Part 6/8:
After years of conflict, British Honduras finally declared independence as Belize on September 21, 1981. Guatemala remained the only country that did not recognize Belize's independence for a full decade, continuing to assert territorial claims well into the 1990s.
In 1999, Guatemala's foreign minister reaffirmed the country’s claims over approximately 4,738 square miles of Belizean territory, leading to an increase in military deployment along the border and direct confrontations between both nations.