U.S. SouthCom Commander Visits Belize

On Thursday, the Commander of the United States Southern Command, Admiral Kurt Walter Tidd concluded a two-day visit to Belize with a tripartite meeting held with Brigadier General David Jones of the Belize Defence Force and Chief of Defence Staff of the Guatemalan Armed Forces, Major General Juan Manuel Perez Ramirez. The meeting, which took place at Caracol in the Mountain Pine Ridge, was to encourage dialogue and cooperation, particularly on border issues between Belize and Guatemala. According to C.E.O. in the Ministry of Defense, Felix Enriquez, the dialogue was on the important role that the armed forces must play in regards to regional security.

Felix Enriquez

Felix Enriquez, C.E.O., Ministry of Defense

“And so he met with the Minister of Defense, with myself, with our two commanders—Admiral Borland and General Jones—and we discussed operational cooperation, operational intelligence and we discussed training and further develop the partnership that the US and the Belize Defense Force and the Belize Coastguard have been doing overtime and it is a very good relationship. We have benefited tremendously from working with the U.S. and they themselves have had a lot of benefits from working with us. The meeting with the Guatemala Chief of Defense staff was a separate meeting and that tripartite meeting is strictly between military. So it was just our military leader, General Jones, Admiral Tidd from South COM and General Perez from Guatemala. And in that meeting, they discussed further cooperation, further peace development between both countries and work more on our confidence building measures and to work more on the tripartite work that we do with the U.S. and Guatemala.”