Belize has a real border! That’s the statement that the Belize Territorial Volunteers (BTV) is underscoring, as it gears up to go back to the border this weekend, to continue clearing the boundary line with machetes.
Amandala has been informed that the Organization of American States (OAS) will be sending an official representative to act as observer of the activities planned for this month, beginning with work this coming weekend, but which climaxes on April 30, to mark the 154th anniversary of the signing of the 1859 boundary treaty between Guatemala and Britain.
Whereas Guatemala has denied the validity of the boundary treaty, the Belize Constitution makes it very clear that the reference points for Belize’s border with Guatemala are as defined in the treaty.
Support for the BTV has been coming from across Belize, as well as overseas. News coming from BTV’s founder, Wil Maheia, this week, is that they have received a new stock of much needed jungle clothing and footwear from a generous Belizean in the Diaspora.
Valentino Teck, a villager from San Jose and leader of the BTV in that area, says: “This jungle clothing and footwear came just in time. The area we will be working in now is much more challenging, and we need to be prepared as we carry on with our activities.”
Alix Dillett, a US resident who donated the gear, said, “This struggle for protecting our country is about Belize, not about one man or a political party. What the BTV is working towards is about securing our country, our Belize.”
According to a statement from the BTV, “Over 100 people have committed to work this weekend, and the BTV expects to clear at least several miles of the border between Belize and Guatemala.”
Maheia told Amandala that a team will be moving ahead on Friday into the Dolores area and they will be joined by others early Saturday.
“Over 100 have committed saying they will go. The numbers are impressive, because they are from across the country,” Maheia added.
He said that they currently have scouts in the field, checking the situation on the ground and taking GPS readings.
“A lot of these older guys know the borderline from when the British were there,” Maheia said, adding that the Brits used to cut the lines along the border up to the 90s, and they used to hire locals to do the groundwork – the Maya and even the BDF used to work, until they started to move BDF soldiers into city streets.
Recently, Guatemala has been increasing the use of maps which have Belize annexed, and latest reports are that the country intends to include a Central American map on its passport cover, which will have Belize and Guatemala separated merely by a dotted line – not a solid line, as has previously been done.
However, Maheia said that the Guatemalans are reacting to the fact that “Belizeans are waking up, so they are trying to push it as much as they can. They realize the government [of Belize] is weak when it comes to negotiating, and so they are bullying. As the saying goes, ‘cow know weh weak fence deh’.”
The BTV group, which intends to use GPS technology to determine the location for the land clearings, will also have an experienced surveyor with them this weekend, Maheia told us.
He notes that for a long while, the border markers and cairns had been cleared and maintained, and the neglect of the border took place within the last 10 to 15 years.
For the summer, he said, they intend to plant thousands of cacao trees along the border with the help of school-aged children, and when the trees bear, the children can harvest them and get money to help pay for school expenses. The trees are to be planted within 10 meters of the borderline, Maheia added.
The symbolic planting will take place on April 30, the date the Boundary Treaty was signed, he said.
On March 21, Samiyyah Rifqa Andrewin, founder of Belize UNBOXED, wrote Ambassador Raul Lago, Special Representative, Office of the OAS in the Belize-Guatemala Adjacency Zone, and requested the presence of the OAS as observers of the BTV’s April events at Garbutt Falls, Aguas Turbias, and Gracias a Dios—all areas on Belize’s side of the borders; the brush clearing on April 6 and 7, and tree planting on April 30.
Andrewin said this is important for several reasons: (1) to emphasize that these activities are intended to be peaceful; (2) to ensure the safety of a growing number of participants; (3) to strengthen the confidence of the people of Belize in the OAS; (4) to strengthen the mutual understanding between Belize and Guatemala; and (5) to foster mutual transparency.
This afternoon, Ambassador Lago wrote back indicating that, “…we have requested Mr. Sergio Benitez, Director of the Office of the GS of the OAS in the Adjacency Zone to be present at the locations where these exercises will be performed in a peaceful manner…”
He said that the OAS will be observing from a prudent distance from “the adjacency line.”
Those interested in joining this weekend’s border clearing expedition are asked to call Wil Maheia at 610-0978 or reach him via Facebook.