A group of Nazarene High students told us that it was a group of Sixth Form students from St. John?s College and those from the University of Belize who came to their campus and urged them to join in the protest. They tried to get students from E.P. Yorke and Pallotti High to join in, but they were denied access to E.P. Yorke and educators at Pallotti discouraged their students from joining.

The students first took their march up to BTL?s St. Thomas Street headquarters, and then went in front of the Prime Minister?s house, a couple blocks east of BTL on Princess Margaret Drive at its intersection with ?E? Street.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Crispin Jeffries, told the students that their procession was illegal and he ordered them to disperse, but the defiant crowd, carrying a big Belize flag, continued their march of protest, shouting chants such as ?We love Belize,? and ?Set Belize Free,? and singing the National Anthem.

?We want to fight for our rights,? one student told us. ?We are fighting for the future of this country.?

Vanessa Slusher, a student of SJC Junior College, told Amandala that the students decided to march because ?enough is enough.?

?We are tired of this Government on a whole,? Slusher said. ?We are the future and there is not going to be anything left for us in Belize. We want all of them to resign and call new elections.?

The 18-year-old student said that she is also concerned about the situation with the workers of the Belize Telecommunications Limited.

Another female student of the same college told us that she thinks this Government needs to do better and to talk to the people; be straightforward and ?don?t bring political jargon that we don?t understand.?

She also said that today BTL is the main issue for which they are fighting. She feels that since so many of our assets have been sold off to foreigners, at least BTL should be kept in Belizean hands.

A group of UB students shared with us similar sentiments, that they want the Government to address the issues of the day and be sincere about it.

These are the strong sentiments that compelled the crowd of students to take the streets. Still, today?s congregations of students were peaceful.

A team of 25 uniformed police officers from the Dragon Unit and the Anti-Drug Unit, and senior personnel from the Police Department, including Crispin Jeffries and Edward Broaster, worked to keep the youths under control when they ended up at Belcan.

The officers divided themselves into two main groups of about 10 and stood single file at both advances to the bridge, telling civilians that they were restricted from crossing the bridge, but many still managed to cross.

Meanwhile, a huge crowd of about 600 was on the bridge. Some of them had chosen to sit in its center. Below the foot of the bridge, where the officers had eventually stationed themselves, there were crowds of 100 to 200 people.

The students and teachers with whom we spoke told us that the move first began with students from the University of Belize, who marched to the St. John?s College campus and invited those students to accompany them in their march. Next, they invited Nazarene High School students, who joined them first in a march in front of the Belize Telecommunications and next in front of the Prime Minister?s house.

They stood there for a while, and then ventured to the Belcan Bridge. We arrived at Belcan at the same time that the police arrived. Some of the officers who moved across to the Belcan were the same ones who had monitored the crowd on Princess Margaret Drive. Jeffries was among them.

The police asked the crowd to clear the bridge, but none of the drivers moved their vehicles. Moments later, a team of Dragon officers and Jeffries approached a car that was parked on the bridge and wrecked its front bumper and headlights. The driver of the car was St. John?s College Junior College student, Nasima Reyes, 19, who told us that the car belonged to her boyfriend.

She accused Jeffries of bruising her arm and neck when the two of them got into a scuffle over the car. When news of the incident spread, the crowd started calling Jeffries a ?woman beater,? but he ignored them and continued to command his officers.

Reyes got into a physical confrontation with Jeffries when the officers first approached the car, as if they were going to move it. And Reyes? anger was further roused when she realized that the officers were damaging the car.

Some time later, relatives and friends of the young woman confronted Jeffries at the northern end of the bridge. During the prolonged confrontation, Broaster advanced, Jeffries retreated and a number of Dragon Unit officers, dressed in black, encircled Jeffries for protection.

Soon, some protesters, who did not appear to be students, began throwing rocks, broken pieces of bottle and pieces of concrete at the officers. As the officers walked away from the scene, a hail of these missiles were hurled at them, one missile actually hitting Jeffries in his head, but not causing him major injury as far as we could observe.

Still, the officers did not retaliate, but most continued to walk towards the Farmers Market. A few took shelter in the area and when rioters saw them, they again began to throw bottles and other objects at them.

After the police left, rumors intensified that the police sent for military backup from the Belize Defense Force. However, no soldiers came on the scene.

In the next hour or so that followed, a group of rioters began to light tires on the bridge. It was a scene reminiscent of the Tower Hill riot of July, 2001, when commuters and supporters from nearby villages staged a riot at the Tower Hill Bridge in Orange Walk, blocking passage by puncturing a bus tire. They also set tires ablaze as they faced off with armed police and the military, whom they attacked with stones, bottles, and sticks, also firing off makeshift gasoline bombs at the security officers.

Unlike the Tower Hill riot, where two demonstrators were shot and nine security officers were wounded, there were no serious injuries reported at this Belcan Bridge riot. But at least one gunshot was fired in the area.

Protesters stoned the Belize Water Services building on the western side of Central American Boulevard, even though it was under the guard of Belize Defense Force officers.

The crowd began to disperse at about 7:30 p.m. and there were reports that they would march to Albert Street to continue the protest. As we report in the article (reference riot article), the group that started the downtown riot was certainly not the same group of young people who led the march from the schools to the Belcan. It is evident that another group of rioters was responsible for the downtown riot and looting.