PM Says Travel to Sarstoon Should Be Unimpeded, but be Careful

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño says that he has not received an official report on the incident, but that Guatemala needs to understand that majority of the Sarstoon belongs to Belize. He says the aggression by the GAF is unacceptable because Belizeans are allowed to travel the length and breadth of the country unimpeded. However, those going into the Sarstoon area need to be cautious. 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I think that we need to continue to point out to the Guatemalans that a portion of the Sarstoon belongs to Belize; the entire Sarstoon does not belong to Guatemala and we need to continue to use the diplomatic channels. We need to be realistic. We have about a thousand soldiers; Guatemala has probably about nineteen twenty thousand. They have gunships, they have all the latest equipment and technology to go to war and we don’t. So we could never reach to the point where we will say we’re going to pick up our guns against Guatemala. We have to use diplomacy. Minister Courtenay, at every opportunity that he has, when he meets with his counterparts, he would express concerns and also to write very strong worded diplomatic notes – or as we say dip notes – to the O.A.S., to the UN, to the Americans, to the British, to everybody that cares to listen. But at the same time, we also need to be a bit careful and I say that hesitantly. I saw that for instance, if you have a wild bull in your land, you’re not going to go and jump up in front of that bull and wave a flag because he is going to attack you. What you need to do is see how you can pen the bull and how you could deal with it. I use that as an analogy to make the point that we also can’t be seen to be taunting the Guatemalans because God forbid one day one of these people were to accidentally pull the trigger or whatever, then what? So we need to be careful and I urge to the [Belize] Territorial Volunteers to be careful. While we accept what they are doing and we understand that they are in our territory and Belizeans supposed to feel free to move anywhere in the country, including the Sarstoon, but because of the tense situation with the military in that area, I am urging them to be careful. Yes we need to let everybody understand this land belongs to us, yes we need to continue putting pressure on Guatemala, putting pressure with our friends from abroad – the Americans, the British, the UN, the O.A.S., everybody – for them to understand the aggression of Guatemala and that it is unacceptable. But I urge our citizens first to be careful.”