Godwin Hulse Speaks About Conorquie Murder

Earlier today, we also got a comment from Minister of Immigration, Godwin Hulse, at an event for Child Friendly Municipalities. Hulse gave his views of the Conorquie murder and was more direct than the Foreign Minister on the murder of the officer.

Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration

“Government is extremely concerned about this matter. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has been on top of these issues with his Guatemalan counterpart. There are about, I think he said about ten or twelve agreements at various levels that are being signed—hopefully before the end of this year—to deal with those things, to deal with movement of people across. There is a healthy cooperation going on with the Guatemalan government to try and stem these things because the Government of Guatemala also recognizes that this is an issue that they don’t want to become explosive. As you know, I think two or maybe three or four times, Guatemalans have been shot by Belizean security personnel, etcetera which has resulted in hue and cry in Guatemala. And in Belize for us, we also have our territorial integrity and our independence and our sovereignty to protect. So it is a delicate issue, but I know cabinet has spent quite a bit of time discussing the holistic issue.  What I will say though, is that as far as our security people are concerned, we continue to maintain that we don’t and will not have our people threatened. And we will not have our people hurt and we want to protect our people and I know that in the last incident that had occurred, that was the report. The particular person who came across was aggressive and our people had to do what they had to do to protect themselves and to ensure that he could be deterred.”

Reporter

Godwin Hulse

“Talking about that last incident that occurred some six months ago where Tomas Ramirez, a Guatemalan national, was shot on Belizean soil, the government had made a decision to actually give compensation to the family in that matter. Would you support or push government to do the same in regards to this Belizean police officer that was killed yesterday?”

Godwin Hulse

“Well clearly, we have to look after our people. The issue though is different. You have to realize that in that case, that was a compassionate payment. I think government looked at it and said okay this is a poor citizen. And yes while that citizen was on the wrong side of the border and there were issues with him, I think government’s collective idea was make a compassionate payment. With respect to a Belizean, the same would be obtained I am sure and I would hope because our people are also very important to us and more important to us.”