Dear Editor,
We meant to write to you last week about the recent happenings, but we never quite worked out where to start. So it was great to find ”Right to the point”, the article by Audrey Matura Shepherd articulating what we found difficult. You have found another great contributor.
We now feel that we should have written our letter.
We were saddened (but no longer shocked) by the murders in Belize City on the weekend of April 3. We were also saddened (but no longer shocked) by the reaction of the Prime Minister. Things have been deteriorating for months – or years – and the reaction is still a knee-jerk and not a well-thought-out strategy.
Combating crime successfully takes a long time and should have been started a long time ago right at the beginning – essential to everyone is a roof over the head and food in the belly. Here is where to start, not “preventative detention”.
So, where is a social housing scheme? Why are people squatting on unsuitable sites? Successive governments have done nothing.
Then suddenly people are told that they have built on planned roadways, how frustrating is that? Come on, GOB, start building and renting and employ Belizeans to do the building. We know well from personal experience that the unemployed are in general, excellent builders with a little guidance.
Incidentally, who is building the Free Zone at the border with Guatemala? We have been told that the builders are Guatemalan. Is that right?
Life is hard for the majority of people in Belize, and shows no sign of improving. While there is no sign of improvement, any “crime deterrent” will have no effect. If you have nothing, what do you have to lose?
If you have lost hope, then nothing matters; killing is nothing and being killed is nothing – except a way out of a hopeless situation.
We know that the police work under impossible conditions, so it is very hard to criticise them when they overreact to situations such as the stop and search on the Western Highway. But taking away the “uniform” of dispossessed youth just robs them of that little dignity that they might have had for a few hours. They may be gun-using criminals, but they are children who never had a chance.
We must all try to help find a solution, but the Government must play its part.
Sincerely,
Sally and Leonardo Caretella,
Esperanza village