The Belize Territorial Volunteers, (BTV) led by Wil Maheia, announced that they will be setting up a security operation at the currently “abandoned” Sarstoon Forward Operating Base due to the lack of 24-hour military presence in the area.

by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 6, 2023

Earlier this week, Wil Maheia, leader of the Belize Territorial Volunteers (BTV), raised many eyebrows when he announced to the local media that the BTV plans to establish a presence on the Sarstoon Forward Operating Base which is situated at the mouth of the Sarstoon River, but which has not been occupied on a 24-hour basis by local soldiers due to reported structural instability of the facility that has been caused by coastal erosion,

The announcement was made on Tuesday, July 4, via Zoom, and during that online press briefing the BTV highlighted what they believe is the state of abandonment that the base has been in for almost a year.

“We’re going on a year now, and the base has been abandoned in our opinion,” said Maheia. “We, the volunteers have reached out to the military to ask if they needed our assistance, that we have the experience to build sea walls and control erosion, and they have not responded. We believe it is important for the base to be there, and for Belizeans to be there, and to establish a presence on the Sarstoon,” he added.

The construction of the base began in 2015, and it was officially opened in 2016. It would serve as a 24-hour military base to demonstrate Belizean presence around the highly tense waters of the Sarstoon River, which is often trafficked by Guatemalan soldiers in boats.

However, the structure which houses the BDF operation has been subject to another type of onslaught—that of the surrounding waters, which have been washing away the land on which the facility sits, and, when it was observed that the base was in danger of falling into the body of water due to erosion, the evident risks forced BDF troops to temporarily evacuate from the wooden structure.

In an interview with local reporters, Brigadier General Azariel Loria, Commander of the Belize Defence Force, said that Maheia and the BTV were not granted any permission to occupy the base.

“That is a military garrison; it’s a military forward observation base. I don’t think it belongs to the territorial volunteer element, so we’re going to place signs to keep out trespassers and intruders, because that building belongs to the Ministry of National Defence and Border Security, and we have not given authority or permission for anyone else to occupy it,” he said.

Refuting Maheia’s claims, that there is no military presence at the location, Brigadier General Loria noted that BDF soldiers have been patrolling the area of Cadenas, which is on the next side of the Sarstoon, bordering Guatemala, every day for the past two weeks.

The BTV has announced plans to occupy the base on Saturday, July 8, if a 24-hour military presence is not restored by that time. While Brigadier General Loria did not specify what they’ll do in the event that the BTV attempts to take over the base, he briefly said that orders have been given to the battalion commander in the south in the event that the BTV attempts to go through with their plans.

Regardless of the controversy surrounding the manning of this critical facility, the undeniable fact is that the Sarstoon Forward Operating Base is in dire need of renovations, which the Minister of Defence outlined back in December 2022.

Those renovations have not yet been carried out, but Loria said, “We have gotten the estimates from one building contractor and we are getting from [another]. We are getting the tendering process together and all of that. But that is in place already. We have an estimate from one person. It took a little time because it is not easy. We are crunched for resources, but now we have the funding. We had the funding since we got the new fiscal year, and we are working towards it.”

Maheia, on the other hand, told a local reporter, “It’s not like a mansion is down there, it’s a 20X24 building; in one weekend that seawall could be put in. We, the Belize Territorial Volunteers, have actually written to the Commandant of the BDF and basically saying that we are willing to help to reconstruct the seawall so that the military could return to the base. Well, they didn’t take that and it’s not rocket science. We have Ewart Garbutt and all those volunteers who saved Silk Caye, a whole entire island, and they did that in a month. And with our military, it’s going on a month and our base has totally been abandoned, while the Guatemalans have expanded their station, their pier, their dock has gotten bigger, so they are establishing more of a presence in their area and they’re stretching it over to our area.”

In regards to the assistance offered by the BTV to fix the sea wall surrounding the base, Brigadier General Loria declined the offer, saying that they don’t want something makeshift, but want a long-term solution so that they can be permanently stationed there.