Guats not afraid, say Belizean law enforcement authorities “go soft” on them
Belize’s largest and most precious forest – the Chiquibul Forest – continues to be a stamping ground for Guatemalans who persist in their illegal encroachments on Belizean territory, to log precious woods such as cedar, mahogany, Santa Maria and Nargusta; cut xate palm, and even build homes, in defiance of Belize’s sovereignty and right to its territorial integrity.
If you thought that the removal of the Jalacte bodega last month signaled an end to illegal incursions into Belizean territory, you are dead wrong. Amandala has been reliably informed that there are at least three other incursions of Guatemalans who have built on Belizean soil.
The most notable is the case of the Leiva family at Sapote 1 in the Chiquibul National Park, who has three homes on the Belize side of the border, and sources say that the Guatemalan family has lived there for the last 15 years. The Leivas reportedly claimed that they believed they were settling in Guatemala, and not Belize. However, they had since been informed that they were in Belize and they have still not moved back.
Friends for Conservation and Development’s (FCD) Park Ranger, Derric Chan, informed us that there are 17 Guatemalans (three families) living illegally inside the Adjacency Zone – the territory that the Organization of the American States (OAS) has defined as the strip of line one kilometer to the east and west of the Belize-Guatemala border.
The 2005 OAS agreement that Belize and Guatemala signed sets out specific procedures for the removal of people settling inside the zone. The agreements speak of relocating Guatemalans moving into Belize illegally after October 2000, and not before, with the exception of Santa Rosa, which was known to have existed before 2000.
We had reported a little over a year ago about the existence of these incursions – at the time, 5 people were reported at Sapote 1, 10 at Sapote 2, and a small family at Barrio Juda, in the Cayo District, where a Guatemalan man built his house partially on the Belize side of the border and partially in Guatemala.
Today, Amandala has learned that the illegal settlers are still on Belizean soil.
Even though the illegal settlement of Guatemalans in Belize is an undying issue, a much larger problem looms – the mass hacking of Belize’s pristine forests inside the Chiquibul National Park.
Rafael Manzanero, Program Director of the Chiquibul Maya Mountain Program and Executive Director of Friends for Conservation and Development, informed us today that Guatemalan milpa farmers have continued to make massive clearings on the Belize side of the border in the national park, where no one – not even Belizeans – should hunt, log, or exploit any of the natural resources, except for research purposes where permission is granted.
The Guatemalans have acted with impunity. Manzanero told us that two weeks ago, when FCD conducted its aerial and on-the-ground monitoring of portions of the park along the border, they found clearings that appear to be survey lines, signaling that there is a more organized and systematic parceling of lands by the Guatemalans on the Belize side of the border within the Chiquibul National Park.
This morning, the FCD team, accompanied by Belize security officers, did a fly-over along the 45-km stretch of border included in the reserve, and found that the extent of the illegal land clearings are far worse, even though they have not had a chance to do a proper assessment of the new data gathered today.
One of two large patches deforested in the Chiquibul National Park, said Chan, is as large as Belize City.
The FCD officials who have spoken with some of the Guatemalans say that they are fully aware that they are coming over, illegally, into Belizean territory, and there is the general sentiment that Belizean law enforcement authorities “go soft” on them, as illegal xateros are deported, rather than arrested and charged, if they are not found with guns.
FCD informed Amandala that in April 2007, Belizean security forces came across 10 xateros with 25 horses laden with the highly lucrative xate palm, and they were detained for a little while, but let go.
Additionally, xateros and illegal loggers are known to abandon their camps and leave unsightly garbage behind.
More than trashing what is prized as Belize’s most beautiful forest, illegal encroachers – some of them reputed to be highly trained ex-military from the Kaibil special forces – are blamed for looting archaeological sites, and leaving their signatures on trees – such as the Kaibil sticker.
Xateros are mostly men (about 60%), but boys as young as 11 years of age have been intercepted as a part of their group.
Even though it is not exploited for commercial purposes in Belize, the xate industry in Guatemala is lucrative, netting an estimated US$140 million annually in export earnings, as the decorative palm is in high demand in the USA and Europe, especially for decorations around Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter and Mother’s Day.
In Belize, the fine for illegal extraction is a paltry $500 under the Wildlife Protection Act, Manzanero said.
The FCD officials point back to a case where a xatero was apprehended well inside Belizean territory and his Belizean lawyer got him off on a technicality that it could not be proven (with accurate Global Positioning System coordinates) exactly where the xatero was at the time he was arrested.
The FCD experts believe that unless Belize increases its security presence on the border, it will continue to face major problems with illegal incursions and the raping of the country’s natural resources, because a major push comes from the fact that the Guatemalans have deforested their lands and are moving into Belize, where strong conservation measures have allowed forests to stay pristine.
With unchecked activity along the border by Guatemalans, who have penetrated possibly 20,000 acres and at least four kilometers inside Belize, this “gold”, as it is called, is under serious threat. Similar reserves on the Guatemalan side have been totally wiped out.
Whereas the over 400,000 acres that make up the Chiquibul Forest is underdeveloped, with very little access roads, the picture is very different on the Guatemalan side of the border, where there is a massive network of roads leading to villages only a stone’s throw from the border with Belize – the most notable cases being Santa Cruz near Jalacte, and La Rajoya, further north, visible with the naked eye from the Belize side of the border.
The wiping out of Belize’s forests has been a result of incursions going back to the 80’s. Chan reports that way back in 1987, only 280 acres of incursions were reported in the area. In 1994, that expanded to 1,049 in Rio Blanco (inside the same national park), and a further plot 5 miles into the Caracol Archaeological Reserve, which is included in the Chiquibul Forest, but not the national park.
Manzanero says that the new clearings are in preparation for this season’s milpa farming, common during the dry season. The Guatemalans are known to farm a variety of subsistence crops, including corn, beans, squash, and pumpkin.
There have been times when reconnaissance fly-overs have resulted in sightings of illegal encroachments in Belizean territory, but today, they were not visible – only the pronounced and lingering evidence of their insistence to treat Belizean territory as their own.
Specifically, increased incursions were sighted at the Rio Blanco military observation posts, Valentin Camp – a perennial problem spot – and Cebada, with clearings having expanded from an acre to about 10 acres over the past year.
The incursions, says FCD, have continued to increase to monumental proportions over the last 30 years, and are very likely to continue unless something effective is done to address the growing problem.
(FCD is a conservation NGO which co-manages the Chiquibul National Park, spanning over 240,000 acres in the Cayo and Toledo Districts.)