonisation, pp. 147–148.
25. Thorn, p. 42.
26. White, p. 49.
27. Ibid., p. 7.
28. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones to Prime Minister Atlee, cited
in J. Kent, The British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War,
Leicester, 1993, p. 132.
29. White, p. 9.
30. Gallagher, p. 148.
31. White, p. 20.
32. Frank Heinlein, British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945–1963:
Scrutinising the Official Mind, London, 2002, p. 59.
33. Ibid., p. 62.
34. Ibid.
35. White, p. 77.
36. R. F. Holland, European Decolonization, 1918–1981, London, 1985, p. 192.
37. Ibid.
38. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, pp. 237, 304–305.
39. Cited in Boyce, p. 178.
40. Ibid., p. 181.
41. Hyam, pp. 251–252.
42. Ibid.
43. Sir Michael Howard, “Afterword: The ‘Special Relationship,’ ” in
W. Roger Luis and Hedley Bull (eds.), The “Special Relationship”: Anglo-
American Relations since 1945, London, 1986, p. 387.
44. Ibid., p. 225.
45. Hyam, pp. 302–303.
46. Boyce, p. 114.
47. “Internal Security in the Colonies,” December 29, 1954, CAB 129/72.
48. Boyce, p. 114.
49. Although the country was officially called British Guiana until its indepen-
dence, it will be referred to as Guyana, unless the name appears in a quote.
50. S. R. Ashton and David Killingray (eds.), BDEE, The West Indies, Series B
Volume 6, London, 1999, p. 675.
51. Intelligence Report for April 1953, by Commissioner of Police Orrett,
May 5, 1953, CO 1031/128.
52. Ibid.
53. Minute by J. W. Vernon, WIAD, September 16, 1953, CO 1031/119.
54. Ibid.
55. Nigel Bolland, The Politics of Labour in the British Caribbean: The Social
Origins of Authoritarianism and Democracy in the Labour Movement,
Kingston, 2001, p. 601.
NOTES 205
56. Rusk to Home, February 20, 1962, PREM 11/3666.

57. Lord Home to Rusk, February 26, 1962, PREM 11/3666.
58. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. 12, Washington,
1966, pp. 607–609.
59. FO record of Kennedy-Macmillan meeting, June 30, 1963, PREM
11/4586, pp. 33–36.
60. Record of a meeting in Washington between Mr. Greenwood and
Mr. Rusk, October 18, 1965, CO 1031/4865.
61. Greenwood to Bottomley, October 26, 1965, PREM 13/734.
62. Wm. Roger Louis, “American Anti-colonialism,” in Louis and Bull
(eds.), p. 283.
63. William D. Rogers, “The ‘Unspecial Relationship’ in Latin America,” in
Louis and Bull (eds.), p. 342.
64. Ibid., p. 342.
65. Hansard, 5th Series, Volume 704, December 16, 1964, cols. 421,
423–4.
66. Hansard, 5th Series, Volume 756, January 16, 1968, cols. 1580–81,
1583.
67. Ritchie Ovendale, British Defence Policy since 1945, Manchester,
1994, p. 151.
68. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1975, Cmd. 5976, March 1975,
London, pp. 1, 7, 14–15.
69. A. P. Thornton, “The Transformation of the Commonwealth and the
‘Special Relationship,’ ” in Louis and Bull (eds.), p. 372.
70. Holland, pp. 24–25.
71. Ibid.
72. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, pp. 100–101. Emphasis in
original.
73. Ibid., p. 152.
74. Thornton, p. 375. Of course, many colonial subjects expressed the
same doubts, as did the Opposition in Belize even in the 1980s, when it
insisted that “we no ready yet” for independence.
75. White, p. 24.
76. Darwin, “The Fear of Falling: British Politics and Imperial Decline Since
1900,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 36, 1986, p. 42.
77. Hyam, p. 354.
78. A. W. Singham, and Shirley Hune, Non-Alignment in an Age of
Alignments, London, 1986, p. 57.
79. Ibid., p. 67.
80. Eric Jensen and Thomas Fisher (eds.), The United Kingdom—The United
Nations, London, 1990, pp. 100–101. See below and Chapter 5 for more
on Resolution 1514.
81. Singham and Hune, p. 72.
82. M. S. Rajan, “The Non-Aligned Movement and the Criteria for
Membership,” The Non-Aligned World, vol. 1, no. 2, 1983, p. 234.
83. Singham and Hune, pp. 119–121.
84. Charter of the United Nations and Statue of International Court of
Justice, New York, 2001, pp. 46–47. Emphasis added.
85. Quoted in Jensen and Fisher (eds.), p. 96.
206 NOTES
86. Ibid., p. 101.

87. Hyam, p. 344.
88. Jensen and Fisher (eds.), p. 110.
89. Rosalyn Higgins, quoted in Michla Pomerance, Self-Determination in
Law and Practice: The New Doctrine in the United Nations, The Hague,
1982, p. 18.
90. Ibid., p. 25. Emphasis in original.
91. Ibid., p. 43.
92. Charter of the UN, Chapter 6.
93. A “Sophie’s Choice” is a tragic choice between two unbearable options,
from the novel by the same name by William Styron, New York, 1979.
94. The United States, the UK, France, the USSR (now Russia), and
China.
95. Charter of the UN, Chapters 4 and 5.
96. Evan Luard, The United Nations: How It Works and What It Does, New
York, 1979, pp. 35–42.
97. Samuel Barkin, International Organizations: Theories and Institutions,
New York, 2006, p. 59.
98. Ibid., pp. 56–57.
99. Ibid., p. 57.
100. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, London, 1979, p. 131.
Emphasis in original.
101. Robert Keohane, “The Big Influence of Small Allies,” Foreign Policy 2,
Spring 1971, pp. 161–182.
102. Ibid, p. 56.
2 The Guatemalan Claim and Decolonization

1. Franklin D. Parker, The Central American Republics, London, 1964,
p. 78, and James Dunkerley, Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of
Modern Central America, London, 1988, pp. 3–4.
2. R. A. Humphreys, The Diplomatic History of British Honduras, 1638–1901,
London, 1961, p. 58.
3. O. Nigel Bolland, The Formation of a Colonial Society: Belize, from
Conquest to Crown Colony, Baltimore, 1977, p. 25.
4. F. G. Davenport, European Treaties Bearing on the History of the
United States and Its Dependencies, vols. 1–4; Washington, 1917–1937;
vol. 2, p. 106.
5. Davenport, vol. 4, p. 159.
6. J. A. Burdon (ed.), Archives of British Honduras (hereinafter cited as
ABH), London, 1935, vol. 1, p. 139.
7. Davenport, vol. 4, p. 159.
8. Bolland, Formation, p. 32. The settlement remained subject to British
administration in Jamaica until 1871, when it became a Crown
Colony, pp. 190–191.
9. Burnaby’s Code is contained in Laws, 1806–1810, BA.
10. Bolland and Shoman, p. 9.
11. Ibid., p. 11.
NOTES 207
12. Ibid., p. 17.

13. Ibid., p. 49.
14. Capt. G. Henderson, An Account of the British Settlement at Honduras,
London, 1809, p. 59.
15. Bolland, Formation, p. 51.
16. Ibid., p. 77.
17. Ibid., p. 75.
18. Ibid., p. 78.
19. Magistrates to Codd, January 28, 1825, CO 123/36.
20. Codd to Bathurst, February 6, 1825, Letters and Despatches Outwards
R.4, BA.
21. Humphreys, p. 9; see also Assad Shoman, Thirteen Chapters of a History
of Belize, Belize, 2000, pp. 135–141 for a discussion of the significance
of this incident in Belize’s history.
22. Conde de Fernán Nuñez to Castlereagh, September 21, 1813, FO 72/149.
Interestingly, the Spanish Count refers in his note to the protests by the
Governor of Bacalar in Mexico, not Guatemala.
23. Humphreys, p. 12. He maintains, however, that “this was an isolated
opinion, not afterwards sustained.”
24. Barrow to Hobart, March 31, 1802, CO 123/15.
25. ABH, vol. 2, p. 92.
26. Arthur to Bathurst, May 28, 1816, CO 123/25.
27. Codd to Horton, July 8, 1825, in Horton to Planta, September 23, 1835,
FO 15/4.
28. Ibid., p. 6.
29. For an illuminating discussion of “the problem of Spanish colonial
jurisdiction,” see Humphreys, pp. 167–178 (Appendix I). He refers to
a Spanish note of 1820 that “goes some way to support the contention
that Belize was now conceived to be in Guatemalan jurisdiction,” but
states that the evidence is isolated and inconclusive, and that dispatches
from Guatemala to Spain at this time make no claim to Guatemalan
jurisdiction over the settlement, p. 178.
30. Gaínza to Superintendent Arthur, October 24, 1821, CO 123/30.
31. ABH, vol. 2, p. 244.
32. Ibid., p. 255.
33. Ibid., p. 287.
34. Ibid., p. 372.
36. ABH, vol. 2, p. 411.
38. Bolland, Formation, p. 190.
40. ABH, vol. 2, p. 339.
41. Chatfield to Palmerston, September 17, 1834, FO 15/14.
42. Record of the meeting, November 5, 1834, BA. For a full account of
the incident involving the land grant, see William J. Griffith, Empires
in the Wilderness: Foreign Colonization and Development in Guatemala,
1834–1844, Chapel Hill, 1965.
208 NOTES
43. Mary Wilhelmine Williams, Anglo-American Isthmian Diplomacy,

1815–1915, Gloucester, 1965, p. 27.
44. Ibid., p. 97.
45. Humphreys, pp. 53–54.
46. Williams, p. 139.
47. Ibid., pp. 193–195.
49. Ibid., p. 58.
50. Ibid., pp. 47–49. But see Humphreys’ footnote 7, p. 48 for a discussion
of Guatemalan concerns expressed two years earlier.
51. Wallenstein to Palmerston, December 2, 1850, FO 15/68.
52. José Luis Mendoza, Britain and Her Treaties on Belize (British Honduras),
Guatemala, 1947, pp. 127–129.
53. Williams, p. 266.
54. Malmesbury to Wyke, February 16, 1859, FO 15/114.
55. Wyke to Malmesbury, April 30, 1859, FO 15/114.
56. Included as an Appendix in Exchange of Notes, Cmd. 4050,
1932, pp. 6–8.
57. Ibid. See Map 1 for a depiction of the border.
58. Humphreys, p. 87.
59. The letter, in the original Spanish language, is reproduced in Wayne M.
Clegern, “A Guatemalan Defence of the British Honduras Boundary
of 1859,” Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 40, no. 4, 1960,
pp. 575–581. Emphasis added. Clegern, who discovered the docu-
ment in the Guatemalan archives, notes that the letter is omitted in all
Guatemalan publications claiming to present all the documents relevant
to the dispute.
60. “Memorandum of what passed verbally between Sir C. Wyke and Don
Pedro de Aycinena respecting the Road-making Article of the Convention
of 30 April 1859,” March 29, 1861, FO 15/115.
61. Rogers to Hammond, May 11, 1861, FO 15/143.
62. Seymour to Rogers, July 24, 1861, FO 15/143; Wray to Wodehouse,
July 16, 1861, FO 15/143.
63. Humphreys, p. 98.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid., p. 99.
66. In 1860, “not only were there rival Governments in Mexico (the country
was then engaged in civil war) but the de facto government of southern
Yucatán was that of the Santa Cruz Indians, and the sole effect of bound-
ary negotiations with either of the rival Governments would be to cause
trouble with the Yucatecan Indians,” ibid., p. 101.
67. Ibid., p. 102.
68. Text of the Convention in White Book, Guatemala, 1938, pp. 245–248.
69. Stanley to Martín, July 30, 1866, FO 15/145, White Book, pp. 264–265,
Humphreys, pp. 123–124.
70. For a discussion of uti possidetis in this context, see Humphreys,
pp. 179–182 and L. M. Bloomfield, The British Honduras—Guatemala
Dispute, Toronto, 1953, pp. 92–96.
NOTES 209
71. Medina to Granville, April 5, 1884, in White Book, pp. 344–346.

73. Ibid., p. 166.
74. Klee to Watson, August 26, 1931, in Exchange of Notes . . . , Cmd. 4050,
1932, p. 4.
75. Bloomfield, p. 55.
76. Continuation of White Book, vol. III, pp. 132–133.
77. Constitution of Guatemala, Guatemala, 1945.
78. Diario de Centro América, April 26, 1946.
79. Bloomfield, pp. 72–75.
80. Manley O. Hudson, “Opinion on the Belize Dispute Submitted to the
Government of the Republic of Guatemala,” June 30, 1950, p. 253.
81. Ibid., p. 256.
82. Ibid., p. 265.
83. Ibid., p. 274.
84. Ibid., p. 275.
85. The western and northern districts of Belize had been threatened by Maya
attacks in the late 1860s, and the Legislative Assembly was unable to agree
on raising enough taxation to defend the colony. In 1869 members of the
Assembly attempted to convert British Honduras into a Crown Colony so
that the imperial government would bear the burden of defense, and this
was achieved in 1871. See Bolland and Shoman, p. 95.
86. Handbook of British Honduras, London, 1935, pp. 67–68.
87. Shoman, Birth, p. 6.
88. Census of British Honduras, 9 April 1946, Belize, 1948.
89. Bolland, The Politics of Labour, pp. 214–226.
90. Ibid., p. 215.
91. Ibid., pp. 216 and 438.
92. George Price was born on January 15, 1919 in Belize City, and was a devout
Catholic who as a young man studied for the priesthood but who later
entered politics, and after 1949 he dedicated himself completely to build-
ing the nation of Belize and to gaining independence. He was abstemious
in his personal, celibate life. He claimed to have in his heritage the main
ethnic groups of the country: African, European, and indigenous. He was
decorated with the highest honors of Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras, and
Cuba, received the Order of the Caribbean Community and was named
the National Hero of Belize in 2000: cf. Rudolph Castillo, Profile of the Rt.
Hon. George Price, P. C. Man of the People, Belize, undated, prob. 2002.
93. “Address at Battlefield, 14 November 1947,” PF.
94. The Daily Mail, quoted in The Belize Billboard, February 16, 1950.
95. The Belize Billboard, February 15, 1950.
97. Ibid., p. 20.
98. Ibid.
99. The Belize Billboard, April 8, 1953.
100. The Belize Billboard, September 24, 1951.
101. Ibid., February 7, 1951.
102. Ibid.
210 NOTES
103. Ibid., December 3, 1951. Emphasis added.

104. “British Honduras”: Cabinet conclusions on a new constitution,
November 24, 1953, CAB 128/26/2, CC70 (53) 6.
105. Ibid.
107. The Daily Clarion, April 7 and 8, 1954.
108. Cabinet memo., May 17, 1954, CAB 129/68, C (54) 164. The Cabinet
agreed with the recommendation to go ahead with the planned second
stage of the constitution.
109. Shoman, Thirteen, pp. 192–201.
110. Shoman, Party Politics in Belize, 1950–1986, Belize, 1987, p. 25.
111. Hansard, vol. 578, col. 1159–1162, November 27, 1957.
112. Telegram to SOSC, December 2, 1957, FO 371/126383. The Governor
gave his own version of the facts in a long address, but refused Price
access to the radio station to give his version, arguing that “this is not a
matter, in my view, for public discussion over the wireless.”
113. Note of the meeting by WIAD, March 14, 1957, CO 1031/2596. This
is the first reference I found to British willingness to offer territory to
Guatemala.
114. Hankey to Mendoza, March 15, 1957, FO 371/126377.
115. “Anglo-Guatemalan Discussions over British Honduras,” March 20,
1957, FO 371/126377.
116. Thornley to Kennedy, May 21, 1957, CO 1031/2596.
117. Kennedy to Thornley, June 6, 1957, FO 371/126379.
118. Ibid.
119. Interview with Price.
120. This is Thornley’s version of the event, given in his radio address in
Belize on December 2, 1957, FCO 371/126383.
121. Thornley to Kennedy, May 21, 1957, CO 1031/2596.
122. Interview with Price. For an account of this incident that was endorsed
by Price, see Castillo, Profile, pp. 87–93.
123. The Daily Telegraph, December 2, 1957; The Times, December 2, 1957.
124. Shoman, Thirteen, p. 195.
125. The Belize Times, November 18, 1958.
126. Interview with Goldson, in Shoman, Party Politics, p. 26.
127. Rogers to Hankey, October 18, 1957, FO 371/126381.
128. “Report of the Constitutional Commissioner (Sir Hilary Blood),
10 October 1959,” Belize, 1959.
129. Shoman, Party Politics, p. 38.
130. Ibid.
131. Ibid.
132. Shoman, Thirteen Chapters, p. 250. The UDP was formed in 1972 from
the merger of the NIP and two smaller parties.
133. Gabriel Aguilera Peralta, “The Militarization of the Guatemalan State,”
in Fried et al. (eds.), Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished History, New
York, 1983, p. 115.
134. Dunkerley, pp. 137–138.
135. Ibid., p. 139.
NOTES 211
136. Ibid., pp. 141–142.

137. Ibid., p. 144.
138. Ibid., p. 150.
139. Sharon I. Meers, “The British Connection: How the United States
Covered Its Tracks in the 1954 Coup in Guatemala,” Diplomatic History,
vol. 16, no. 3, 1992, p. 414.
140. Ibid., p. 416.
141. Ibid., pp. 416–421. All the statements regarding Britain’s role in this
episode are from the Meers article cited, which is replete with references
to British archives.
142. Ibid., p. 428.
143. Hector Rosado Granados, “Parties, Transitions and the Political System
in Guatemala,” in Louis W. Goodman, William M. Leogrande, and
Johanna Mendelson Forman. (eds.), Political Parties and Democracy in
Central America, Boulder, 1992, pp. 92–96.
144. Grant, p. 197.
145. Gustavo Berganza, Compendio de Historia de Guatemala, 1944–2000,
Guatemala, 2004, p. 31. This compendium was edited by the Asociación
de Investigaciones y Estudios Sociales, and was approved by the
Guatemalan Ministry of Education for use in schools.
146. Ibid., p. 40.
147. Ibid., p. 35.
148. Ibid., p. 38.
149. Ibid., pp. 39–40.
150. Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads and U.S.
Power, Boulder, 1991, p. 121.
151. Berganza, p. 43.
152. Ibid., p. 44.
153. Ibid., p. 50.
154. Anthony P. Maingot and Wilfredo Lozano, The United States and
the Caribbean: Transforming Hegemony and Sovereignty, New York,
2005, pp. 1 and 3.
155. O. Nigel Bolland, Belize: A New Nation in Central America, Boulder,
1986, p. 132.
3 Negotiation and Mediation (1962–1972)

1. Embassy Guatemala to FO, January 5, 1962, CO 1031/3689.
2. Embassy Washington to FO, January 5, 1962, in SOSC to Belize,
January 6, 1962, CO 1031/3689.
3. Baker to Piper, February 15, 1962, CO 1031/3689.
4. Baker to Piper, March 1, 1962, CO 1031/3689.
5. Draft joint memo., undated (but probably March or early April 1962),
CO 1031/3690.
6. British Embassy Washington to Hankey, April 16, 1962, CO 1031/3690.
7. Record of Anglo-Guatemalan Talks, April 16–19, 1962, CO 1031/3691.
8. Alberto Herrarte, El caso de Belice y la Mediación de Estados Unidos,
Guatemala, 1980, p. 163.
212 NOTES
9. ECLA, IX Session, Santiago de Chile, May 1961, Resolution 195 (IX).

10. Record of Anglo-Guatemalan Talks, April 16–19, 1962, CO 1031/3691.
11. ECLA, “Possibilities of Economic Cooperation between British
Honduras and Central America,” December 1968, E/CN 12/809
Rev. 1.
12. Herrarte, p. 168.
13. Ibid., p. 172.
14. Ibid., p. 175.
15. Buxton to Herrarte, July 13, 1963, in Herrarte, pp. 176–177.
16. Herrarte to Buxton, July 24, 1963, in ibid., pp. 179–180, 184.
17. The Consejo de Belice had operated as an informal advisory body to the
Foreign Ministry under President Arévalo, and was established as a statu-
tory body by virtue of a governmental decree of President Castillo Armas
on December 30, 1955. Its composition has included different sectors
of public opinion and persons with experience in international affairs,
Herrarte, p. 282.
18. Ibid., pp. 184–186.
19. Ibid., pp. 323–324.
20. WIAD, note for SOSC, December 22, 1964, CO 1031/4938.
22. Ibid., pp. 193–198. See Chapter 4 for a description of the tour and its
effects.
23. Stallard to SOSC, April 22, 1964, CO 1031/4934.
24. EAC report, May 16, 1964, CO 1031/4934.
25. Ibid.
26. Busk to FO, September 21, 1964, CO 1031/4935; Busk to FO,
September 25, 1964, CO 1031/4935; Stallard to SOSC, September 26,
1964, CO 1031/4936; Busk to FO, September 28, 1964, CO 1031/4936;
SOSC to Stallard, October 3, 1964, CO 1031/4936.
27. Busk to FO, October 19, 1964, CO 1031/4936, containing his full
report and recommendations.
28. Busk to FO, October 2, 1964, in SOSC to Stallard, October 3, 1964,
CO 1031/4936.
29. Embassy Washington to FO, October 19, 1964, in SOSC to Stallard,
October 20, 1964, CO 1031/4936.
30. Stallard to Jerrom, December 2, 1964, CO 1031/4937.
31. Sutherland to Hall, January 7, 1965, CO 1031/4937.
32. A full record of the Miami talks is enclosed in Sutherland to Slater, May 7,
1965, CO 1031/4738.
33. This was stated at a meeting in London on June 29, 1965. See Herrarte,
pp. 217–220 and Hall to Purves, July 12, 1965, CO 1031/4938.
34. Kaiser to FO, September 28, 1965, CO 1031/4938.
35. Stallard to SOSC, September 23, 1965, CO 1031/4938.
36. Record of meeting in Washington on November 18, 1965, CO 1031/4939.
Aycinena led for Guatemala, Rennie for Britain, and Minister Alexander
Hunter represented Belize.
37. Ibid., Annex C, “Statement for Record made by Mr. Rennie.”
38. Bruce to FO, December 8, 1965, CO 1031/4939.
NOTES 213
39. “Anglo-Guatemalan dispute over British Honduras Mediation of United

States” (Record of meetings on December 13 and 14, 1965), # 456E,
CO 1031/4939.
40. Trew to Hall, January 27, 1966, CO 1031/5186.
41. Johnstone to Slater, January 31, 1966, CO 1031/5186.
42. Record of meetings in New York on March 9 and 10, 1966 of Webster
and British and Belizean representatives, CO 1031/5186.
43. Governor to SOSC, April 1, 1966, CO 1031/5186.
44. Herrarte, pp. 238–241. I could not find this in either British or U.S.
archives.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., pp. 241–246.
47. Webster reported this to the British in May: “Record of Discussions Held
at the Foreign Office from 4 to 6 May 1966,” CO 1031/5187.
48. Herrarte, pp. 246–248.
49. Ibid., p. 249.
50. Ibid., pp. 250–253. The draft treaty is in CO 1031/5187.
51. Ibid., p. 254.
52. “Record of discussions held at the Foreign Office from 4 to 6 May 1966,”
CO 1031/5187. Webster did not refer to the January draft mentioned by
Herrarte.
53. The proposals, in the form of a draft treaty, undated, are at CO
1031/5187.
54. “Record of discussions held at the Foreign Office from 4 to 6 May 1966,”
CO 1031/5187.
55. Ibid. “Complete disclosure,” as we shall see, is something the British
withheld from Price many times in the ensuing years.
56. “Meeting with Mr. B. M. Webster: Supplementary Brief,” May 5, 1966,
CO 1031/5187.
57. The UK redraft is at CO 1031/5187, dated by hand on May 10, 1966.
58. SOSC to Stallard, May 12, 1966, CO 1031/5187.
59. Stallard to SOSC, May 26, 1966, CO 1031/5187.
60. UK ambassador Mexico to FO, May 31, 1966, in SOSC to Stallard,
June 1, 1966, CO 1031/5187.
61. “Cabinet Defence and Overseas Policy Committee,” May 20, 1966,
CO 1031/5187.
62. Even allowing for the tendency to oversell one’s product, it is hard to
escape the conclusion that the Foreign Office was being either deliber-
ately deceptive or remarkably naive in arguing that the Webster proposals
would solve all of Belize’s problems or that the Guatemalans would
accept a small part of a two million pounds grant as sufficient fulfillment
of Britain’s obligations under the 1859 Treaty.
63. “Record of Discussions Held at the Foreign Office from 1 to 3 June
1966,” CO 1031/5188.
64. Ibid.
65. “Record of Discussions Held at the Bar Association, New York, 6–7
June 1966,” CO 1031/5188. The CO reported that “Webster agreed to
include in his new draft proposals all the amendments which we and the
214 NOTES
British Honduran representatives considered essential,” June 9, 1966,

CO 1031/5188.
66. “Memorandum,” American Department, FO, July 12, 1966, CO
1031/5189.
67. The Belize Billboard, June 10, 1966.
68. At public meetings and in The Belize Billboard, June 19, 1966.
69. These included violent demonstrations, the stoning of government
buildings and the Guatemalan consulate, a strike by the Public Officers
Union, and many public meetings. A six-day curfew was imposed and
public meetings and processions banned in Belize City: “Note for Sir
John Paul,” August 5, 1966, CO 1031/5249; The Times, June 28,
1966.
70. “Statement by the Premier to the House of Representatives,” Belize,
June 17, 1966.
71. Herrarte, p. 265. The November talks are summarized in “Guatemala-
British Honduras Mediation UK Progress Report: January 1967,”
FCO 7/475.
72. Ibid., p. 266.
73. Ibid., pp. 267–268. This draft, subsequently referred to by the British
as “the July text,” is not available in the British National Archives,
although references to it and to the meeting do appear; a FO brief-
ing paper of August 18, 1967 states that in July 1967, at the sugges-
tion of the mediator, Arenales met Brown in London and that “the
substance of the discussion remains confidential to those concerned,”
FO 252/795. Further evidence supports Herrarte’s version of the
agreed text: see, for example, record of conversation between Brown
and Arenales, September 21, 1967, FO 252/796; and a report of British
and Guatemalan delegates meeting with Webster on November 9–10,
1967, FO 252/796.
74. Herrarte, pp. 268–280.
75. Daily Express, August 5, 1967.
76. “Record of a Meeting in Mediator’s Office,” November 9–10, 1967,
FO 252/796.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. The British record of the meeting at the State Department between
British and Guatemalan representatives on November 21–22, 1967 is at
FO 252/797. There was wide disagreement on several points, and the
parties agreed to report separately to the mediator.
81. The Economist, September 7, 1967; The Times, September 27, 1967; The
Independent, September 28, 1967; cited in Herrarte, pp. 283–284.
82. A/AC.109/PV.548, August 30, 1968, UN.
83. A/C.4/694/Add.1, December 4, 1967, UN.
84. U.S. embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State, April 3, 1968, RG59, POL
32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A.
85. State Department to U.S. embassy Guatemala, April 9, 1968, RG59,
POL 32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A.
NOTES 215
86. U.S. embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State, April 19, 1968, RG59, POL
32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A.
87. Rusk to U.S. embassy Guatemala, April 20, 1968, U.S. embassy
Guatemala to Secretary of State, April 3, 1968, RG59, POL 32–1
Guat-UK, NAR A.
88. For text, see enclosure in Oliver Covey to Acting Secretary, March 29,
1968, RG59, POL 32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A.
90. Ibid., pp. 302–305.
91. “Memorandum of Conversation,” State Department, May 7, 1968, RG59,
POL 32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A.
92. John Paul to FCO, May 7, 1968, FCO 7/482.
93. “Address to the Nation by Premier George Price,” May 8, 1968,
FCO 7/483.
94. Ibid.
95. Reports of the House of Representatives, Belmopan, May 14, 1968.
96. U.S. Note, September 20, 1968, RG59, POL 31 Guat-UK, NAR A;
FCO 7/483.
97. PUP and Guatemala: Report on the Recent Enquiry, Belize, 1954.
98. Country Analysis and Strategy Paper, Guatemala, FY 1971, February 23,
1969, RG59, POL 17 Guat-U.S., NAR A.
99. Ibid.
100. A/AC.109/PV.548, August 30, 1968, UN.
101. “Memorandum of Conversation,” State Department, May 23, 1968,
RG59, POL 32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A.
102. Ibid.
103. “Memorandum of Conversation,” State Department, July 15, 1968,
RG59, POL 32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A.
104. Smith to State Department, July 12, 1968, RG59, POL 32–1 Guat-UK,
NAR A.
105. Brighty to Pallister, January 8, 1969, FCO 44/228.
106. Bruce to State Department, January 28, 1969, RG59, POL 19 Br. Hond.,
NAR A.
107. Tepper to State Department, March 8, 1969, RG59, POL 32–1
Guat-UK, NAR A.
108. Tepper to State Department, March 22, 1969, RG59, POL 32–1
Guat-UK, NAR A.
109. Lord Shepherd to Price, August 19, in Cabinet Memorandum of
September 5, 1969, FCO 44/232, Annex F.
110. Price to Shepherd, August 25, 1969, ibid., Annex G.
111. Price to Shepherd, October 5, 1969, FCO 44/233.
112. Record of meeting in New York, at 11:30 a.m. on October 23, 1969,
FCO 44/233.
113. “Record of meeting in New York at 9:30 a.m. on October 24, 1969”,
FCO 44/233.
114. Notes by V. H. Courtenay in file of New York meetings, PF.
115. “Statement by Belizean Government to UN Members,” in John Paul to
FCO, October 17, 1969, FCO 44/233.
216 NOTES
116. “British Honduras: Tripartite Meeting at UK Mission, New York, at

3:30 p.m. on January 12, 1970,” Annexes A and B, British record, PF.
117. Minutes of EAC, January 16, 1970, PF.
118. This was the organ comprised of the Governor, the Premier, and selected
ministers who took decisions on Belize’s external affairs and especially on
the Guatemalan claim. Until 1974 the ministers involved were C. L. B.
Rogers (the Deputy Premier), Alexander Hunter, Harry Courtenay, and
Santiago Perdomo. Thereafter Shoman and Musa replaced Hunter and
Perdomo.
119. Price to Shepherd, March 3, 1970, PF.
120. “Ministerial Meeting Held in New York at 3:30 p.m. on 11 April 1970,”
FO 204/677.
121. “Ministerial Meeting at Miami at 10 a.m. on Sunday, 12 April, 1970,”
FO 204/677.
122. Report of ministerial meeting held in New York at 8:00 p.m. on April 12,
FO 204/677.
123. Report of meeting of officials held in New York at 10:30 a.m. on April 12,
FO 204/677.
124. Ibid., attachment, “Draft Statute of the Belize-Guatemala Regional
Development Corporation.”
125. Handwritten note by Courtenay, on record of meeting, PF.
126. Minutes of EAC meeting, May 13, 1970, FO 204/677.
127. Governor’s memo. to Price, July 13, 1970, PF.
128. Record of the meeting in Washington on September 26–27, 1970, British
document, PF. Premier Price headed the Belize delegation and Foreign
Minister Roberto Herrera the Guatemalan.
129. Ibid.
130. Report of the meeting of officials held at Ocho Rios, Jamaica, on October
16–17, 1970, British record, PF.
131. Draft Record of meeting of officials held at Freeport on November
13–14, PF.
132. Record of meeting of EAC on November 16, 1970, British record, PF.
133. Telegram FCO to Governor, January 26, 1971, PF.
134. Summary record of meeting of EAC on February 1, 1971, British
record, PF.
135. Ibid.
136. Summary record of meeting of EAC on February 3, 1971, British
record, PF.
137. Record of meeting held at San Francisco on March 30 and 31, 1971,
Belize record, p. 12, PF.
138. Price, National Day Address, September 9, 1971, PF.
139. Reported in telegram from UK Mission in New York to the Governor,
October 1, 1971, PF.
140. Cromer to John Paul, October 6, 1971, FCO 44/559.
141. “Research Department Memorandum. The Belize (British Honduras)—
Guatemala Dispute March 1972—June 1974,” July 22, 1974, FCO
7/2638, p. 19.
142. Hankey to Monson, January 12, 1972, FCO 7/2280.
143. Vincent to FCO, January 17, 1972, FCO 7/2280.
NOTES 217
144. Hope to FCO, January 22, 1972, FCO7/2280.

145. Roberto Bardini, Belice: Historia de una Nación en Movimiento,
Tegucigalpa, 1978, p. 118.
146. U.S. embassy Guatemala to State Department, September 4, 1969,
RG59, POL 32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A. Herrera was the foreign minister.
147. Testimony of Fabio Castillo to the Sub-Committee on International
Organizations of the U.S. House of Representatives, 94th Congress,
2nd Session, June 8–9, 1976, in Human Rights in Nicaragua,
Guatemala and El Salvador: Implications for U.S. Policy, Washington,
DC, 1976, p. 43; noted in Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk, El
Salvador: The Face of Revolution, London, 1982.
148. The Daily Telegraph, January 31, 1972.
149. Ibid., February 2, 1972.
150. Hansard, vol. 831 col. 18–19, February 14, 1972.
151. OEA/Ser. G, CP/doc.198/72, May 31, 1972.
152. George Price, address on Radio Belize, April 30, 1972, PF.
154. Rennie, April 25, 1965, FO 371/179413.
155. A/AC.109/Pet.528, October 19, 1966, UN.
156. Posnett to FCO, tel #6 of January 12, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
4 Heavy Lobbying, Hard Bargaining (1938–1975)

1. The White Book: Controversy between Guatemala and Great Britain
Relative to the Convention of 1859 on Territorial Matters: Belize Question,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guatemala, 1938.
2. Mónica Toussaint Ribot, Belice: Una Historia Olvidada, México,
1993, p. 85.
3. Decree No. 224 of the Congress, April 9, 1946; Constitution of the
Republic, Guatemala, 1945.
4. Statements by Juan José Arévalo to Prensa Libre, June 25, 1973, cited
in Roberto Carpio Nicolle, ¿Hacia Donde Va Belice?, Guatemala,
1977, p. 80.
5. Ibid., p. 86.
6. Final Act of the Ninth International Conference of American States,
Bogotá, March 30–May 2, 1948, Pan American Union, 1964, p. 304.
7. Statement by Guatemalan representative to Fourth Committee,
November 10, 1975, A/C.4/SR.2163, UN, p. 167.
8. This is the same Granados who was declared persona non grata in Britain
in 1957 after his “secret” meeting with Price and his colleagues. He
is said to have been the author of the 1945 Guatemalan Constitution:
María Emilia Paz Salinas, Belize: El Despertar de una Nación, México,
1979, p. 129.
9. Herrarte, p. 79.
10. Resolution XCVII, Tenth Inter-American Conference, Caracas,
March 1–28, 1954, Final Act, Conferences and Organization Series,
Number 33, Pan American Union, 1954, p. 97.
11. Carpio Nicolle, Hacia, p. 83.
218 NOTES
12. Miguel Ángel Cospín, Ydígoras Fuentes ante la Faz de sus Contemporáneos,
México, 1970, p. 73.
13. Carpio Nicolle, Hacia, p. 92.
14. Rogers to Atkinson, January 4, 1964, CO 1031/4937.
15. Recomendaciones e Informes del Comité Jurídico Interamericano,
Documentos Oficiales, vol. 11, 1974–1977, Secretaría General de la
OEA, 1981.
16. Price to Secretary General UN, August 16, 1958, PF.
17. Shoman, Party Politics, p. 27.
18. The PUP Government and the Guatemalan Claim, Belize City,
1961, p. 3.
19. Legislative Assembly debate, June 27, 1961.
20. The PUP Government and the Guatemalan Claim, Belize City,
1961, p. 6.
21. “Report on the Goodwill Tour of Central America,” Belize, 1964.
22. Ibid.
23. “Tacitly, the Independence of Belize Is Already Recognized”: “Report
on the Goodwill Tour of Mexico,” Belize, 1964.
24. Díaz Ordaz to Price, August 13, 1964, ibid. Author’s translation.
25. Press conference in Mexico City on August 12, 1964, ibid.
26. Atkinson to Rogers, August 20, 1964, CO 1031/4935.
27. PUP Manifesto, 1965.
29. As early as 1961, Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, Cuba’s delegate to the fifth
plenary session of the Consejo Interamericano Económico y Social in Punta
del Este, declared: “aceptamos el hecho de Belice independiente” (we accept
the fact of an independent Belize), before even the Belize government
articulated this as fact.
30. Assad Shoman, who accompanied Minister Florencio Marin.
31. Resolution of the VI Congress of Latin American Workers, PF. Author’s
translation.
32. McQuillan to Johns, June 16, 1975, FCO 7/2848.
33. Posnett to FCO, January 25, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
34. Posnett to British Embassy Panama, February 1, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
35. Posnett to Hankey, January 25, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
36. Posnett to FCO, January 25, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
37. Shridath Ramphal, who later became the Secretary General of the
Commonwealth and played a critical role in the issue.
38. Malcolm to FCO, tels #45 and #56 of March 16, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
39. Hinchcliffe to Matthews, April 17, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
40. Posnett to Hankey, March 23, 1973, FCO 7/2454.
41. Ibid.
42. Record of a meeting between Mr. Kershaw and the EAC of Belize,
June 5, 1973, FCO 7/2456.
43. Ibid.
44. His judgment was not subsequently vindicated.
45. Record of a meeting between Mr. Kershaw and the EAC of Belize,
June 5, 1973, FCO 7/2456.
46. Kershaw to Secretary of State, June 1973, FCO 7/2455.
NOTES 219
47. This refers to the Unilateral Declaration of Independence declared by

Ian Smith of Southern Rhodesia.
48. Kershaw to Secretary of State, June 1973, FCO 7/2455.
49. “Record of Meeting . . .” July 28, 1973, FCO 7/2456. The British seemed
unfazed by Arenales’ confident prediction of who the next president
would be in an “election” to be held eight months later.
50. Ibid.
51. Posnett to FCO, August 1, 1973, FCO 7/2456.
52. Jamieson to Plumbly, July 27, 1973, FCO 7/2456.
53. Jamieson to Hankey, August 2, 1973, FCO 7/2456.
54. Diggines to Roberts, August 13, 1973, FCO 7/2456.
55. Posnett to FCO, September 25, 1973, FCO 7/2456. See Chapter 5 for a
discussion of resolution 1514.
56. Posnett to Hankey, October 19, 1973, FCO 7/2457.
57. Hinchcliffe to Matthews, December 19, 1973, FCO 7/2457.
58. Weymes to Matthews, January 16, 1974, FCO 7/2636. The candidate
for “the lefties” was General Efraín Ríos Montt.
59. Posnett to Douglas-Home, February 14, 1974, FCO 7/2636.
60. Ibid.
61. Larmour to Watson, February 26, 1974, FCO 7/2636.
62. Weymes to FCO, March 26, 1974, FCO 7/2636.
63. Note Verbale from Spanish embassy in London on behalf of the
Guatemalan government, May 22, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
64. Weymes to FCO, June 7, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
65. Posnett to Matthews, June 11, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
66. Article in La República, in Jones to Fullerton, June 14, 1974, FCO
7/2637.
67. Weymes to FCO, June 11, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
68. Posnett to Matthews, June 11, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
69. Weymes to FCO, July 10, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
70. Weymes to FCO, July 11, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
71. Note of an informal meting at Weymes’ residence in Guatemala, July 9,
1974, FCO 7/2637.
72. Posnett to Cox, July 15, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
73. Ibid.
74. Cox to Watson, July 8, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
75. Moreton to Cox, August 6, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
76. Moreton to Cox, August 9, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
77. McLaren to Jones, August 12, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
78. Ibid.
79. Cited by the Barbados representative in the Fourth Committee debate,
December 3, 1974, A/C.4/SR.2124, UN.
80. Moreton to Posnett, September 6, 1974, FCO 7/2638.
81. Johns to Carless, October 11, 1974, FCO 7/2638.
82. Richard to GA President, October 11, 1974, A/9802, UN.
83. Posnett to Allen, October 11, 1974, FCO 7/2638.
84. The PUP gained 12 of the 18 parliamentary seats; it took 51.3 percent of
the vote and the UDP 38.1 percent: Grant, pp. 276–277.
85. A/C.4/SR.2122, November 29, 1974, UN.
220 NOTES
86. A/C.4/SR.2125, December 3, 1974, UN.

87. Moreton to Larmour, December 12, 1974, FCO 7/2639.
88. Duncan to Carless, December 19, 1974, FCO7/2639. Duncan, the
British ambassador to Managua, reported that General Somoza told
him that he had been obliged to pay “lip service” to the Guatemalan
claim, and reminded Duncan of the help he gave the British in 1972 by
dissuading the Guatemalans from invading Belize. Duncan felt sure that
“we can count on General Somoza to continue to exert a moderating
influence on the Guatemalans.”
89. Richard to FCO, December 14, 1974, FCO 7/2639.
90. Moreton to Weir, December 1974, FCO 7/2843.
91. Interview with Ricardo Alarcón.
92. Richard to FCO, December 19, 1974, FCO 7/2639.
93. Richard to FCO, January 8, 1975, FCO 7/2843.
94. Duncan to Johns, January 10, 1975, FCO 7/2843.
95. Posnett to FCO, January 21, 1975, FCO 7/2843. After the support
they received from CHOGM in May, the Belize team felt that a visiting
mission was no longer necessary: Posnett to Richard, May 12, 1975,
FCO 7/2847.
96. Allen to FCO teams, January 24, 1975, FCO 7/2843.
97. See Map 2 for a depiction of this and other land demands made by the
Guatemalans.
98. Richard to FCO, February 20, 1975, FCO 7/2844; “Record of UK/
Guatemala Discussions in New York at 10 a.m. on February 20, 1975,”
FCO 7/2845.
99. Ibid.
100. Posnett to FCO, February 21, 1975, FCO 7/2844.
101. Record of a meeting held at Belize House, Belmopan, February 24,
1975, FCO 7/2845.
102. Ibid.
1975, FCO 7/2845.
104. See Map 3 for a depiction for this and other land cession proposals made
by the UK and the United States in the period 1975–1981.
1975, FCO 7/2845.
107. FCO to Posnett, March 21, 1975, FCO 7/2846.
108. “Memorandum Presented by Mr. Price,” March 18, 1975,
FCO 7/2846.
109. Cox, March 20, 1975, FCO 7/2846.
110. “Notes for Preparation of Belize Side to Meet British,” April 17,
1975, PF.
111. They did not formally present the ideas at the meeting, but they gave Price
a copy of their brief, entitled “Brief No. 2 Belize-Guatemala: Meetings in
Belmopan and New Orleans, April 1975”; this copy is marked in Price’s
hand with comments rejecting all these ideas, PF.
112. “Record of a Meeting Held in Belmopan on 18 April at 2:40 p.m.,”
FCO 7/2847.
NOTES 221
113. “Record of a Meeting Held on 18th April 1975,” PF.

114. “Record of a Meeting Held in Belmopan on 19 April 1975 at 9:30 a.m.,”
FCO 7/2847.
115. Ibid.
116. “Record of UK/Guatemalan Discussions in New Orleans on 21 April
1975 at 10 a.m.,” FCO 7/2847.
117. “Record of Discussion with Mr. Courtenay in New Orleans on 21 April
1975 at 12:15,” FCO 7/2847. There is no evidence to suggest that any
other minister would have agreed to the Moho proposal.
118. “Record of UK/Guatemala Discussions in New Orleans on 21 April
1975 at 2:15 p.m.,” FCO 7/2847.
119. Richard to FCO, April 23, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
120. Richard has said that “I was convinced that Price did not want to give
up any land. He told me so very strongly on a number of occasions. We
obviously heard that Courtenay was more accommodating about giving
up some land. But I never got the impression that Price was willing to
consider giving up land”: Interview with Richard.
121. Duncan Watson to Larmour, May 6, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
122. Record of the meeting, May 1, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
123. Ibid.
124. Callaghan to Posnett, May 6, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
125. Ibid.
126. Ibid.
127. Watson to Larmour, May 6, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
128. Collins to Duff, May 5, 1975, FCO 7/2847. This attitude was soon
to change, following Cuba’s military support for African liberation
struggles.
129. Barrett to Larmour, May 8, 1975, FCO 7/2847. Emphasis added.
130. Statement by Premier Price to ECLA Conference, May 12, 1975,
FCO 7/2847.
131. Sutherland to Allen, May 27, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
132. Posnett to UK mission, New York, May 19, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
133. Richard to FCO, May 29, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
134. Record of meeting held in FCO on June 19, 1975 at 11:00 a.m., FCO
7/2848.
135. Record of meeting held in FCO on June 20, 1975 at 11:30 a.m.,
FCO 7/2849.
136. Ibid.
137. Record of discussions held in New York on July 15, 1975, FCO
7/2849.
138. Richard to Rowlands, July 21, 1975, FCO 7/2849.
139. Ibid.
140. Duff was head of the WIAD at the FCO, the lead department on the
Belize issue.
141. Courtenay to Price, June 25, 1975, PF.
142. Statement by Courtenay to the House of Representatives, Belmopan,
July 1975, PF.
143. Rogers and Shoman to Price, August 31, 1975, PF.
144. Ibid.
222 NOTES
145. Indeed Guatemala, who had been present as an “invited country,” offi-
cially withdrew in a huff after the Belize paragraph had been adopted.
146. Rogers and Shoman to Price, August 31, 1975, PF.
5 Internationalization Emergent (1975)

1. Interview with J. D. Stephen, Political Adviser to British Foreign
Secretary David Owen in 1978 and 1979.
2. Ibid.
3. See Map 1 for a depiction of the Mexico-Belize border agreed in the
1893 Treaty.
4. Records of 771st meeting of the G.A., October 6, 1958, UN.
5. Adolfo López Mateos, IV Informe de Gobierno, cited in Paz
Salinas, p. 138.
6. U.S. embassy Mexico to State Department, March 26, 1969, RG59,
POL 32–1 Guat-UK, NAR A. Indeed, as we shall see, Mexico was deeply
concerned about access for its naval vessels to Chetumal Bay. That issue
has still not been resolved.
7. Hope to FCO, February 17, 1970, FCO 7/1580.
8. Fonseca to FCO, April 30, 1974, FCO 7/2637.
9. The Anglo-Mexican treaty only allowed passage for merchant vessels.
10. Record of a conversation, February 25, 1975, FCO 7/2845.
11. Galsworthy to FCO, April 10, 1975, FCO 7/2846.
12. Ibid.
13. Galsworthy to FCO, June 2, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
14. Galsworthy to FCO, October 2, 1975, FCO 7/2851.
15. Interview with Rabasa.
16. Duff to Green, October 27, 1975, FCO 7/2854.
18. Galsworthy to FCO, October 17, 1975, FCO 7/2853. At that time of
total political control by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI),
the Senate acted very much as a rubber stamp for the Executive.
20. Galsworthy to FCO, tel #536 of October 21, 1975, FCO 7/2854.
21. Rabasa’s press comments are reported in Galsworthy to FCO, tel #535 of
October 21, 1975, FCO 7/2854.
22. Galsworthy to FCO, November 5, 1975, FCO 7/2856.
25. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. McQuillan to FCO, November 16, 1975, FCO 7/2859.
29. Callaghan to Galsworthy, November 14, 1975, FCO 7/2859.
31. Posnett to FCO, November 18, 1975, FCO 7/2859.
32. Interview with Arthur Collins, who was deputy head of the Latin
American department.
NOTES 223
33. Walker to Cox, February 5, 1975, FCO 7/2844.

34. Ibid.
35. Richard to FCO, October 23, 1975, FCO 7/2854.
36. FCO to Washington embassy, May 29, 1975, FCO 7/2847.
37. Ramsbotham to FCO, June 16, 1975, FCO 7/2848.
38. McQuillan to British Forces, Belize, September 10, 1975, FCO
7/2850.
39. FCO to Posnett, August 28, 1975, FCO 7/2850. The UK, despite its
close ties with Israel, did not seek to prevail on Israel to stop selling arms
to Guatemala, since “we were arms salesmen ourselves. We didn’t have
a human rights record on arms sales. If we had approached the Israelis
they would say ‘but you’re selling arms to the Middle East, to Iran, to
the Saudis’; we were not in the business of preaching to others when we
ourselves were doing it”: Interview with Rowlands.
40. FCO to Posnett, August 28, 1975, FCO 7/2850.
41. Tait to Wilson, August 28, 1975, FCO 7/2850.
42. Ibid.
43. Cable to Carless, August 27, 1975, FCO 7/2850.
44. Commander British Forces, Belize to MODUK Army, September 8,
1975, FCO 7/2850.
45. Ramsbotham to FCO, October 10, 1975, FCO 7/2852.
46. Duff to Watson, October 14, 1975, FCO 7/2853.
47. Kissinger to Callaghan, November 5, 1975, FCO 7/2856.
48. Ibid.
49. Callaghan to Kissinger, November 12, 1975, FCO 7/2858.
50. See, for example, Robert A. Pastor, Exiting the Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign
Policy Toward Latin America and the Caribbean, Boulder, 2001,
pp. 42–44; Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s
Foreign Policy, New York, 1983; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and
Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981, London,
1983; John Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency: A Re-evaluation,
Manchester, 1993.
51. Pastor, p. 5.
52. Vance, p. 143.
53. Pastor, p. 46.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., p. 57.
56. Interview with Robert Leslie.
57. Interview with Richard.
58. UN General Assembly, 25th Session, Official Report, “Resolutions
Adopted on the Reports of the Sixth Committee,” pp. 121–124.
59. Ibid., emphasis added.
60. Interview with Leslie.
61. A/C.4/L.1094, October 24, 1975, UN. Emphasis added.
62. Statement by Guatemala representative to Fourth Committee, A/C.4/
SR.2163, p. 165.
63. A/C.4/L.1094/Rev.1, November 20, 1975, UN.
64. A/C.4/L.1096, November 4, 1975, UN.
224 NOTES
65. A/C.4/L.1102, November 10, 1975, UN.

66. A/C.4/L.1102/Rev.1, November 19, 1975, UN.
67. Posnett to FCO, September 24, 1975, FCO 7/2851.
68. The Times, November 6, 1975.
69. A/C.4/SR.2162, November 7, 1975, UN, pp. 151–155.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid., pp. 155–158.
73. Ibid., pp. 158–163, and A/C.4/SR.2163, November 10, 1975, UN,
pp. 164–170.
77. “Report of the Fourth Committee on Territories Not Considered
Separately,” UNGA Official Records, Annexes, A/10427, pp. 5–6.
78. A/C.4/SR.2172, November 20, 1975, UN, p. 258.
79. Morocco was then claiming sovereignty to Western Sahara, which had
been abandoned by Spain, in a situation very similar to that affecting
Belize.
80. “Report of the Fourth Committee on Territories Not Considered
Separately,” UNGA Official Records, Annexes, A/10427, pp. 5–6.
81. Official Records of the 30th Session of the UNGA, pp. 1170–1173.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., p. 1181.
84. Ibid., pp. 1181–1182.
86. Ibid.
87. Galsworthy to FCO, December 2, 1975, FCO 7/2861.
88. Rowlands to Callaghan, December 10, 1975, FCO 7/2861.
89. Callaghan to Rowlands, in Dales to Rowlands, December 15, 1975,
FCO 7/2861. Emphasis in original.
6 Internationalization Ascendant (1976–1977)

1. Duff to Stanley, February 27, 1976, FCO 7/3112.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Willson to Facer, March 29, 1976, with attached note, FCO 7/3113.
5. “Record of a Meeting in FCO on 1 April 1976,” April 1, 1976,
FCO 7/3113.
6. Ibid.
7. See Chapter 3.
8. Callaghan to Wilson, March 12, 1976, FCO 7/3112.
9. Ibid.
10. Briefing note, WIAD, January 23, 1976, FCO 7/3111.
11. Note by Samuel, March 8, 1976, FCO 7/3112.
12. Ibid.
13. Rowlands to Secretary of State, FCO, April 29, 1976, FCO 44/1350.
NOTES 225
14. Ibid.
15. Cardenal interview in Gombay, Belize, February 1979.
16. Ibid.
17. Interview with Price. See also Robert Leslie, “Price Takes on the World,”
in George Price Father of the Nation Belize, ION Media, Belize, 2000,
pp. 49–56.
18. Interview with Aristides Royo.
19. Record of meetings on June 15–17, 1976, FCO 44/1363.
20. Richard to FCO, June 16, 1976, FCO 44/1363.
21. Record of meetings on June 15–17, 1976, FCO 44/1363.
24. McEntee to FCO, July 16, 1976, FCO 44/1364.
25. Record of a meeting on July 21, 1976, July 30, 1976, FCO 44/1365.
26. The placing of a bilateral treaty between two countries in the constitu-
tion of a third may indeed be without precedent in the annals of modern
constitutional history.
27. In fact, Rowlands had acted against the clear terms of the UN resolution,
which demanded respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty.
28. Rafael Fonseca and Shoman.
29. Record of meeting at 4:30 p.m. on July 21, 1976, FCO 44/1365.
30. Record of meeting at 12 noon on July 22, 1976, FCO 44/1365.
31. Record of meeting at 10:30 a.m. on July 22, 1976, FCO 44/1365.
32. Ibid.
33. The record would seem to belie this.
34. The readiness to consider “ceding” maritime areas was based on the fact
that Britain had traditionally claimed only a three-mile territorial sea, so
that the 12-mile limit and the 200-mile exclusive economic zone that the
UNCLOS had established was not part of Belize’s historic territory.
35. Duff to McEntee, July 28, 1976, FCO 44/1365.
36. Ibid.
37. Record of meeting at 10:30 a.m. on July 22, 1976, FCO 44/1365.
38. Duff to McEntee, July 30, 1976, FCO 44/1371 and FCO 44/1359.
39. Duff to Larmour, July 30, 1976, FCO 44/1359.
40. Richard to FCO, August 6, 1976, FCO 44/1365.
41. Ibid.
42. See, for example, “Commentary on Revised Draft Treaty in Light of
Discussions in New York 3–5 August 1976,” August 1976, FCO
44/1365.
43. Cited in “Belize: The Address to the Fourth Committee of Deputy
Premier Rogers in November 1976,” Belize, 1976. The resolution
referred to was the Caribbean one passed in 1975.
44. See below.
45. Crosland to McEntee, August 27, 1976, FCO 44/1359.
46. See, for example, Richard to FCO, September 1, 1976 and Willson to
Stanley, September 6, 1976, FCO 44/1359.
47. “Note of an Office Meeting Held by Mr Rowlands on 26 August 1976,”
WIAD, September 2, 1976, FCO 44/1359.
226 NOTES
48. McEntee to FCO, September 11, 1976, FCO 44/1359.

49. The UK delegation was led by Rowlands and included five other
officials, with Price and his team adding another four, while the
Guatemalan delegation led by Foreign Minister Molina numbered
ten.
50. John (UK embassy, Panama) to FCO, September 23, 1976, FCO
44/1361.
51. Rowlands claims he had to take stock and decide how to proceed; “I did
not have the authority to pull the plug on the negotiations, so I had to
stall”: Interview with Rowlands.
52. Record of meeting on September 22, at 3:30 p.m., FCO 44/1366.
53. Ibid.
54. John to FCO, September 23, 1976, FCO 44/1361.
55. Ibid.
56. Crosland to McEntee, September 29, 1976, FCO 44/1366. I have not
found a copy of the map.
57. Rowlands to Crosland, September 30, 1976, FCO 44/1361.
58. Ibid. Emphasis in original.
59. Rowlands to Belmopan, October 13, 1976, FCO 44/1360.
60. Rowlands to Guatemala, October 13, 1976, FCO 44/1360.
61. McQuillan to FCO, October 26, 1976, FCO 44/1361.
62. Rowlands to Mason, July 12, 1976, FCO 44/1360.
63. Fred Mulley to Crosland, November 19, 1976, FCO 44/1362.
64. Ibid.
65. “Belize Force Levels,” note of November 30, 1976, by P. A. Rotheram,
Ministry of Defense, DEFE 24/1492.
66. Private Secretary to the PM to Dales, December 30, 1976, DEFE
24/1492.
67. Crosland to Mulley, January 7, 1977, DEFE 24/1492.
68. Collins to Duff, January 15, 1976, FCO 7/3114.
69. Duff to Posnett, February 5, 1976, FCO 7/3114.
70. Record of the Rowlands-Torrijos conversation on September 18, 1976,
September 27, 1976, FCO 44/1346.
71. John to FCO, September 21, 1976, FCO 44/1361.
72. Ibid.
73. Taylor to FCO, September 22, 1976, FCO 44/1346.
74. Informe para el Señor Presidente de la República: Conversación sos-
tenida con el Primer Ministro de Belice Jorge Price, Palacio de Miraflores,
September 25, 1976, FCO 44/1346. See also McEntee to FCO,
September 29 and 30, 1976, and McEntee to Duff, September 30, 1976,
all in FCO 44/1346.
75. McEntee to Duff, September 30, 1976, FCO 44/1346.
76. McEntee to FCO, tel #67 of September 30, 1976, FCO 44/1346.
77. McEntee to FCO, October 1, 1976, FCO 44/1346.
78. Crosland to Belmopan, October 4, 1976, FCO 44/1346.
79. Ramsbotham to FCO, September 30, 1976, FCO 44/1360.
80. Ramsbotham to FCO, October 20, 1976, FCO 44/1360.
NOTES 227
81. Richardson to Young, September 30, 1976, FCO 44/1360.

82. Ibid.
83. General Assembly, 31st Session VII Resolutins adopted on the reports
of the Fourth Committee, 85th Plenary Meeting, December 1, 1976,
pp. 122–123
84. “Statement by Deputy Premier C. L. B. Rogers to the Fourth Committee
of the United Nations,” Government Printers, Belize, 1976.
85. Fourth Committee 19th meeting, November 9, 1976, A/C.4/31/SR.19.
86. “Peru Draft on the Question of Belize,” PF. See also Murray to FCO,
November 8, 1976, DEFE 24/1492.
87. UN General Assembly 31st Session Official Records, 85th Plenary
Meeting, December 1, 1976.
88. Ibid.
89. Duff to Stanley, December 3, 1976, FCO 44/1362.
90. Ibid.
91. Crosland to McEntee, December 7, 1976, FCO 44/1362.
92. Norbury to DPS (C), November 15, 1976, DEFE 24/1492.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Rhodes to Duff, November 26, 1976, FCO 44/1362.
96. Crosland to Belmopan, January 13, 1977, DEFE 24/1492.
97. Infopress 243A, May 1977, cited in Roberto Carpio Nicolle, Belice
Punto y Aparte, Guatemala, 1981.
98. Cited in “The Anglo-Guatemalan Dispute Working Paper Prepared by
the Commonwealth Secretariat,” September 1977, CMCB/77/1, CSL.
99. Quoted in Belice Punto y Aparte, p. 22.
100. Jackson to Wills, July 13, 1977, File I 33–2/2 Part A. CMCB, CSL.
101. This and what follows on the London Commonwealth meeting is
from “The Anglo-Guatemalan Dispute Working Paper prepared by the
Commonwealth Secretariat,” September 1977, CMCB/77/1, File SG/
CF/BEL, CSL.
102. Annex A to “Record of the Commonwealth Ministerial Committee on
Belize,” September 27, 1977, CMCB (77) 5, Commonwealth Secretariat,
London, p. 41, CSL.
103. Cited in Carpio Nicolle, Belice Punto y Aparte, p. 19.
104. See newspaper La Nación, June 30, 1977; cited in Bardini, p. 122.
105. Bardini, p. 122.
106. Roberts to FCO, June 28, 1977; Owen to Belmopan, June 28, 1977;
Roberts to FCO, June 29, 1977, all in DEFE 24/1300.
107. McQuillan to FCO, June 28, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
108. Owen to Washington, June 29, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
109. Perkins to CDS, June 29, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
110. Chief of the Defence Staff to Mulley, June 29, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
111. Mulley to Owen, June 30, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
112. Owen to Mulley, July 1, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
113. Salvador Embassy to FCO, July 2, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
114. Moreton to FCO, July 4, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
228 NOTES
115. Interview with Rowlands. Callaghan said that “it’s not the President of
the United States’ head on the block if something happens. It’s mine—
and yours.”
116. Owen to Belmopan, July 4, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
117. Interview with Rowlands. Emphasis in original.
118. Moreton to FCO, July 5, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
119. Callaghan to Laugerud, July 7, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
120. Vance to Owen, in London to Belmopan, July 1, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
Emphasis added.
121. At least in the plenary sessions; see below.
122. Interview with Rowlands.
123. Ibid.
124. “Confidential Annex, Chief of Staff Committee 20th Meeting/77, held
on Friday 8 July 1977 at 3.00 p.m.,” DEFE 24/1300.
125. Rowlands to FCO, July 8, 1977, DEFE 24/1300.
126. As with the other threatened invasions, it continues to be a matter of
speculation whether the Guatemalans would have invaded or not if the
British had not reinforced. Richard did not really think so at the time,
feeling that “they were making noises for internal political purposes and
to affect the negotiations,” but he draws the parallel with what happened
in the Falklands, and concludes that “looking back, if we had done noth-
ing they may have invaded”: Interview with Richard.
127. Owen to Callaghan, August 11, 1977, DEFE 13/1131.
128. “An Information Paper on Belize Submitted by the British Government”
to the CMCB, September 1977, CMCB/77/2, CSL.
129. Price to Ramphal, August 23, 1977, enclosing a memorandum of the
meeting with Roel and a translation of the Mexican paper on a defense
guarantee, File I 33–2/2 Part A, CMCB, CSL.
130. Ibid.
131. Ibid.
132. Articles in La Nación and El Gráfico, quoted in Carpio Nicole, Belice
Punto y Aparte, p. 30.
133. Carpio Nicole, Belice Punto y Aparte, p. 30.
134. Murray to FCO, July 13, 1977, DEFE 13/1131.
135. Ibid. Emphasis added.
136. Vance message to Owen, June 22, 1977, in Owen to Callaghan, June 30,
1977, DEFE 24/1300.
137. Owen to Callaghan, August 11, 1977, DEFE 13/1131.
138. Ibid.
139. “Records of Meetings of the CMCB, 1977–1980,” Commonwealth
Secretariat, undated, CSL.
140. Ibid.
141. Ibid.
142. Ibid.
143. Stanley to FCO, tel #263 of September 15, 1977, DEFE 13/1131.
144. Ibid. There is no evidence to support this assertion about “Latin
Americans.”
145. Private Secretary, Downing Street to Fergusson, FCO, September 19,
1977, DEFE 13/1131.
NOTES 229
149. Richard to FCO, tel #1440 of September 28, 1977, DEFE 13/1131.
151. Owen had indeed mentioned this meeting of officials to the CMCB,
without giving any details, saying he had talked to Mr. Price about it,
but that there was still a big gap between what was possible and what
Guatemala had demanded. See “Records of Meetings of the CMCB,
1977–1980,” Commonwealth Secretariat, undated, CSL.
153. “Records of Meetings of the CMCB, 1977–1980,” Commonwealth
Secretariat, undated, CSL.
154. Ibid.
155. Richard to FCO, October 25, 1977, DEFE 13/1131.
156. A/C.4/32/L.24, November 11, 1977, UN.
157. A/C.4/32/L.23, November 10, 1977, UN.
158. A/C.4/32/L.23/Rev. 1, November 14, 1977, UN.
159. A/C.4/32/SR.20, November 9, 1977, UN.
160. A/C.4/32/SR.22, November 11, 1977, UN.
161. A/C.4/32/SR22, November 11, 1977, UN.
162. A/C.4/32/SR.25, November 15, 1977, UN.
163. Ibid.
164. A/C.4/32/SR.26, November 17, 1977, UN.
165. Ibid.
166. UNGA Plenary Sessions, 19th meeting, October 5, 1977, p. 385.
169. Private Secretary, Downing Street, to Wall, FCO, October 13, 1977,
DEFE 13/1131.
170. Declaration of the meeting, PF.
171. Crosland to McEntee, August 27, 1976, FCO 44/1359.
7 Internationalization Triumphant (1978–1981)

1. McEntee to FCO, January 20, 1978; Richard to FCO, January 19, 1978;
McQuillan to FCO, January 20, 1978; Jay to FCO, January 20, 1978; Cox
to FCO, January 21, 1978; McEntee to FCO, January 28, 1978; Rowlands
to Owen, January 30, 1978; all in DEFE 24/1649.
2. Jay to FCO, January 20, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
3. Rowlands to Owen, tel. # 29 of January 19, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
4. Rowlands to Owen, tel. # 122 of January 19, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
Rowlands admits that he had misread Price; he had thought that because
Price “allowed me to go on negotiating” he would have accepted a settle-
ment with minor territorial adjustments. “I didn’t get the impression
until later on that he was so adamantly against it”: interview with
Rowlands.
5. Cox to FCO, tel. # 26 of January 21, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
230 NOTES

8. Jay to FCO, January 21, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
10. Owen to Belmopan, January 25, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
11. Owen to Guatemala City, January 25, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
12. Price’s radio broadcast is in tels #38 and #39 of January 28, 1978 from
McEntee to FCO, DEFE 24/1649.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. FCO to Belmopan, February 16, 1978, DEFE 24/1649, citing an article
in the Financial Times datelined Belmopan February 15.
17. Hansard, January 25, 1978, Cols. 1372, 1384–1391.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Rowlands to Owen, in FCO to Valletta, January 30, 1978, DEFE
24/1649.
21. Rowlands to Owen, February 2, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
22. Owen to Rowlands, February 7, 1978, relaying message from Todman,
DEFE 24/1649.
23. McEntee to FCO, February 3, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
24. Jay to FCO, February 10, 1978, DEFE 24/1649. The drafts were not
available at the British archives.
25. Owen to Washington, February 13, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
26. McEntee to FCO, 16 February, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
27. Bundu to Ramphal, March 16, 1978, File 33/2/99, Belize 1978, CSL.
28. Gautrey to FCO, March 10, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
29. Gautrey to FCO, March 16, 1978; Fonseca to FCO, March 17, 1978;
Drinkall to FCO, March 23, 1978; Gautrey to FCO, March 23, 1978; all
in DEFE 24/1649.
30. Owen to Washington, March 23, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
31. Interview with Price. The author accompanied Price at this meeting.
32. Jay to FCO, March 28, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
33. Jay to FCO, March 25, 1978; Owen to Washington, March 27, 1978;
DEFE 24/1649.
34. He was not the only one to think so. Guyana’s ambassador to the UN
reminded the British that Prime Minister Callaghan had said at the June
CHOGM that if a force were to be drawn from some Commonwealth
countries and a Latin American country Britain would be prepared to
support it: Gautrey to FCO, April 17, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
35. FCO to Belmopan, March 30, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
36. McEntee to FCO, March 31, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
37. Robinson to FCO, April 7, 1978, enclosing message from Todman to
Rowlands, DEFE 24/1649.
38. McEntee to FCO, April 17, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
39. McEntee to FCO, April 24, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
40. Owen’s “quick deal” plan “was very much more an Anglo-American plan
than perhaps people realise”: Interview with J. D. Stephen.
NOTES 231
41. Owen to Belmopan, May 15, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.

42. McEntee to FCO, tel #66 of February 12, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
Indeed, the UDP Declaration was quoted extensively and approvingly by
the Guatemalan delegate during the Fourth Committee debates at the
UN in 1978: A/C.4/33/SR.32, pp. 8–9.
43. Richard to FCO, June 2, 1978, DEFE 24/1649.
44. McEntee to FCO, June 8, 1978, DEFE 24/1649. It is impossible to
reach the conclusion from the words of the MOU that it required elec-
tions before independence, but Owen himself also gave it that spin.
45. Owen to Washington, June 9, 1978, DEFE 24/1649. Emphasis added.
46. Ibid.
47. Record of meeting on June 18, DEFE 24/1649.
48. Ibid.
49. Cited in record of the meeting of the CMCB of September 28, 1978,
October 1978, CMCB (78)3, pp. 6–7, CSL.
50. Wilmshurt to FCO, August 29, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
51. Richard to FCO, September 25, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
52. Owen to Washington, October 5, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
53. Sanders to FCO, October 11, 1978, DEFE 24/1650, enclosing message
from Rowlands to Owen.
54. Wilmshurst to FCO, October 17, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
55. FCO to Guatemala, October 24, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
56. Wilmshurst to FCO, November 7, 1978, DEFE 24/1650, enclosing
message from Castillo to Owen.
57. Owen to Washington, November 8, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
58. Bridges to FCO, November 9, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
59. Record of meeting of CMCB on September 28, 1978, October 1978,
CMCB (78)3, p. 4, CSL. The evidence clearly contradicts his assertion
that he had never asked the Belize government to change its position on
land cession.
60. Ibid., pp. 4–5.
61. Ibid., pp. 6–7.
62. Ibid., pp. 7–15.
63. Lauterpacht and Bowett, Belize—Joint Opinion, Belmopan, 1978, p. 50.
64. A/C.4/33/SR.27, November 28, 1978, UN, p. 7.
65. “Statement of Deputy Premier C. L. B. Rogers to Fourth Committee,
29 November 1978,” PF; a summary is in A/C.4/33/SR.29, November 29,
1978, UN, pp. 12–14.
66. Ibid. The typed version of the speech has the word “declare” rather than
“request” in the last phrase; the British requested the change.
67. Owen to Belmopan, November 20, 1978, DEFE 24/1650. Ivor Richard
has said that Owen had a mania for dealing with details personally:
interview with Richard.
68. A/C.4/33/L.19, November 27, 1978, UN.
69. Official Records of the General Assembly, 33rd session, 81st Plenary
meeting, December 13, 1978, paras. 121–122.
70. Wilmshurst to FCO, December 1, 1978, DEFE 24/1650.
71. Cited in Carpio Nicolle, Belice Punto y Aparte, p. 85.
232 NOTES
72. A/C.4/34/L.14, October 31, 1979, UN.

73. A/C.4/34/L.15, November 1, 1979, UN.
74. A/C.4/34/SR.24, November 5, 1979, UN, pp. 5–8.
75. Ibid., p. 8.
76. A/34/PV.75, 101, November 21, 1979, UN.
77. PUP Manifesto for the New and Progressive Revolution, 1979–1984, Belize
City, 1979.
78. Record of Price/Ridley meeting on January 15, 1980, FCO, January 23,
1980, PF.
79. Ibid.
80. “Meeting with Minister Nicholas Ridley, 1 May 1980,” PF, p. 1.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid., pp. 3–4.
83. Ibid., pp. 1–2.
84. Ibid., p. 2.
85. Lindo had been defeated in the elections by Musa and Aranda had
become the leader of the UDP.
86. “Meeting with Mr. Ridley, 2 May 1980,” PF.
87. Ibid., p. 3.
88. “Anglo-Guatemalan Talks, First Plenary Session, 11:15 a.m. Bermuda
19 May 1980,” and “Second Plenary Session, 4:00 p.m.,” Belizean
record of talks, PF.
89. Ibid., “Meeting of Committee on Land,” 10 p.m., May 19, 1980.
90. Ibid.
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid., “Meeting of Committee on Land,” 11 a.m., May 20, 1980, PF.
93. Ibid., “Third Plenary Session,” 12 noon, May 20, 1980, PF.
94. “Notes on Meeting of Experts on 7th and 8th July 1980,” PF.
95. “Belize House of Representatives Votes for Secure Independence and
NO Land Session,” Belize, July 25, 1980.
96. “Memorandum, 11 August 1980, Old Government House, Belize
City,” PF.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. Record of meeting of CMCB on September 30, 1980, CMBCB (80)2,
pp. 2–3, CSL.
100. Ibid., pp. 3–6.
101. Ibid., pp. 5–6.
102. “Communiqué of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Ministers for Foreign
Affairs and Heads of Delegations of the Non-Aligned Countries to the
General Assembly at Its Thirty-Fifth Session,” A/35/542, October 17,
1980, UN.
103. “Anglo-Guatemalan Negotiations, United Kingdom Mission, New York,
13 October 1980, Session 1, 11:20 a.m.,” PF.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid., Session 2, 5:10 p.m.
106. Ibid. The 17 proposals included sea concessions, economic cooperation,
free ports, roads, oil pipelines, Belize’s entry into Central American
institutions, a long lease of some southern cay to be negotiated after
NOTES 233
independence, and an undertaking by Belize that its territory would not

be used for subversion against Guatemala.
107. Ibid., Session 3, October 14, 1980.
108. Ibid.
109. Note from Noel Sinclair on CMCB meeting, October 17, 1980, File
SG/CF/BEL, CSL.
110. Ibid.
111. A/C.4/35/SR.17, October 28, 1980, UN, p. 10.
112. A/C.4/35/SR.18, October 28, 1980, UN, pp. 3–6. The effect of
his proposal would have been to give Guatemala a veto over Belize’s
independence.
113. A/C.4/35/SR.19, October 29, 1980, UN, pp. 7–8.
114. Ibid., p. 23.
115. These negotiations were conducted by the author.
116. UNGA 35th Session, Official Records, November 11, 1980, UN,
pp. 214–215.
117. Ibid., p. 6.
118. UNGA, 35th Session, Official Records, November 11, 1980,
UN, p. 997.
119. OAS, Tenth Regular Session Washington DC, November 19–27,
1980: Proceedings, vol. 1, certified texts of the Resolutions, General
Secretariat OAS, Washington, 1981. Costa Rica’s abstention was surpris-
ing, but since the issue was at the level of the regional organization, that
country’s government probably felt that its abstention, which would ease
Guatemala’s ire, would not be harmful to Belize.
120. “Record of Meetings with Guatemala,” February 1981, PF.
121. FCO Paper, March 5, 1981, PF.
122. “Draft Record of Anglo-Guatemalan Talks: 5 March,” FCO paper,
March 5, 1981, PF.
123. “Draft Record of Anglo-Guatemalan Talks: 6 March, Unapproved ver-
sion,” FCO paper, March 6, 1981, PF.
124. Price was accompanied at the talks by Ministers V. H. Courtenay and
Assad Shoman.
125. “Draft Record of Anglo-Guatemalan Talks: 6 March, Unapproved ver-
sion,” FCO paper, March 6, 1981, PF.
126. “Cays, 8 March 1981,” Draft article prepared by the FCO, PF.
127. “Possible Negotiating Positions for the Belize Delegation at Their
Negotiations with Guatemala in London on 9 March 1981,” prepared
by the FCO, PF.
128. “Anglo-Guatemalan Talks: 9 March 1981, Unapproved Version,” FCO
paper, March 9, 1981, PF.
129. “Anglo-Guatemalan Talks: 10 March Unapproved Version,” FCO paper,
March 10, 1981, PF.
130. Personal recollection. The author was the negotiator interviewed by the
union.
131. Published in “Special Bulletin, London Talks Pave Way for Independence,”
Belize, March 16, 1981.
132. Report of the meeting, March 17–18, 1981, Caribbean Community
Secretariat, April 6, 1981, Rep. 81/1/12 FP (Ex).
234 NOTES
133. Ibid.
134. “One should not compromise the dawn of the twenty-first century.”
135. “The people are hungry for history. A political moment has to be filled
with the participation of the people.”
136. “History is like a missile—it does not pass you twice”: Record of Torrijos/
Shoman meeting, PF.
137. “Statement by Hon. George Price, Premier, House of Representatives,
27 March 1981,” PF.
138. The interim report is in Patterson to Ramphal, June 11, 1981, File SG/
CF/BEL, CSL.
139. Ibid., pp. 5–12.
140. “Record of Torrijos/Shoman Meeting,” PF.
141. “Report on Brief to Caribbean Governments,” Said Musa, June 15,
1981, PF.
142. “Report by V. H. Courtenay to Hon. Premier on Washington Meeting,”
June 15, 1981, PF.
143. “British Parliament House of Commons Debate 30th June 1981,”
Belize, 1981.
144. Malhoutra, “Brief Given by Mr. Ridley to Members of the CMCB on
19 June at the FCO,” June 24, 1981, File SG/CF/BEL, CSL.
145. Ibid.
146. Interim report, meetings in New York, July 5–10, 1981, P. J. Patterson,
July 16, 1981, PF.
147. Joint Communiqué, July 13, 1981, PF.
148. This could be regarded as a bold bluff by Price, who felt sure he would
not be called upon to deliver on that promise, since he believed that
the Guatemalans would not regard that as sufficient, and no agreement
would be reached.
149. Hansard, June 30, 1981.
150. “Statement of Premier George Price on the Future of Belize, Broadcast
by Radio Belize on 14th July 1981,” Belize.
151. “Radio Statement on Independence and the Future Security of Belize by
Premier George Price, 26 July 1981, City Centre, Belize City,” Belize,
1981.
152. Ibid.
153. Although the sense of a threat still hung in the air. On Independence
Day, the British commander in Belize was in a helicopter carrying Ridley
and the royal representative to Belmopan when he received a message
from the captain that an air attack from the Guatemalans was imminent.
He had the Harriers in the air, and nothing came of it: Interview with
Brigadier Anthony Vivian.
154. Belizean Independence Secretariat paper, PF.
155. Brukdown, no 5, Belize, 1981, p. 11.
156. Cited by Ambassador Santizo, Permanent Representative of Guatemala
to the OAS, at the meeting of the Permanent Council of the OAS on
September 23, 1981, transcript of tapes of session, PF.
157. Paper by the International Affairs Division of the Commonwealth
Secretariat, November 11, 1982-, File I 33–2/4, E/22, CSL.
NOTES 235
8 Conclusions: The Power of the Conjuncture

1. Posnett to Richard, May 12, 1975, FCO 7/2847. Price was removed
from the Executive Council only.
2. Interview with Arthur Collins. Collins was deputy head of the Latin
American department in the 1970s.
4. Interview with Richard.
5. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, London, 1993, p. 248.
6. The Sunday Times, May 20, 1984.
7. Interview with Ricardo Alarcón. The Cuban ambassador was a friend of
Young.
8. Ibid.
9. Interview with Maldonado Aguirre.
10. Ibid.
11. Interview with Francisco Villagrán Kramer.
12. Ibid.
13. Dunkerley, p. 440.
14. Fraser-Orr (Commander, British Forces Belize) to Governor, February 28,
1975, FCO 7/2846.
15. Posnett to Eyres, March 4, 1975, FCO 7/2846. Posnett had served at
the UN for four years before going to Belize.
17. Interview with Francisco Villagrán Kramer.
18. Pastor, p. 13.
19. McQuillan to FCO, March 26, 1975, FCO 7/2846.
20. Interview with Maldonado Aguirre.
21. Michla Pomerance, Self-Determination in Law and Practice, The Hague,
1982, p. 22.
22. Interview with Alarcón.
24. The Guatemalan intelligence services knew of these contacts, and fin-
gered Shoman in relation to them: Interview with Villagrán Kramer.
The largest guerrilla force, the Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP),
declared that it saw “Belizean independence as part of our struggle” in
a manifesto published by the Guardian on October 26, 1979 in return
for the release of the EGP’s hostage, Jorge García Granados: Dunkerley,
p. 506, fn. 30.
26. Jackson to Wills (Foreign Minister, Guyana), July 13, 1977, File I 33–2/2
Part A CMCB, CSL.
27. Note from Noel Sinclair on CMCB meeting, October 17, 1980, File
SG/CF/BEL, CSL.
28. Stephen Walt, “International Relations: One World, Many Theories,”
Foreign Policy, 110 (Spring 1998), pp. 29–46.
29. Ibid., pp. 40–41.
30. Ibid., pp. 42–43.
Select Bibliography
List of Persons Interviewed

The posts of persons are those they held at the relevant time in the narrative,
unless otherwise stated. The dates and places of the interviews are in brackets.
Aguirre, Maldonado: Guatemalan ambassador to the UN. (Guatemala City,
January 11, 2008)
Alarcón, Ricardo: Cuban ambassador to the UN. (Havana, January 3, 2008)
Carpio Nicolle, Roberto: Guatemalan negotiator. (Guatemala City, January 11,
2008)
Collins, Arthur: Head of the Latin American Department in the FCO and act-
ing head of the Mexico and the Caribbean Department. (Hove, November 8,
2007)
Goldson, Philip: Leader of the Opposition. (Belmopan, December 17, 1985)
Leslie, Robert: Public officer in the Belizean Independence Secretariat.
(Belmopan, January 28, 2008)
O’Shaunessy, Hugh: Financial Times reporter. (London, December 9, 2007)
Posnett, Richard: Governor of Belize. (Essex, November 28, 2007)
Price, George: Premier of Belize. (Belize City, May 14, 21, 22, 28, June 17, July 16,
September 3, 2003, and January 5, 8, and 26, 2008)
Rabasa, Emilio: Foreign Minister of Mexico. (Mexico City, January 30,
2008)
Richard, Ivor: British ambassador to the UN. (London, July 30, 1987 and
September 26, 2007)
Rowlands, Ted: Minister of State in the FCO. (London, November 12,
2007)
Royo, Arístedes: President of Panama. (Washington, January 18, 2008)
Stephen, J. D., Political Adviser to Foreign Secretary David Owen. (London,
July 1987)
Tello, Manuel: Director at the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico.
(Mexico City, January 30, 2008)
Villagrán Kramer, Francisco: Vice President of Guatemala and Guatemalan
negotiator. (Guatemala City, January 24, 2008)
Vivian, Anthony: Brigadier General, Commander British Forces Belize. (London,
November 27 and December 6, 2007)
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Printery, Belmopan, 1978.
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1980, 1981, Belmopan.
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Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 1957, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1978,
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The United States

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Washington, 1966.
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Organization of American States
Tenth Inter-American Conference, Caracas, March 1–28, 1954, Final Act,
Conferences and Organization Series, Number 33, Washington, Pan
American Union, 1954.
SELEC T BIBLIOGR A PH Y 239
Final Act of the Ninth International Conference of American States, Bogotá,

Colombia, March 30–May 2, 1948, Washington, Pan American Union, 1964.
Recomendaciones e Informes del Comité Jurídico Internacional, Documentos
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Americanos, 1981.
United Nations
Documents cited in the notes section.
Caribbean Community Secretariat

Documents cited in the notes section.
Newspapers and Journals

Brukdown (Belize City)
Diario de Centro América (Guatemala City)
El Gráfico (Guatemala City)
Gombay (Belize City)
La Nación (San José)
La República (Guatemala City)
Prensa Libre (Guatemala City)
The Belize Billboard (Belize City)
The Belize Times (Belize City)
The British Honduran (Belize City)
The Daily Clarion (Belize City)
The Daily Mail (London)
The Daily Telegraph (London)
The Economist (London)
The Guardian (London)
The Independent (London)
The Sunday Times (London)
The Times (London)
Books and Articles

Bardini, Roberto, Belice: Historia de una Nación en Movimiento, Editorial
Universitaria, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 1978.
Barkin, J. Samuel, International Organizations: Theories and Institutions,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2006.
The Belize Issue, Latin America Bureau, London, 1978.
Berganza, Gustavo, Compendio de Historia de Guatemala, 1944–2000, Asociación
de Investigaciones y Estudios Sociales, Guatemala, 2004.
Bloomfield, L. M., The British Honduras—Guatemala Dispute, Carswell,
Toronto, 1953.
240 SELEC T BIBLIOGR A PH Y
Bolland, O. Nigel, The Formation of a Colonial Society: Belize, from Conquest to

Crown Colony, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1977.
———, Belize: A New Nation in Central America, Westview Press, Boulder, 1986.
———, The Politics of Labour in the British Caribbean: The Social Origins of
Authoritarianism and Democracy in the Labour Movement, Ian Randle,
Kingston, 2001.
Bolland, O. Nigel, and Shoman, Assad, Land in Belize, 1765–1871, Institute of
Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, Jamaica, 1977.
Boyce, D. George, Decolonisation and the British Empire, 1775–1997, Macmillan,
London, 1999.
Burdon, Sir John Alder (ed.), Archives of British Honduras, 3 vols., Sifton Praed,
London, 1931–1935.
Carpio Nicolle, Roberto, ¿Hacia Dónde Va Belice?, Ediciones Girblán, Guatemala,
1977.
———, Belice Punto y Aparte, Ediciones Girblán, Guatemala, 1981.
Darwin, John, “The Fear of Falling: British Policy and Imperial Decline since
1900,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 36, 1986, 27–43.
———, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War
World, Macmillan, London, 1988.
Dunkerley, James, Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central
America, Verso, London, 1988.
Ferro, Marc, Colonization: A Global History, Routledge, London, 1997.
Fried, Jonathan L., Marvin E. Gettle, and Nancy Peckenham (eds.), Guatemala
in Rebellion: Unfinished History, Grove Press, New York, 1983.
Gallagher, John, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1982.
Grant, Cedric H., The Making of Modern Belize, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1976.
Griffith, William J., Empires in the Wilderness: Foreign Colonization and
Development in Guatemala, 1834–1844, University of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill, 1965.
Heinlein, Frank, British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945–1963:
Scrutinising the Official Mind, Frank Cass, London, 2002.
Henderson, Capt. G., An Account of the British Settlement of Honduras, C. and
R. Baldwin, London, 1809.
Herrarte, Alberto, El Caso de Belice y la Mediación de Estados Unidos, Editorial
Académica Centroamericana, Guatemala, 1980.
Holland, R. F., European Decolonization, 1918–1981: An Introductory Survey,
Macmillan Education, London, 1985.
Hudson, Manley O., “Opinion on the Belize Dispute Submitted to the
Government of the Republic of Guatemala,” June 30, 1950, Judge Hudson
Papers, Harvard Law School Library.
Humphreys, R. A., The Diplomatic History of British Honduras, 1638–1901,
Oxford University Press, London, 1961.
Hyam, Ronald, Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918–1968,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.
Jonas, Susanne, The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and U.S. Power,
Westview Press, Boulder, 1991.
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Keohane, Robert O., International Institutions and State Power. Essays in

International Relations Theory, Westview Press, London, 1989.
Louis, W. R. and H. Bull (eds.), The “Special Relationship”: Anglo-American
Relations since 1945, Oxford University Press, London, 1986.
Meers, Sharon I., “The British Connection: How the United States Covered Its
Tracks in the 1954 Coup in Guatemala,” Diplomatic History, vol. 16, no. 3,
1992, 409–428.
Mendoza, José Luis, Britain and Her Treaties on Belize (British Honduras):
Guatemala Has the Right to Reinstate the Entire Territory of Belize, Ministry
for Foreign Affairs, Guatemala, 1959.
Ovendale, Ritchie (ed.), British Defence Policy since 1945, Manchester University
Press, Manchester, 1994.
Parker, Franklin D., The Central American Republics, Oxford University Press,
London, 1964.
Pastor, Robert A., Exiting the Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy toward Latin
America and the Caribbean, Westview Press, 2nd Edition, Boulder, 2001.
Paz Salinas, María Emilia, Belize: El Despertar de una Nación, Siglo Veintiuno,
México, 1979.
Pomerance, Michla, Self-Determination in Law and Practice: The New Doctrine
in the United Nations, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1982.
Rajan, M. S., “The Non-Aligned Movement and the Criteria for Membership,”
Non-Aligned World, vol. 1, no. 2, 1983, 222–234.
Rosado Granados, Hector, “Parties: Transitions and the Political System in
Guatemala,” in Louis Goodman, William M. Leogrande, and Johanna
Mendelson Forman (eds.), Political Parties and Democracy in Central
America, Westview Press, Boulder, 1992.
Shoman, Assad, “The Birth of the Nationalist Movement in Belize, 1950–1954,”
Journal of Belizean Affairs, no. 2, 1973, 3–40.
———, Party Politics in Belize, 1950–1986, Cubola Productions, Belize, 1987.
———, Backtalking Belize, Angelus Press, Belize, 1995.
———, Thirteen Chapters of a History of Belize, Angelus Press, 4th Printing,
Belize, 2000.
Singham, A. W., and Hune, Shirley, Non alignment in an Age of Alignments,
Zed Books, London, 1986.
Thatcher, Margaret, The Downing Street Years, Harper Collins, London, 1993.
Toussaint Ribot, Monica, Belice: Una Historia Olvidada, Instituto Mora,
Mexico, 1993.
Walt, Stephen M., “International Relations: One World, Many Theories,” Foreign
Policy, vol. 110, Special Edition, Spring 1998, pp. 29–32 and 34–46 .
Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics, Addison-Wesley, London,
1979.
White, Nicholas J., Decolonization: the British Experience since 1945, Longman,
London, 1999.
Williams, Mary Wilhelmine, Anglo-American Isthmian Diplomacy 1815–1915,
Peter Smith, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1965.
Index
Abdullah, Frank, 111 Bolland, Nigel, 8

Act of Washington, 78–79 boundary (Belize-Guatemala), 27, 30
Adams, Tom, 134, 135 survey of, 33–34
Africa, 3, 4, 5, 13, 25, 85, 86, 91, 116, 117, Bouteflika, Abdel-Aziz, 90–91
132, 135, 141, 142, 185, 189, 191 Britain
Alarcón, Ricardo, 90, 235 n. 7 and decolonization, 2–6
Algeria, 13, 90 defense policy, 10–11, 188, 189
American Committee on Dependent and European destiny, 2, 3, 10
Territories, 78 in financial straits, 2, 4, 5
Amery, Julian, 85 and sovereign base in Belize, 165–166
Arana Osorio, Carlos, 45–46, 74, 85, 87 and special relationship with U.S.,
Aranda, Theodore, 166, 170, 232 n. 85 6–7, 9, 47, 76, 106, 113
Arbenz, Jacobo, 38, 43–44, 47 and support of U.S. action against
arbitration, proposals for, 35, 53, 140 Guatemala, 43–44
Arenales, Emilio, 60–64 against UN action, 85, 89
Arenales, Jorge, 83–88, 214 n. 73 see also British Empire, Foreign and
Arévalo, Juan José, 43, 45, 78 Commonwealth Office, land cession
Article 7 (of 1859 treaty), 30–35, 55, British Consul (in Guatemala),
58, 77, 159, 161 27, 84
Aycinena, Pedro de, 30–31 British Empire, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14
Aycinena Salazar, Luis, 56, 91, 94, 125, British forces, 10, 86, 106, 135, 175,
212 n. 36 184, 189, 190, 192
reinforcements: 192, 228 n. 126;
Barbados, 6, 89, 90, 100, 131, 134, (1948), 33; (1972), 49, 74–75;
135, 136, 147, 154, 181, 194 (1975), 48, 105, 107–109, 114,
and Israeli arms shipment, 137, 146 119; (1976), 130–131; (1977),
Barkin, Samuel, 19 137–138, 145
Barranco, 92 British Honduras, 1, 6, 28, 30, 39, 41,
Barrow, Errol, 95, 96, 100 50, 53, 55, 58, 59, 61, 209 n. 85
Bay of Amatique, 94, 159 British parliament, see House of
Bay of Pigs, 45, 47 Commons
Belize Billboard, The, 37 Brown, George, 60–63, 214 n. 73
Belize City, 36–37, 41, 42, 56, 64, 153, Burma, 11
177, 185 Burnabay, William, 25
Belize Defense Force, 122, 126, 127 Burnham, Forbes, 7–9, 132, 134
Belize mission to UN, 110–113, 119 Busk, Douglas, 53
Belizean Independence Secretariat, 81–82
Belmopan, 42, 72, 121, 159, 165, 178, 191 cabinet
Bermuda, 166 Guatemalan, 56, 57
Blood, Hilary, 41 Belizean, 67, 184
Bogotá Declaration, 139, 146 British, 38, 39, 50, 58, 68, 127, 134,
Bolivia, 113, 118, 163, 170, 171 137, 147, 165
244 INDEX
Callaghan, James Collins, Arthur, 222 n. 32

as Prime Minister, 130, 133, 136–138, Colonial Development Corporation, 4
140–141, 143, 145, 147, 184, 189, Colonial Office, 7, 31, 32, 37, 39, 40,
190, 228 n. 115, 230 n. 34 41, 50, 53
as Secretary of State, 10, 48, 95–97, Colonial Policy Committee, 50
108, 119, 121, 122, 123, 125 Colonialism, 2, 4, 7, 14, 35–38, 48, 78,
Canada, 83, 135, 136, 161, 185 79, 113, 196
Cardenal, Ernesto, 124 Comité Jurídico Interamericano, 79
Cardenas, Lázaro, 77 commission of inquiry, 38–39
Caribbean, 23, 24, 34, 36, 38, 46, 65, Committee of 24, 9, 14, 15, 84, 89–91
74, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89, 91, 92, 93, Commonwealth, 1, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11–12, 16,
96, 110, 134, 153 18, 21, 41, 51, 60, 83, 108, 111, 113,
Caribbean Community (CARICOM), 116, 141, 151, 169, 178, 185, 196
1, 21, 93, 115, 116, 169, 181, 186 Commonwealth force, 136, 142,
Belize joins, 85, 87 165–166
Conference of Heads, 89 Commonwealth Heads of Government
and defense, 131, 154, 185–186 Meeting, 83, 95, 110, 135, 136
foreign ministers of, 99, 154, 178–179 Commonwealth Ministerial Committee
against land cession, 150, 154 on Belize (CMCB), 136, 141–145,
supports Belize, 110, 113, 115, 135, 148, 155, 160, 168, 170, 181–182
142, 162, 189, 194 Commonwealth Secretariat, 144, 161,
Carrillo Flores, 102 178, 180, 195
Carrington, Lord (Peter Alexander), 172 communism, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 38, 39, 43,
Carter, James, 48, 101, 109–110, 142, 44, 47, 48, 51, 57, 65, 66, 76, 136,
143, 148, 155, 164, 191 165, 167, 191
Castillo, Fabio, 74 Congress of Latin American Workers, 82
Castillo Valdés, Rafael, 159–160, 161, 162, Consejo de Belice, 52, 88, 212 n. 17
166, 167, 169, 173, 174, 175, 182 Consejo de Defensa Centroamericano
Castro, Fidel, 45, 51, 66, 86, 135, 166 (CONDECA), 45, 167
Cayo Defence Force, 177 Conservative Party (UK), 6, 10, 11, 71,
Central America 189, 190
and Belize, 26, 37, 38, 40, 41, 50, 51, constitutional conference: (1963), 51, 52;
79, 93, 169 (1968/69, aborted), 67; (1981), 180
and Britain, 23, 24, 28–29, 51, 53 constitutions
and dictatorships, 46, 124 of Belize: (1854), 28; (1871), 35;
and independence from Spain, 23, 28 (1936), 35; (1945), 35; (1953), 38;
meeting of presidents, 90, 113 (1961), 41–2, 80; (1963), 42, 51,
and Mexico, 102 52, 53; (1981), 180
ministers of foreign affairs of, 78, 140 of Guatemala (1945), 33, 72, 78, 159,
and tour of by Belize ministers, 80–81 169, 183, 217 n. 8
and U.S. concern, 9, 28–29, 30, 54, Costa Rica, 23, 46, 74, 80, 82, 87, 131,
63, 66, 76, 101, 178, 184, 191, 192 135, 139, 140, 145, 146, 162, 171,
Central American Bank for Economic 179, 233 n. 119
Integration, 71 Courtenay, Vernon Harrison (“Harry”),
Central American Common Market, 46, 69, 71, 72, 73, 86, 94, 95, 97, 98,
55, 60, 70, 73, 80 151, 171, 172, 181, 184, 221 n. 120
Central American Defense Council, 125 Crosland, Anthony, 128, 130, 132, 148
Central Intelligence Agency, 43, 44, 47, Crown Colony, 28, 35, 206 n. 8,
65, 105 209 n. 85
Chetumal Bay, 93, 102, 103, 140, 222 n. 6 Cuba, 126, 158, 196
Churchill, Winston, 2, 6, 14 and Committee of 24, 90–91
civil disturbances in Belize, 36, 64, 175, and Guatemala, 45, 47, 55, 57, 65,
177, 214 n. 69 68, 72, 87, 88, 92, 105, 136, 146,
civil society, 18, 135 153, 192, 193
coalition-building, 16, 20, 21, 197 and Non-aligned movement, 13
Codd, Edward, 26 and relations with Latin America, 96,
Cold War, 6–7, 12, 18, 35, 45, 51, 65, 191 131, 155
INDEX 245
supports African liberation Dulles, Allen, 43

movements, 146, 221 n. 128 Dulles, John Foster, 43
supports Belize, 82, 97, 99, 113, Dundee, Earl of, 51
218 n. 29 Dunkerley, James, 192
as U.S. concern, 8, 45, 47, 48, 66,
110, 166, 190–191 Echeverría, Luis, 103–106, 119
U.S. invasion of, 13 Economic Commission for Latin
Cyprus, 3, 6, 95, 190 America (ECLA), 51, 74, 79, 80,
83, 97
Dangriga, 56, 129 Eden, Anthony, 5
Day, Derek Malcolm, 171, 172 El Salvador, 23, 32, 46, 74, 80, 82, 93,
Declaration of Belmopan, 178–179 109, 145, 146, 162, 163, 164,
Declaration on Principles of 171, 190
International Law concerning elections
Friendly Relations and Cooperation in Belize: municipal (1950), 37;
among States, 112 (1958), 41; (1977), 153; general
Decolonization, 1, 2–7, 12, 14–15, (1954), 38–39; (1957), 39; (1961),
19, 36, 37, 42, 48, 65, 76, 79, 41–42, 80; (1965, 1969, 1974), 42;
115, 116, 139, 186, 188, 195, (1965), 81; (1969), 69, 195; (1974),
196, 198 89, 90; (1979), 164, 170, 176, 195;
Decolonization Committee, see (1984), 177–178
Committee of 24 in Britain: (1970), 71; (1979), 164,
defense of Belize, 7, 59, 75, 88, 97, 111, 170, 195
184, 190 in Guatemala: (1944, 1950), 43, 44;
Guatemala to participate in, 47, 48, (1966), 45; (1970), 46; (1974), 46,
56, 57, 58, 61, 63, 64, 69, 70, 85, 86, 87; (1979), 164
72, 73 Enders, Thomas, 181, 185
defense guarantee, 11, 16, 42, 67 Ennals, David, 102
Belize seeks, 16, 49, 68, 69, 74, 77, Europe, 2, 3, 5, 10, 13, 24, 28,
81, 126, 131, 141, 154–156, 188 117, 124
British agree, 165 European Community, 111, 113, 185
British agree if settlement reached, Exclusive Economic Zone, 92
127, 147 External Affairs Committee (Belize), 70,
British officials consider, 68, 72, 73, 124, 195, 216 n. 118
122, 129
British refuse, 42, 68, 70, 73, 75–76, Facio, Gonzalo, 87, 135
95, 120, 123, 127, 171, 187, Falkland Islands, 6, 10, 83, 85, 88, 91,
188, 189 111, 189, 192, 203 n. 1
involving Commonwealth, 141 federations, 4, 23, 38
multinational force, 83, 126, 136, with Guatemala, 52, 53, 57
139, 142, 144, 153–155, 158, see also West Indies Federation
162, 196 filibusters, 29, 30
U.S. official proposes, 68 Ford, Gerald, 96
devaluation Foreign Office, 29, 31, 32, 40, 57–59
of Belize dollar, 4, 37 Foreign and Commonwealth Office
of sterling, 4 (FCO)
D’Escoto, Miguel, 179 and Cuba, 91
Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 80–81, 102 and decolonization, 188
diplomatic relations and Guatemala, 87, 91
Britain/United States, 8 and land cession, 92, 133, 134
Guatemala/Britain, 42, 52, 162 and Mexico, 102, 105
Guatemala/Mexico, 81 and negotiations, 171
Guatemala/Panama, 135 officials visit Belize, 67, 68, 72–73
Dominican Republic, 47, 113, 117, 118, and reinforcements, 107, 114, 130, 137
145, 163, 170, 171 supports defense guarantee, 121–122
Duff, Patrick, 98, 121, 127, 183, supports internationalization, 96, 98
221 n. 140 against UN action, 83, 89
246 INDEX
Fourth Committee (of the UN), 15, guerrillas, 45, 46, 54, 86, 124, 190,
19, 62, 66, 86, 89, 90, 159, 160, 196, 235 n. 24
189, 193 Gulf of Honduras, 34, 91, 92, 93,
debates: (1975), 115–118, 193; 108, 173
(1976), 133; (1977), 145–146; Guyana, 3, 7–9, 38, 83, 89, 99, 111,
(1978), 161–162; (1980), 170–171 116, 132, 136, 141, 147, 154, 168,
Goldson addresses, 62, 66 181, 194, 203 n. 1
Rogers addresses, 62, 66, 90, 133,
161–162, 170 Habib, Phillip, 138, 142, 143
voting on Belize: (1975), 117–118; Haig, Alexander, 178
(1976), 133; (1977), 146; (1978), Hammarskjold, Dag, 44
162; (1979), 163; (1980), 170–171 Hankey, Henry, 73, 85
see also General Assembly, resolutions harriers, 137, 185, 234 n. 153
in Fourth Committee Heads of Agreement, 171–184, 191
Fuentes, Ydigoras, 44, 45, 47, 49, 52, Heath, Edward, 10
78, 80 Herrarte, Alberto, 52, 55, 57, 60
Fuentes Mohr, Albert, 46, 69, 70 Herrera, Roberto, 73, 74, 83
Home, Douglas (Lord), 8, 9
Galsworthy, John, 103, 104 Honduras, 23, 26, 28, 29, 46, 80, 82,
Garbutt’s Falls, 28, 30, 32, 33, 92 87, 93, 145, 146, 153, 162, 163,
García Granados, Jorge, 40, 41, 78, 171, 179
217 n. 8 Honduras Independence Party, 39
Garinagu, 36, 92 House of Commons, 67, 74, 152,
General Assembly (of the UN), 13, 181, 184
18–19, 73, 79, 86, 89, 90, 91, 101, House of Representatives, 59, 64, 98,
128, 132, 143, 145 164, 167, 179
debates on Belize: (1974), 89; (1975), Hudson, Manley O., 34
118; (1977), 146 Hunter, Alexander, 69,
voting on Belize: (1975), 118; 216 n. 118
(1976), 133; (1977), 146–147; hurricanes, 35, 36, 42
(1978), 162; (1979), 163–164;
(1980), 171 India, 3, 11, 12, 136, 142
see also Fourth Committee, Inter-American Conference, 78
resolutions in Fourth Committee Inter-American Treaty for Reciprocal
Ghana, 12 Assistance (the Rio Treaty), 61, 63,
Godber, Joseph, 71, 72, 74 70, 108, 167
Goldson, Phillip, 38, 39, 41, 58, 59 International Court of Justice, 16,
reveals Webster proposals, 59, 62, 34, 108
64, 66 international relations theory,
Gracias a Dios Falls, 30, 32, 33 197–198
Grenada, 135, 147 internationalization, 13, 15–22, 43, 77,
Guatemala, 43–46 79, 89, 92, 93, 96, 110, 124, 141,
arms purchases, 137 149, 176, 186, 187, 188, 194, 195,
and CIA-supported coup, 44 197, 198
declares 1859 treaty void, 33 invasion threats
diplomatic campaign, 77–79 (1948), 33, 43
and Mexico, 50, 53, 72, 88 (1972), 74
and migration to Belize, 36 (1975), 107–108, 114
prefers status quo, 76, 88 (1977), 136–138, 192, 228 n. 126
and U.S., 8, 9, 35, 45–48, Israel, 117, 118, 146, 192
52, 101 arms sales to Guatemala, 107, 137,
Guatemalan claim, 1, 3, 6, 16, 17, 23, 146, 223 n. 39
27–29, 30–35
U.S. attitude to, 49–50, 53, 54, 66, 106 Jackson, Rashleigh, 111, 116, 144,
Guatemalan consul in Belize, 29, 52, 168, 196
76, 185, 214 n. 69 Jagan, Cheddi, 7–8
INDEX 247
Jamaica, 25, 26, 72, 83, 86, 89, 93, 95, Logwood, 23–26
111, 131, 135, 136, 139, 142, 147, López Mateos, Adolfo, 80, 102
154, 181, 194, 206 n. 8 Lucas García, Fernando Romeo, 159, 183
Jamieson (Canadian FM), 142 Lyttelton, Oliver, 38
Japan, 2, 118
Joint Authority, 56, 58, 59, 63 McEntee, Peter, 129, 131, 154,
Joint Commission, 55, 180–181, 182 155, 156
Joint Defense Council, 123, 125 Macleod, Ian, 12
Joint Development Fund, 123 Macmillan, Harold, 5, 6, 8, 12
Joint Opinion, 161 mahogany, 23, 25, 26, 27
Malaya, 3
Kennedy, John, 8, 9, 45 Malaysia, 10, 136, 142
Keohane, Robert, 20 Maldonado Aguirre, Alejandro, 193
Kershaw, Anthony, 84 Malvinas, see Falkland Islands
Kissinger, Henry, 9, 97, 125, 192 Manley, Michael, 93, 96, 132, 134, 136
and proposals to resolve dispute, 48, maritime areas, 92, 94, 108, 123, 143,
108–109, 123, 191 149, 159, 166, 167, 173, 180, 181,
183, 225 n. 34
Labor Party (UK), 5, 10, 11, 14, 67, Maya, 36, 92, 115, 194, 209 n. 85
184, 189, 195 mediation, 17, 65–67, 98, 150, 151
Lancaster House, 172, 173 by U.S. (Webster) (1965–1968), 35,
land cession 42, 49, 52, 54–67, 72, 75, 76, 176,
Belize rejects, 92–98, 126, 128, 138, 177, 188
142, 144, 150–154, 160, 166–167, Meers, Sharon, 44
168, 180–181, 229 n. 4 Melchor de Mencos, 107
British urge, 41, 50, 93–98, 106, Memorandum of Understanding,
111, 119, 120, 122, 123, 127, 130, 156–159, 166, 231 n. 44
133–134, 143, 148, 152, 156, 158, Méndez Montenegro, Julio César, 45,
164, 192, 220 n. 104, 225 n. 27 57, 60
Guatemala demands, 91–95, 102, mestizo, 36, 115
103, 119, 129, 138, 139, 145, 169, Mexico, 2, 9, 23, 26, 32, 54, 69, 101–106
171, 173 and Central America, 102
U.S. commitment to, 128, 138, and dormant claim to Belize territory,
141–144, 148, 149, 152, 158, 159, 74, 77, 78, 101, 103
192, 220 n. 104 proposals to resolve dispute, 139–140
Larmour, Nick, 87, 92, 93 resolution in Fourth Committee, 104,
Latin America, 38, 96, 99 105, 106, 114, 117
as Belizean concern, 82, 121, 124 supports Belize, 20, 58, 80–81, 102,
and Britain, 50, 83, 111, 189 103, 139, 146, 150–151, 185
as Cold War battlefield, 51 supports Guatemala, 77, 103–106
in Non-aligned movement, 12, 13 Middle East, 3, 86, 223 n. 39
and support for Belize, 21–22, 84, Mills, Don, 111
88–89, 117, 139, 148, 160, 164 Ministry of Defense (UK), 107, 122,
and support for Guatemala, 21, 130, 134, 137
77–79, 84, 117–118 Molina Orantes, Adolfo, 52, 88, 93,
and the U.S., 9, 45, 46, 101, 109, 119, 123, 127, 129, 130, 131, 134,
123, 191 138, 140, 143, 153, 157, 158, 188
Laugerud García, Kjell, 46, 84, 85, 87, Monroe Doctrine, 28, 47
103, 104, 118, 119, 120, 135, 137, Morocco, 117, 118, 163, 171, 224 n. 79
138, 139, 142, 143 Mosquito Shore, 25, 28, 29
lease of cays, 171–175, 232–233 n. 106 Mulley, Fred, 130, 137
Legislative Council, 35, 37, 40, 187 multilateralism, 13, 19, 21
Lennox Boyd, Alan, 39, 40
Liberación Nacional (Costa Rica), 82 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 12
Lime Cay, 172 National Independence Party, 41, 59,
Lindo, Dean, 42, 156, 157, 161, 232 n. 85 80, 210 n. 132
248 INDEX
National Party, 39 parallel roads, 168–169

nationalism, 3–5, 35, 198 Partido Revolucionario Institucional
negotiations, 16–18, 48, 188–189, (Mexico), 222 n. 18
193, 195 Pastor, Robert, 193
Britain and Guatemala: 29, 31, 33; Patterson, P. J., 180
(1957), 40, 53–54; (1967), 60–61; People’s National Congress, 8
(1969), 67–68; (1973), 85; (1977), People’s Progressive Party, 7, 8, 9
134; (1978), 158 People’s United Party, 7, 37–43, 49, 59,
tripartite: (1962), 47, 49, 51; 62, 65, 66, 69, 79–82, 89, 90, 153,
(1970–1971), 68–74; (1975), 155, 164, 177, 184, 195
91–92, 94–95, 98; (1976), 123, Peralta Azurdia, Enrique, 45, 52
125–126, 128–130, 138; (1978), Pérez, Carlos Andrés, 131–132, 133,
159; (1980), 166–167, 169–170; 134, 155
(1981), 171–178, 180–183 Peru, 13, 99, 133, 147
with U.S. on UN resolution, 170 Petén, 23, 26, 33, 34, 54, 56, 94,
Nehru, Jawalhar, 12 159, 161
Nicaragua, 23, 24, 28, 29, 74, 80, 109, Philippines, 117, 118, 133
124, 145, 163, 170, 179, 190, 194 Pindling, Lynden, 95, 96
Nkrumah, Kwame, 3, 12 Pomerance, Michla, 194
Non-aligned movement, 2, 12–13, 21, Posnett, Richard, 82, 83, 86, 88, 89,
108, 110, 113, 127, 194, 197 92, 97, 187, 235 n. 15
Conference of Foreign Ministers of, Price, George, 36, 42–43, 68, 71, 79,
13, 99, 158, 169 81, 126, 187, 193, 198
North Atlantic Treaty Organization addresses UN, 115, 145
(NATO), 10, 122 charged with sedition, 41
and Cuba, 126, 166
Oduber, Daniel, 87, 131 and defense, see defense guarantee,
Oman, 10, 95 Belize seeks
Opposition (party in Belize), 49, 54, 55, and expulsion from Executive
81, 123, 149, 152, 156, 157, 164, Council, 39–41
166, 170, 175–177, 180, 188, the man, 84, 124, 127, 209 n. 92
205 n. 74 relations with Caribbean leaders,
See also National Independence Party, 134, 194
United Democratic Party and territory, 221 n. 120, 229 n. 4,
Orange Point, 143 234 n. 148
Organización de Estados See also land cession, Belize rejects
Centroamericanos (ODECA), 50, public officers, 175–177,
56, 79 214 n. 69
Organization of African Unity, 116, 185 Punta Gorda, 91, 107, 134
Organization of American States, 44, PUP manifesto 51, 92
50, 74, 78–79, 83, 88, 96, 106,
115, 163, 171, 186 Rabasa, Emilio, 102–106
General Assembly, (in Washington), “race,” 8, 112, 193
109; (in Grenada), 135; Ranguana, 149, 168, 172, 173,
(in Bolivia), 163 174, 175
observer mission in Belize (1972), 75 Ramphal, Shridath, 83, 141, 178, 195,
Owen, David, 137, 138, 140–144, 148, 218 n. 37
151–154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, Rattray, R. C., 180
162, 229 n. 151, 231 n. 44, 231 n. 67 Reagan, Ronald, 109, 164, 178, 191
referendum, 62, 82, 152, 154,
Pan African Congress, 3 156, 160, 165, 175, 176,
Pan American Union, 78 179, 182
Panama, 2, 21, 82–83, 84, 113, 117, Regional Development Corporation, 70
118, 124, 128–131, 133, 135, 139, Rennie, John, 57, 61, 75
147, 154, 170, 179, 193 Resolution 1514, 13–16, 19, 86,
Panama Canal Zone, 47, 66, 109 111–113, 197
INDEX 249
resolutions in Fourth Committee Shepherd, Lord, Malcolm, 68–71

(1975), 113–114 Shoman, Assad, 97, 99, 100, 110, 132,
(1976), 132–133 144, 151, 165, 167, 170, 172, 179,
(1977), 145 181, 184, 216 n. 118, 235 n. 24
(1978), 162 Shore, Peter, 105
(1979), 163 Sistema de Integración Económica
(1980), 170–171 Centroamericana (SIECA), 74, 93
See also Fourth Committee, General Skinner Klee, A., 33
Assembly Skinner-Klee, Jorge, 116, 133, 167, 170,
Rhodesia, 9, 189, 219 n. 47 171, 172, 175
Richard, Ivor, 14, 89, 91–95, 97–98, 106, slaves, 25–26
111, 115, 125, 126, 127, 144, 145, Somoza, Anastacio, 74, 220 n. 88
161, 190, 221 n. 120, 228 n. 126 South Africa, 12
Richardson, Leigh, 38, 39 sovereignty, 15, 19, 172–175,
Ridley, Nicholas, 164–170, 173–175, 195, 197
180, 181, 182, 184, 189, 190, 196 Spain, 23, 28, 33, 117, 118, 137,
Ríos Montt, Efrain, 46, 87, 219 n. 58 163, 171
rivers attacks on settlement, 24, 26
Deep, 27 jurisdictional divisions, 27, 207 n. 29
Hondo, 23, 24, 27, 28, 32 see also treaties
Moho, 27, 92, 94, 97, 98, 103, 130, Special Committee (of the UN on
133, 140, 141, 142, 143, 149, decolonization), see Committee
150, 151 of 24
Monkey, 91, 94, 134, 138, 139, 143, Sri Lanka, 128
144, 167 State Department, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57,
Rio Grande, 27 62, 63, 66, 74, 101, 132, 137, 148,
Sarstoon, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 92, 153, 154, 157, 159, 181, 214 n. 80
94, 180 state of emergency, 175, 177, 180
Sibun, 23, 25, 28, 31 Stephen, J. D., 222 n. 1
Temash, 150, 151, 153 sterling area, 2, 4, 5, 6, 12
Roa, Raúl, 99 Stewart, Michael, 58, 68
Roel, Santiago, 139 Suez, 5, 6
Rogers, C. L. B., 62, 66, 69, 82, 85, 86, Sukarno, Achmad, 12
89, 90, 97, 99, 133, 160, 161, 162, superintendents, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32
170, 172, 180, 184 Surinam, 147, 203 n. 1
Rogers, William, 9, 107
Roosevelt, Franklin, 6 Tanzania, 84, 89, 116, 136, 142
Roseberry, Lord, 3 Tello, Manuel, 103, 104
Rowlands, Ted, 105, 118–120, 122, territorial adjustments, see land cession
123, 125–131, 133, 134, 138, territorial integrity, 15, 16, 21, 86,
140–143, 150, 153, 155, 157, 158, 111–114, 152
189, 192, 196, 223 n. 39, 225 n. 27, See also land cession
226 n. 51, 229 n. 4 Thatcher, Margaret, 11, 184, 189, 190
Rusk, Dean, 8, 49, 63 Third World, 13, 86, 96, 107,
111, 132
Salim Salim, 84, 89, 91, 116 Thompson, Dudley, 83, 86, 88, 89
Sanchéz, Fernando, 88 Thornley, Colin, 40
Sandinistas, 163, 194, 195 Tito, Josef Broz, 13
Sapodilla Cays, 94, 125, 129, 149, 168, Todman, Terence, 150, 151,
172–175 153, 154
Security Council (of the UN), 15, 18, Torrijos, Omar, 124, 128, 131–132,
44, 82, 83, 95, 113, 141, 171 135, 136, 147, 148, 179, 181, 193,
self-determination, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 15, 194, 195
37, 41, 42, 50–52, 79, 80, 81, 115 trade, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 25, 26, 31, 50, 55, 94
self-government (1964), 52 trade unions, 36, 82, 135, 177,
Seymour, Frederick, 31, 32 214 n. 69, 233 n. 130
250 INDEX
treaties attitude to Guatemalan claim,

Anglo-Guatemalan (1859), 17, 24, 48–50, 66
29–33, 34, 58, 77, 92, 159, 161, and Bay of Pigs invasion, 47
165, 167 against Belizean independence, 51,
Anglo-Mexican (1893), 101, 222 n. 3 53–54, 106
Clayton-Bulwer (UK/U.S., 1850), against British reinforcement, 108,
28, 29, 30, 32 137–138
Convention of 1786 (UK/Spain), 25 consul in Belize, 54, 68
Convention of 1863 (UK/ good offices, 52–54
Guatemala), 32, 34 and national security policy, 9,
Dallas-Clarendon (UK/U.S., 1856), 29 46–48, 66, 109–110
Exchange of Notes (UK/Guatemala, pressures Belize, 142–143
1931), 33, 34 proposes settlement, 48, 108,
of Paris (UK/Spain, 1763), 24, 25 149–150, 153, 191
three-treaty package (proposed by reaction to Mexico, 54
UK), 72–73 supports Belize, 49–50, 53, 171, 190
treaty of cooperation (proposed by supports Guatemala, 47, 48, 53, 66,
UK), 69–71 106, 190–191
treaty of recognition (proposed by urges British troops remain, 190
UK), 69–71 uti possidetis, 33, 208 n. 70
two-treaty package (proposed by
UK), 67–69 Valencia Tovar, Alvaro, 75
of Versailles (UK/Spain)1783), 24, 26 Vance, Cyrus, 109, 135, 138, 140, 143,
Trinidad and Tobago, 85–86, 111, 131, 150, 152, 153, 154, 160, 191
132, 135, 170, 194 Venezuela, 7, 82, 87, 90, 131, 139, 146,
Trinidad Mirror, 59 147, 155
Trudeu, Pierre, 135 Villagrán Kramer, Francisco, 192
Viteri Beltran, Ernesto, 51
Ubico, Jorge, 43 Vivian, Anthony, 234 n. 153
“unilateral independence,” 51, 84, 116,
120, 121, 129, 134, 136, 143, 155, Walt, Stephen, 198
157, 162, 165, 169, 183, 219 n. 47 Waltz, Kenneth, 20
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Webster, Bethuel, 54
(USSR), 3, 6, 44, 47, 110, 113 Webster Proposals, see mediation
United Democratic Party, 42, 153, 156, West Indies Federation, 4, 36, 39, 40,
170, 177, 210 n. 132, 231 n. 42 41, 194
and moratorium of ten years on Western Sahara, 224 n. 79
independence, 156, 164 Weymes, J. B., 84, 86, 87, 88
and policy that settlement must White Book, 77
precede independence, 157, 170 Williams, Eric, 132, 134
United General Workers Union, 177 Wills, Fred, 99
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Wilson, Harold, 2, 10, 44, 95, 188, 190
Northern Ireland (UK), see Britain Wyke, Charles, 29, 30, 31
United Nations, 1, 13–15, 18–21, 44,
62, 79, 113 Yalta Conference, 14
See also Fourth Committee, General Young, Andrew, 140, 170, 191
Assembly Yucatán, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 36,
United States 208 n. 66
arms sales to Guatemala, 107 Yugoslavia, 13

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STUDIES OF THE A MERICAS

Titles in this series published by Palgrave Macmillan:

Cuba’s Military 1990–2005: Revolutionary Soldiers during Counter-Revolutionary

Guatemala, Britain, and the UN

List of Table and Maps ix

1 Introduction: Decolonization by Internationalization 1

Belize is today an independent and sovereign country, playing its

with Britain. It could not do so in the case of the UN General

T his book is based on a thesis done for my Ph.D. degree at the

When I went to the UN in 1975 to seek support for Belize’s early

final resolution to the International Court of Justice, provided that

La Habana, Cuba Assad Shoman

Manuscript sources on which this book is based include the

• Personal Files. Manuscript references up to 1981 were made pos-

Major printed collections of documents are as follows:

• Sir John Burdon’s (ed.) Archives of British Honduras (3 vols.,

BEC Belize Estate and Produce Company

NIP National Independence Party

T he country of Belize, officially called British Honduras from 1862

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) were at the apex of their influence in

Nationalism and the British Response

solving Britain’s post-war dollar shortage by stimulating colonial

As we shall see, the September 1949 devaluation of sterling was

[t]he British were to be surprised by the extraordinary scale of popu-

Another aspect of Britain’s decolonization policy was what has been

the [Suez] crisis concerned the UK’s ability to operate as a world

The United States was instrumental in having Sir Anthony Eden

seems likely to lead to cession from the Commonwealth.”39 Officials

The Cold War and the Special Relationship

the best counter to Soviet aims is to pursue resolutely and systemati-

The most important aspect of the special relationship for the

The Case of Guyana

a very grave situation is developing. It is evident that there is an impor-

The government had done nothing illegal or anticonstitutional,

people of British Guiana chose this government it is undemocratic

On October 9, 1953, the British government suspended the new con-

In order to enable Burnham to win, the British government went

As the present regime in Guatemala would hardly have come into

But the British were unable to withstand the onslaught of U.S.

Latin America probably yields less evidence of a unique relationship

Britain’s last remaining defense commitment on the mainland of the

The status of Belize as a “side-show” in the U.S. scheme of things

our maritime tradition, our reputation . . . above all our Commonwealth

This grandiose vision of Britain’s “unique” world power role could

This posture played an important role in delaying Belize’s inde-

The International Arena

[t]he British . . . were determined to conserve sufficient elements of

However, as long as what was essential in Britain’s empire relation-

The UK felt that Commonwealth membership should include con-

The Non-Aligned Movement

as long as colonial wars, apartheid, imperialist aggression, alien domi-

Although the NAM had no constitution or permanent secre-

The UN and Decolonization

the committee, although not become a member, and indicated that

to recommend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropri-

agreement and so resolve a dispute. Here, negotiation is used as a tool

first UN resolution in 1975 severely circumscribed the scope of nego-

frustrated by its use, the GA deliberations took on a strong moral

He also affirms that the UN as a system “plays a fundamental role

If one defines power in terms of changes in outcomes, without requir-

Indeed, as I have suggested above, the GA was able to effectively

An actor with intense preferences on an issue may be willing to use

In other words, outcomes do not always reflect real power