It seems that the People’s United Party will go to any lengths to stop the referendum that will ask the Belizean people whether or not the Guatemala Claim is to be taken to the International Court of Justice. On Wednesday, March 6 they filed a claim in the Supreme Court to find out if the Minister of Foreign Affairs had the power to legally sign the Special Agreement that has triggered the April 10 Referendum. It is also asking that the court decide whether the Referendum Act provides for the holding of a binding referendum. Meanwhile, they are asking that the court put a halt on the referendum until they answer the above two questions.
What needs to be noted is that the Special Agreement was signed ten years ago, and in it has always been one where the ultimate goal was to reach the International Court of Justice but first a referendum needed to be held in both countries.
The PUP has been fighting tooth and nail to have the entire process derailed. Some of the issues that they have brought up was that there was to be no referendum unless there was a re-registration process. That has since taken place. They then complained that Belizeans in the Diaspora were being disenfranchised from voting and Kareem Musa went as far as to draft a paper, which he was to present to the National Assembly to make special provisions for Belizeans living abroad to be registered to vote only for the referendum. Then they began railing about the registration process and attacked the Vital Statistics Unit claiming that Belizeans were being disenfranchised from voting because their birth papers were not being processed properly. This week, Dickie Bradley, wrote a letter in which the Referendum Unit was being asked, purportedly by the family of George Price, to remove his image from any of the campaign’s banners. In fact, one of those banners was forcefully taken down in Ranchito Village in Corozal.
The latest attempt then comes as no surprise to anyone. It seems that the PUP are hell bent that the Guatemalan claim should not be solved, at least not while the United Democratic Party is in office.
