Crisis at the Border!!

The Barrow Administration’s “artificial” national security policy places every BDF soldier’s life on the line

GOB’s incompetence leads to dangerous border tensions

Belize City, August 23, 2011

Seven honest, hardworking Belizean soldiers dodged the chill of death on the wrong side of several hand guns and an AK-47 battle riffle. On Monday, August 22, 2011, while most of us in Belize were counting down to rice time or enjoying the last of the television game shows, these brave soldiers’ lives and the families they support were left out to dry by the stubborn incompetence of this Government.

The official report is that the Belize Defense Force border patrol unit was in the process of executing routine borderline missions and joint patrols, coded as “linkup”, in accordance with the Organisation of American States’ supervised Confidence Building Measures. While waiting for their counterparts, our Belizean soldiers were aggressed by five, heavily-armed Guatemalan encroachers.

What unfolded was an international incident which was sloppily dealt with by the UDP Government. To no fault of his own, the world including the Guatemalans, listened to Major Dalton Roches, BDF Operations and Training Officer. This is lamentable and reckless as the Government left a soldier obviously untrained in the art of public relations, to speak on behalf of country.

This would never happen anywhere else in the world. Surely, it ought never to have happened in Belize, were there is a volatile, combustible and ripe border dispute. Where is the incompetent Minister of National Security, or the Minister of Foreign Affair? Ironic that these two half-alive ministers are in charge of the single, most important job of any Government, i.e., to keep us safe.

Both these ministers are confirmed failures by their own government. Both performed so disgracefully that they were demoted in their previous ministerial portfolios. Sedi’s AG and Foreign Affairs Ministries had to be severed, while half of Perdomo’s Ministry of National Security had to be taken away and given to an unelected crony.

The BELIZE TIMES is informed that the text book local protocol was not followed. Even if the Minister of National Security was too lazy or under the influence of his own ineptitude, this soldier should not have been put in this situation. The fact is that in the BDF, for ordinary matters, the Chief of Staff is the Officer who speaks for both the Minister of Defense and the Commandant.

But this is no ordinary matter. Each of these incidents is a flirt with catastrophe, even if it is weighed only by the number of Belizeans soldiers’ lives which are surrendered to Government’s inability to deal with this border crisis. The last time we heard from Sedi and the border is when he signed the secret agreement for the compromis. He was calling it “artificial” and prodding us to expect “war” if we did not swallow his clandestine liaisons with the Guatemalans. If he wants to push Belize to war, he is surely on the right path.

Frightening as it all is for the daughters of these soldiers, the nation should be exponentially more petrified as we learnt that this is the second time in a month that a joint patrol has had to be postponed because of a skirmish with armed and hostile Guatemalan civilians. How did that big statement blow over like a little breeze? Is there more to that story as to why the BDF and GAF have not been able to “link up”? Could there be a bigger problem?

One cannot dismiss this national security crisis. Belize is a narrow strip of land. There are only twenty four miles separating Guatemala from the House of Representatives. To help the insomnia of Belizeans, we are reminded that there are barely a thousand soldiers, which is smaller than the Melchor Town’s Police Force.

The nightmare is complete as the British have totally pulled out in the dead of UDP night. All this has happened while the most incompetent Government in Belize’s history is stuttering and fidgeting with every single issue in this country from the Constitution to Preventative Detention.

While Barrow has been busy fulfilling his mandate to “quitar” and indiscriminately victimize anyone within his reach, the vulnerable national security situation has been steadily deteriorating. He put a political dunce and a four-time failure of a politician in charge of the single-most important issue to all Belizeans.

As the Guatemalan military downsizes and the unemployed Khaibils hungrily look across the border at the easy pickings of Belizean abundance, this could only get worst. They are Central America’s best trained commandos, Israeli-trained at that.

A high ranking officer told us, “we [Belizeans] are lucky that these ex-Kaibils are gainfully employed by the drug cartels to carry out their criminal executions than to mess with us over here right now”.

The lives of these Belizean fathers who serve as soldiers and their families should never be “collateral damage” to the Governments’ failed or neglected policies. If the UDP were truly a government they would not have waited for the second incident and the escalations.

What there should have been was a review of the international policy, national security initiatives and the clearly ineffective “confidence building measures”. This is not even the tip of the iceberg. We have not even considered the Rio Bravo area.

We do not need for Barrow to tell us it is “very serious”. He knows because it is the fruit of his failure.

The media has been blowing whistles and trumpets on the issue of national security for at least a year and a half. Despite the hopping up and down and waving to get GOB’s attentions to the eroding of respect for Belizean sovereignty, the UDP Government has been too busy landing drug planes, selling visas and making “pool table money”.

If these children’s fathers were harmed or killed, the blood would be on the hands of this Government.  While the UDP Ministers sleep at the wheel and go to their posturepedic beds, our soldiers must dodge AK-47’s powered by UDP incompetence. While the children of soldiers cannot sleep at the thought that their fathers will not return, the UDP is busy filling their pockets and starting wars. Treason!

| | | | | |