Belizean Independence
Belize became independent on 21 September 1981 with a Guatemalan claim on the whole country and a British garrison to deter it. British Honduras had begun as a logging settlement, tolerated by Spain under treaties allowing British cutters to take logwood and mahogany without establishing sovereignty, and quietly turned into a colony over the eighteenth century. Guatemala inherited Spain's claim on independence and signed a treaty in 1859 accepting the boundary in exchange for a road to the Caribbean that Britain never built, and repudiated the treaty on that ground. Self-government came in 1964 under George Price, whose People's United Party had grown out of a protest against the devaluation of the British Honduras dollar in 1949. The territory was renamed Belize in 1973. Independence was delayed for years by the security question, since Guatemala had mobilised at the border more than once and no Belizean government was prepared to take independence without a guarantee. Price took the case to the United Nations, where the General Assembly voted repeatedly for Belizean independence with its territory intact — 139 to 0 with seven abstentions in 1980 — which isolated Guatemala diplomatically and produced a British commitment to defend the country. Some 1,500 British troops remained after independence, and the jungle training school is still there. Guatemala recognised Belize in 1991 and maintains the territorial claim, which both countries agreed in 2019 to put to the International Court of Justice. Belize is also the only Central American country whose official language is English and the least densely populated, with a population of some 400,000 speaking Kriol, Spanish, Maya languages and Garifuna. Guatemala's claim appears on Guatemalan maps to this day.
- Year: 1981 CE
- Category: Political
