BELIZE CITY, Wed. Dec. 8, 2021– Career soldier, Brigadier General Steven Ortega, will be handing over leadership of the Belize Defence Force (BDF), following the upcoming completion of his four-year term at the head of the army, which started in 2017. Brigadier General Ortega took over from Brigadier General David Jones, and like his predecessor, he weathered the storms, facing down the drug dealers and the illegal settlers during his tenure, before handing over the nation’s fighting unit to an as yet unnamed successor.
It’s a challenging job to lead the BDF, Brigadier General Jones had to battle through charges by Guatemala that on occasions his forces had used excessive force on their citizens when patrolling Belizean territory near the western border. Brigadier General Ortega also had his share of tests to get through.
On the Guatemalan front, there were less confrontations under the leadership of General Ortega. On instructions from his superiors, belligerence by Guatemalan forces on the Sarstoon went largely unchallenged, and in 2018 he joined with leaders of other security forces in the country to publicly register their support for Belize going to the ICJ to have Guatemala’s claim resolved there.
On a cold, blustery early morning in February 2020, he lost four of his top soldiers in an anti-narcotic mission when their helicopter went down near Gales Point. Later that year, there were charges of sexual harassment of female soldiers by some of their male superiors. Accusations of this nature were not new, but the BDF had managed to keep such matters out of public view. Probably his greatest challenge was keeping his forces healthy and in high morale after transmission of the Covid-19 virus within the country began in April last year.
An Esperanza boy, Brigadier General Ortega attended St. Andrew’s Primary School in San Ignacio, Sacred Heart College in San Ignacio, and Technical College Sixth Form in Belize City. He enlisted in the army in 1990, and received training at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, UK, from which he graduated in 1992. Thereafter he rose through the ranks. Steven Ortega, 50, is married and the father of four children.