In separate incidents four days apart, bands of illegal Guatemalan loggers have reportedly fired at joint patrols including Belize security forces. The first incident was reported on Wednesday, July 13; the other happened on Sunday, July 17.
“It’s a worrying situation,” Belize’s Ambassador to Guatemala Alfredo Martinez declared to Amandala Tuesday.
“I wish we had the money to send in more troops really, because this is something we need to control, but at the same time [I would hope] it is not interpreted the wrong way [by the Guatemalans],” Martinez expressed.
“It’s very worrying that these people [the security forces of Belize] are coming under live fire…,” head of Belize’s National Security Council, Prime Minister Dean Barrow, had told the media shortly after the incidents. ”It is very serious.”
Ambassador Martinez said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed the Organization of American States (OAS) about the recent incursions which have led to crossfire between illegal loggers and Belize security forces. The OAS is being asked to do an assessment/verification exercise.
Since there was gunplay, said Ambassador Martinez, they felt it was serious enough to get the OAS involved. “It is not frequent that we have crossfire,” he added.
Many of the persons coming over illegally to Belize, Ambassador Martinez said, come from the area of Dolores, Peten, as had been indicated by Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD) last Thursday.
This is the problem area where Guatemalan authorities have to find alternative income generators for these people; some of whom may also have been employed to help illegally harvest the xate palm leaves, Martinez indicated.
“That [illegal logging] is their livelihood. They’ve lived on the Guatemalan side for many years… They have nothing else to do,” Martinez said.
“They look at the greenness on our side and begin moving in,” he added.
The Ambassador told us that he has been advised of the results of the study done through FCD, which details a $15 million loss—a conservative assessment that needs to be updated when more comprehensive surveys are done on the ground. He told us that the OAS also did a study on the effects of illegal logging in Belize, which would be released to the public, he said, after the officials of both governments get to digest and respond to its contents.
Ambassador Martinez said that invariably, he sees reports in Guatemala of police having confiscated lumber which have no stamping, which possibly may have been taken illegally from Belize. If they are caught by authorities, the lumber is taken away—but none of it is ever sent back to Belize, he indicated.
“It is a very difficult thing, [and] …one of the solutions would be bigger patrols. What it boils down to is: how can two countries [Belize and Guatemala] cooperate?” Martinez elaborated.
The harsh crime realities in both Belize and Guatemala have meant that less attention is paid to the border, and more specifically to illegal activities perpetrated inside Belize by those coming over from Guatemala.
Belizean officials have said that there are not enough funds to have increased patrols out west, especially since some security personnel are sent to crime hotspots such as Belize City.
The Guatemalans are “stretched thin,” because of the drug situation, explained Ambassador Martinez.
“The Peten is a very desolate area right now, and Guatemala does not have the troops out there themselves to deal with the drug trade,” said Martinez.
Peten continues in an extended state of emergency, he added.
The Guatemalans have also begun to train 300 forest patrollers, some of whom may be gradually deployed near the trouble spots south of Melchor; but most would be deployed north of that location, the Ambassador informed.
Some members of the Belizean public have accused the Government of Belize of lacking the political will to seriously address the border situation.
“There will be those accusations from certain people, and I can understand it,” said Martinez, “but I don’t think there is a lack of political will. There is tremendous concern from the [National] Security Council. I think the lack of ready financing [is the problem] and a new strategy that has to be devised.”
FCD has said that the cost of monitoring the Chiquibul Forest, where much of the illegal activities are concentrated, could run in the region of a million dollars annually.
Is the proposal realistic which was discussed at last Thursday’s forum by Friends for Conservation and Development, for Belize to tap into the UN REDD program, under which it can get money for the carbon stocks preserved in its forests?
“I think so,” said Ambassador Martinez, when we put this question to him.
He told us that Guatemala has already been successful in declaring an area deep inside the Peten to qualify for carbon funding; Belize is trying to do the same, he added.
Trying to combat incursions by setting alternative income generating projects for the Guatemalans, rather than simply enforcing the Laws of Belize, may be deemed by some to be the “softer approach.”
Donor countries don’t look at it that way, Martinez said; they would say, ‘How can we explain to our Congress that we want funds to pay for a military operation rather than for projects to address environmental impacts of the illegal incursions”, he explained.
Countries tend to donate, not for military activities, but for projects, although Belize has been pressing for the former, said Ambassador Martinez.
He informed our newspaper that a technical meeting between representatives of Belize and Guatemala is due either at the end of August or in early September to discuss these pressing cross-border concerns.
A routine military-to-military meeting between Belize and Guatemala is also pending, at which these security issues will be raised.