Tonight, there is real and present danger of bloodshed in the forests along the Belize/Guatemala border, and a chilling sense of escalating violence. This morning at around nine-thirty, there was an encounter between B.D.F. soldiers and approximately twenty-five Guatemalan civilians. The soldiers were guarding civilian workmen who are building a new outpost at Camp Valentin, located less than one kilometre from the border. News Five has confirmed that the villagers, from nearby San Valentin on the Guatemalan side, requested that the soldiers accompany them to meet with Guatemalan military nearby. The B.D.F. soldiers, however, observed another group of armed civilians nearby and believe that the intention was to ambush them. We are told that they went on high alert, ordering the civilians away from the outpost. They immediately called for reinforcements. It is a dangerous situation, and comes on the heels of a threat from those Guatemalan villagers that they would burn down the outpost. We note also that the men who shot Special Constable Danny Conorquie eight days ago fled across the border into San Valentin. This morning, Prime Minister Barrow told us that reinforcements are on the way, but the situation is still very volatile.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
Dean Barrow
“I spoke to the C.E.O. in the Ministry of National Security. He and the Commander of the B.D.F. had just done a flyover of the camp in a Lynx helicopter. They didn’t see the presence of the Guatemalan civilian invaders, and so their sense is that the people have now gone away. But it is quite clear that their earlier presence was in furtherance of a threat that the villagers in the nearest adjacent village had made that they will burn down the observation post, or the conservation post. Reinforcements from the Incisive Gallop exercise are being dispatched to the area, and our general has spoken to his Guatemalan counterpart telling him that they need to get a handle on their Guatemalan villagers so that we can avoid an incident that will result in the spilling of blood. Hopefully it’s under control now but it is still fluid. It is outrageous that not only do they come across and do the horrible damage that they do to our resources, but that when now we seek to construct an outpost to help us to better patrol and protect our national territory that they should be so facey as to think that they can prevent us from so doing. Well, that’s not going to happen. The B.D.F. will do what it has to do. But really I think that it is high time that the Guatemalan authorities step up and discharge their responsibilities to get a handle on their people…to place some controls on these villagers.”
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