Belize – the little problem child

Belize is a tiny country slightly larger than Wales and it is totally different from any other Central American country. Here the population speaks some kind of Jamaican-English and is proud to descend from immigrated African slaves who intermarried with the original Maya-population. Belize is a Reggae-country and the national psyche is more like an African nation rather than latino.
Due to its size and situation, Belize is a quite poor country, which is heavily dependent on imports - and there are few national resources to pay for it. Adding to this, it often suffers great damage from tornados in the Caribbean.

Although there is nothing of value in Belize itself, Guatemala has never liked the idea of Belize, just like the Arabic countries don’t like the idea of Israel. Guatemala has claimed the land ever since the Spanish left and in 1859, Great Britain and Guatemala signed a treaty that gave the British the right to use the land in return for building a road from Guatemala to the Caribbean. Britain later declared Belize its colony under the name “British Honduras”. The treaty still stands but the road was of course never built (another argument for why the English should remain on their island). Later, in 1981, Belize became independent from the British and took its current name while the Guatemalans protested loudly against the illegal treatment of their (by law) land.