Prime Minister Dean Barrow said today on the KREM WUB that the incursion by Guatemalan Leonel Arellanos, at Jalacte, Toledo, which he described as “a hell of an irritant” and an incursion into Belizean territory, diminishes any chance of his Government putting the issue of taking the Belize-Guatemala dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Since we reported on the Jalacte incursion in December, nothing has changed on the ground, and the storage container Arellanos has built atop a concrete foundation on top of a hill on the Belize side of the border, remains standing, and under guard by Belize Defense Force soldiers.
The Prime Minister this morning told KREM WUB talk show hosts, Mose Hyde and Sharon Marin, that Government has a sheaf of emails, evidencing almost daily communications between officials here with the Organization of American States and Belize’s Ambassador to Guatemala, Fred Martinez.
According to Barrow, even the Guatemalan government and ministry agree that the illegal bodega has to be removed from Belize territory, but the problem is that Arellanos has threatened both Belize and Guatemala military officers that if they dare remove his bodega, he will shoot them.
No official has explained how a civilian can get away with making such a clear threat of harm against security officers of two states and face no reprimand.
We say Jalacte is increasingly volatile because official reports from the Prime Minister are that while Arellanos has himself threatened violence against the security forces of both countries, the villagers of Santa Cruz, a village in Guatemala a few miles away from Jalacte, have threatened the Guatemalan military that they would attack them if they try to push any equipment through their village to remove Arellanos’s container from Jalacte.
(Arellanos is a well-off Guatemalan who reportedly wields a lot of power in the area, in both Santa Cruz and Jalacte.)
According to Prime Minister Barrow, the Guatemalan government has proposed that the matter could be resolved if Arellanos would be offered compensation for the value of his container – which would mean that Belize could use or dispose of it as it wishes.
Prime Minister Barrow has indicated that Belize would not contribute to any such compensation, but it would be up to the Guatemalan government to decide if that is what it wants to do.
While the bodega remains, said Barrow, things remain “extremely unsatisfactory.”
According to him, the Organization of American States, which is the mediator between Belize and Guatemala on border matters, has said that it is only a matter of time, and asked Belize to be patient, said Barrow, to avoid bloodshed.
Belize has made its appeal to the highest political authority in Guatemala – President Alvaro Colom. Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega spoke with Colom at a special meeting of SICA held in Managua, Nicaragua, and impressed on him the need to peacefully resolve the conflict.
Barrow relayed Colom’s stance that he understands that the structure must be removed, and that he will ensure that the Guatemalan military cooperates.
At his quarterly press conference Wednesday morning, the Prime Minister told the media: “I believe that at this juncture we do have to give the additional time, even though it appears to be open-ended, and that is most upsetting, but in the practical circumstances I don’t see that we can simply charge in there with all eight hundred and odd of our magnificent army.”
PM Barrow says that there is no definite timeline for the removal of Arellanos’s structure from Jalacte.
“I can’t say to you that it will happen next week or it will happen in the next two weeks. I am confident that it will happen; the O.A.S. is confident that it will happen. They are asking us for a little more time so that, as I said, the Guatemalans can get all their ducks in a row,” Barrow told the media Wednesday.