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E-231-01
November
27, 2001
OAS SECRETARY
GENERAL The
Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), César
Gaviria, expressed regret over this past Thursday’s incident in the
Adjacency Zone between Belize and Guatemala, in which three Guatemalan
citizens lost their lives. He
emphasized that an exhaustive investigation should be conducted to
clarify what took place. The
Secretary General, who was in Lima, Peru, attending the Twenty-first
Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government when he learned
of the incident, has urged both parties to keep dialogue open as the
appropriate way to prevent the incident from interfering with the
facilitation process directed by Shridath Ramphal and Paul Reichler
under OAS auspices. “The
most efficient way to find a solution to the differendum that will
provide security and social and economic development is peaceful dispute
settlement by way of negotiation. Therefore,
we should continue to decisively support the ongoing efforts of the
Facilitators to find a solution to the territorial differendum that is
fair to both Parties,” added the Secretary General. The
Governments of Belize and Guatemala, with support from the Secretary
General and the Facilitators, last year began a process of negotiation
to resolve their historic differendum peacefully. Meetings at the
ministerial level resulted in the parties’ agreement to a series of
confidence-building measures as an initial step in the negotiation
process. These included the establishment of an Adjacency Zone between
the two countries. Since
May 2001, the Facilitators have been examining the bases for each
government’s position. They
will issue recommendations for a definitive settlement of the dispute.
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