B.D.F. Officer Says Conflicts with G.A.F. in Sarstoon Need to Stop

The confrontation between members of the Guatemalan Armed Forces and the Belize Territorial Volunteers on the Sarstoon River on September eighteenth came somewhat as a surprise to the Belize Defense Force. That’s because there haven’t been any such flare-ups with them in that area for a few years. Today, the B.D.F’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Jermaine Burns, told the media that we need to avoid these kinds of incidents leading up to Belize’s legal arguments at the International Court of Justice.

Jermaine Burns

Lt. Col. Jermaine Burns, Chief of Staff, B.D.F.

“We’re going to have to be thinking strategically to see if we are to anticipate any much more flare-ups as we get closer to the date of our court case with Guatemala. And it’s something that our intelligence officers are already anticipating, and we’re going to have to plan out how we engage because you’d understand that we don’t want these flare-ups leading to that court date because one, we don’t want to be looked at as aggressors once we’re at the court but equally, we do not want to be seen as backing away from our responsibility of maintaining the territorial integrity of our country. So, we’ve had multiple discussions as to our approaches with these types of flare-ups in the Sarstoon and I can assure you, as we speak, there are men in the Sarstoon or at the F.O.B and they leave from Barranco and first light and they leave from the F.O.B at last light.”