Maheia is also very vocal on another, more recent issue – as recent as this weekend. Five Belizeans are claiming that they were detained by Guatemalan military in Santa Cruz and then were basically terrorized and threatened before being falsely charged in a Guatemala Court. According to the men, who say they had gone over to the Guatemalan village near Jalacte for a meal and to buy some items, Guatemalan soldiers said they would shoot them, and at one point cranked their weapons and aimed at the backs of their heads. That’s cause for alarm, especially since the area where the men were detained is frequented by Belizeans.
Wil Maheia, Head, Belize Territorial Volunteers
“That border is trafficable. They have as much as four to five buses, especially on the weekends…that bring Belizeans to Jalacte and everybody walks across the border, just like these gentlemen did. They walk across there, they go and buy their sodas or do a little shopping…the traffic goes back and forth. There’s no real clear line there. We went there and we planted some coconut trees along where we know to be the line, but they uprooted it. That’s the area…Jalacte on one side, Santa Cruz on the other side. When I heard about that, that could have happened to anybody. I even want to think…usually the people that go there are Mayan or Hispanic people or so…these guys, two of them are tall black men, and I think that might have triggered it…that we have some Belizeans here, because it’s hard to tell. I was shocked to hear the way they were treated by the Guatemalan military…guns to the head, guns cocked, forcing them to run for four miles through hilly terrain. I think it is uncalled for. In fact when you look at the international conventions to which Belize is a signatory at the UN, you cannot treat civilians like that, even military personnel. If they are captured by a foreign military you can’t have guns to their heads and these guys are not even Belizean military. They are ordinary civilians and they had guns to their head. That is a violation of the UN Convention so it’s totally out of order.”
Wil Maheia
Mike Rudon
“Wil you’re one of the front-runners in taking Belizeans to the borderline…not only in Jalacte but all along the border from North to South. Does this make you think twice about going into those areas again?”
Wil Maheia
“It has made me think, but you know as Belizeans we should not be intimidated. This is our country and we need to demand from our government that this line be cleared so that we can move about freely in any part of our country. It hurts me; it aches my heart when I know that now Belizeans are even afraid to go to Jalacte. As we speak Belizeans don’t even want to go up the river Sarstoon so it’s really affecting us financially as well because that’s a place where we would take tourists and now they don’t even want to go into that area. So we are being affected and I expect government to do something about that.”
On Monday, Acting C.E.O. in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Audrey Wallace confirmed that they had sent off a formal note to Guatemala querying the incident.
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