International Media Misses Key Aspect of Deadly Chiquibul Attack

Dean Barrow

Barrow says that in running away with Guatemala’s version of events, the international media seems to have missed a critical aspect of the incident – that the B.D.F. soldiers were fired on first by Guatemalans in the dead of night and were only returning fire.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“I don’t hear anybody, I don’t see any of the international media, I don’t discern any recognition of one critical element in this whole scenario. That B.D.F. patrol contained seven—am I correct—seven personnel from Friends of Conservation and Development. Now you would know that especially because there is the inquiry, we have to be careful in terms of how much we say about the actual details of the shooting, who from that patrol were on century duty; who may have been the first to return fire…that sort of thing.  But what is undoubted is that FCD, as it were, an impartial participant, confirms that that patrol, which included themselves, was fired on first. That all the Belize contingent did was to return fire in clearly what were absolutely chaotic circumstances. I had to, in New York, were about covering the most important basis; that is talking to the diplomats and the people with real power to try to help to shift the Guatemala response and assist me in getting the de-escalation that Belize needed. In terms of the larger public opinion campaign, well, I was concerned when I heard that the ABC was running a story; that AP was running a story. As to what could be done about that; but really it was a matter of the priority being to get at the situation that saw us, as far as we could tell, being threatened by this mass mobilization of Guatemala troops.”