Protestors outside National Assembly battle with police

It was another one of these eventful days in the nation’s capital, with legislators debating in the House of Representatives and protesters gathered outside. News Five’s Janelle Chanona and Stewart Krohn are just back from Belmopan and between the three of us, along with the camera work of Rick Romero and George Tillett, we’ll try to walk you through it. Janelle, let’s start with things on the outside. Where do we begin?

Janelle Chanona
“Well it started from the very beginning, if we could get the tape rolling Rick, I’d like to show you the scene on the road to Belmopan. This is the Western Highway in Hattieville, just buses filled, this is just outside Belmopan, these are people-political supporters mostly but there are a few unionists and in disperses, some concerned Belizeans, and we could tell as we were driving pass but just a whole lot of traffic, it kind of reminded me of when we were on the road and everybody was trying to get away from Belize City when a hurricane was coming. That was the kind of feeling, just everybody wanting to get there. To give you an idea of how many buses this is the shot from the Governor General’s field that had become a parking lot and we counted twenty-eight buses in this parking lot and this wasn’t even, the meeting hadn’t even gotten a half an hour near to its starting….it was like 9:30 quarter past nine.”

Stewart Krohn
“There were probably at least that many vehicles on the road.”

Janelle Chanona
“Exactly. This is the barbed wire and the police presence that was on Independence Hill. The police were not only armed with their usual weapons they had several stations of cameramen that were documenting everything throughout the day.”

“The Leader of the Opposition came down and he obviously spoke with his supporters. They had come from early on….the footsteps of the National Assembly as their stronghold and they basically kept getting more and more supporters congregating at this site as the morning wore on.”

Stewart Krohn
“Janelle, the barriers, you remember from 2005, they have changed just a little bit or it’s basically the same?”

Janelle Chanona
“It just has a little chain at the bottom. This is the P.U.P. side of things, they had gathered outside the Administration Building for a rally with their loyals.”

Said Musa, Prime Minister
“Because we believe no matter how poor you are, you are entitled to good quality health care and the P.U.P. will ensure that you get it. That is how we’re going to convert this challenge into a real opportunity.”

Janelle Chanona
“And after giving that address, Prime Minister Said Musa made his way to the House Meeting with mixed reactions obviously, here with members of his Cabinet. And as the meeting got started outside basically everybody just sorta got comfortable in their established camps setting up stuff and thinking where to put their banners and other placards. I have to say some of the most creative stuff that I’ve seen was kind of an effigy of the Prime Minister that one guy was wearing at one point. Some of the signage did have obscenities which was obviously not constructive but there were a lot of people out there that obviously wanted to hear and see as much as what was going on today. I don’t know, you guys have any questions.

Marleni Cuellar
“Well, I was actually out there and one of the things that I noticed, besides the signs as well, there were actually some children who were out there with their family. People who seemed like they weren’t there to support any particular party were there with their families being a part of the protest.”

Janelle Chanona
“I actually heard one lady say oh you know well at least it won’t come to any violence clashes or confrontations because there are so many kids here; that would prove ill-fated further down the road. As we circled the periphery, Rick I don’t know if you can roll, we caught up with different people to give exactly their reaction to why they were out there. This is more of the P.U.P. side, like I said they were very different. We caught up with the Association of Concerned Belizeans and President David Vasquez explained why he and his association members were out there.”

David Vasquez, President, A.C.B.
“We’re out here in support of Belize, that’s it. The A.C.B. is here in support of Belize and all Belizeans who voice their opinion and said no, no to this guarantee and no to any loan of any form; thirty-nine million, thirty-three million whatever it is we are not in support.”

Janelle Chanona
“And then later we caught up with this group of teachers and unionists. One lady from Gwen Lizarraga High, Kathleen Flowers, that’s her in the red shirt, she would tell us why she was out there.”

Kathleen Flowers, Teacher
“I am showing my support against the Musa Administration and the regime that insist on paying for a private company’s investment with our taxpayers dollars. But I’m also here in a sense to protest the fact that my teachers, my fellow colleagues have chosen to go to Corozal and celebrate.”

Janelle Chanona
“So obviously there was kind of a two pronged objection that she had. There are always arguments about numbers so we went up into one of the Ministry Buildings and we got this aerial view of the U.D.P. crowd so that people can have their own assessment. Those are all police cadets that are lining the front line and police said they did this so that they wouldn’t aggravate the crowd unnecessarily in the beginning. This is from upstairs of the Administration Building, that’s a tent that the P.U.P. had set up and that’s their crowd kind of gathered up. We had asked for permission from NEMO but they told us we couldn’t go on their building so this is kind of distant shots of where they were setting up and congregating.”

“Everything was pretty much calm until this guy gets arrested and his detention actually leads to bottles and sticks and such being hurled. And this is where things start to get obviously very tense because they’re starting to tug on the lines and they’re hurling more insults and most of those are plastic bottles but a couple of pint bottles, glass bottles are also being flung over as well that are actually coming pretty close to where the police is. And they just kind of keep going into this back and forth and of course you know the verbal abuse turns to a kind of physical contact and when this guy shows up, he’s actually carrying a gun that can fire rubber pellets, that’s when things between the police and the demonstrators rapidly and dramatically deteriorate.”

Marleni Cuellar
“Just to get some kind of concept of time of the day, when did this start?”

Janelle Chanona
“This is around high noon.”

Marleni Cuellar
“Because it was fairly calm in the morning, people were chanting and singing and beating their drums and then after that guy stepped over the line that’s when things started to escalate a bit. In fact the crowd was dispersed at this time and they started to come back when things got heated.”

Janelle Chanona
“Yeah, they left to go eat and I guess because it was really, really hot out there today and I guess the combination of several factors. So the police cadets are now recalled from the front line and the older officers now step in to take control of the situation. Now I have to say that at every moment, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Crispin Jefferies is in control of this. He relegates us to one corner and we’re managing to capture these shots of people breaking, once again, the steps on Independence Hill to use as missiles to hurl at the police. And now the riot squad comes in with their shields and it just goes from bad to worse and the police will eventually have to take decisive action which again is to arm themselves with these crowd dispersing measures.”

Stewart Krohn
“Well at this point it’s largely U.D.P. that are out there. It looks like a certain small percentage of guys who are definitely not under anyone’s control, what are the U.D.P. leaders obviously doing at this point?”

Janelle Chanona
“This is, I don’t know if you can see just walking out of our frame there, Gaspar Vega, he’s actually trying to quell the crowd and to calm things down, but because the crowd has gotten so violent and is attacking the police you’ll actually see the Assistant Commissioner is gonna come to us and tell us we have to leave. And he kicks us out. We were in this one little corner and we have to move now so we basically have to run behind.”

Gaspar Vega, U.D.P 1st Deputy Party Leader
“I’d like to tell everyone to please remain their calm; we’re here to show our solidarity, our discontent with this present Administration and we’re gonna plan and continue planning on doing it in a peaceful manner.”

Janelle Chanona
“So are you disappointed that it has escalated to this?”

Gaspar Vega
“I am not disappointed with my people. I am convinced that it is the P.U.P. party supporters that are instigating and want us to look bad.”

Janelle Chanona
“And that’s an accusation obviously that the P.U.P.’s strongly deny; they are saying that none of their people were on that side of the house and they said that from the violence started that they told all their people to move out, get in the buses and go back home.”

“This is the steps now but as we try to get this shot now different people just start coming after Rick Romero, our cameraman, and things get really hostile with us.”

Marleni Cuellar
“These are the protesters; they were pushing away your camera.”

Janelle Chanona
“Yeah, they don’t want us to show what they’re using as missiles to hurl at the police accusing us of being obviously sympathetic to the P.U.P. and saying we can’t do that, taking the picture from behind their sides. That’s actually a police officer that’s holding the camera behind and this is just when I think things get to their worst as the riot squad walks further down then they start shooting rubber bullets into the crowd and if you keep your eyes on Crispin Jefferies who’s to the right of the screen, when he comes back into the frame, he’ll actually start throwing…I don’t know if it’s duds or just noise makers because there’s actually no tear gas that comes out of these canisters.”

Stewart Krohn
“I think Janelle, I was watching this scene from up top in the National Assembly, I think that about half the tear gas that Jefferies threw, they were defective.”

Janelle Chanona
“Like I said, they were just making noise and that obviously angered the rioters even more and they just kept throwing more and more stones and then I think he realizes that it’s having an adverse effect to his intentions and he starts throwing real tear gas.”

Stewart Krohn
“I think they were all real tear gas, I think they were just defective.”

Marleni Cuellar
“And there were people in the crowd who thought they were gunshots
at one point.”

Janelle Chanona
“But they were shooting the rubber bullets, but like I said from where I was I couldn’t tell what was in the canisters but I do know that in a few seconds one of the canisters that he does throw is gonna release tear gas and you can just see everybody kind of stand around and it’s like oh it’s tear gas and you’ll see the reaction that that has on the crowd and I’m just gonna shut up and let that speak for itself.

“And like you said Marleni, these are women, there were some kids in there you know and everybody just gets hit with this full on.”

Marleni Cuellar
“You all seem to be standing around in awe in the beginning.”

Janelle Chanona
“And you actually see a woman faint from it. My cameraman is going to be affected by it strongly and he’s going to jump down with us on the steps and there’s this woman that has collapsed from it. We’re penned in there because there’s barbed wire on one side and there’s a locked door on the other. There’s somebody reviving her with water and it just burns the skin as it touches your body.”

Marleni Cuellar
“I was actually on the opposite end of this where everybody kept running into the marketplace and they stopped, wanting to come back, got a bit of the tear gas and then went back running again.”

Janelle Chanona
“Well what happens here, everybody reacting to the tear gas and we’re trying to do this stand up here to give you an idea of what it is and if you look over there’s another tear gas canister fired and so now we’re like thoroughly scarred from our first incident so we’re just kind of running away from it. We’re actually gonna set up and try to do the stand up again.”

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
“The police have just tear gassed the crowd for the second time and several people I saw collapsed from the fumes. My face is burning right now from it; this was apparently the decision of the police to make sure that the crowd dispersed from the steps of the National Assembly.”

Janelle Chanona
“But then what happens is they’re gonna throw another canister and it’s gonna take a while for the gas to start releasing and somebody is actually gonna pick it up and throw it back into the riot squad and you see that barely right here.”

Marleni Cuellar
“This excited the crowd. They came back running and applauding and cheering.”

Janelle Chanona
“And I mean they’re in regular gear, so they don’t have oxygen masks so I can only imagine the effect that had.”

Stewart Krohn
“They had masks on at some point.”

Janelle Chanona
“Yeah, yeah, but not at that time. So now things get really, really hairy and people just start breaking anything that they can find and start throwing it up into the buildings breaking the Ministry glass windows. We’re just kind of running backwards from them because these people they were just out. And now everybody’s kind of like off of the hill and they’re standing closer to the police station.”

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
“I don’t know if the camera can pick it up from this distance but we’ve had to move away because people in the crowd have now resorted to breaking the footpath and throwing them up into the windows of the Government buildings in and around Independence Plaza, that includes the two ministry buildings on either side of the steps of the National Assembly and another building just across from the police station.”

Janelle Chanona
“And obviously I’m just still kind of emotional and running out of breath and all of this so when the confusion kind of settles a little bit we set up on the steps now to go into the House of Representatives to get this shot and people here are still breaking windows.”

Marleni Cuellar
“Yes, on that side there were people who took the cement from over the drains and started throwing them down to break up the pieces and threw them at every possible glass in the Ministry offices and they just kept on trying and trying and then the riot squad came further down the steps.”

Janelle Chanona
“Yeah, there they are crossing the drain going over and I mean, this is right in front of the police station and the officers are trying to get a hold of the people that are standing right in front of them causing mayhem and they’re just kind of receding but there’s gonna be a strong bunch that’s gonna stay right actually to the left of the post office there, that building on the right is the post office building. And so we’re now trying to make our way down to find out what is happening down there and we get this perspective of the destruction that’s been left in the wake of all of this, the aftermath of it and it’s just a lot of the broken glass, this actually turns out to be minimal.”

Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“This is entirely the fault of the Prime Minister. It is not just that he is wrong on the issue; he’s doubly wrong in having given people the impression that there would have been a vote today and then having avoided the vote. It is entirely his doing. It is completely his fault. We acted responsibly just now in my agreeing to withdraw the second motion, my agreeing to cut short the debate after we realized that the situation was likely to get out of hand out here. We did the responsible thing.”

Janelle Chanona
“Mr. Barrow, are you saying that your supporters were not factors in this clash with the police?”

Dean Barrow
“Of course they were factors. They were factors because they are angry. The blame is to be laid at the feet of the Prime Minister. He is wrong on the issue and he compounded that by playing the fool, trying to trick people in terms of the manoeuvre not to have the vote today. People are angry. I am saying that we acted responsibly in cutting short the debate in withdrawing my second motion so that we could come and try and quell the emotions of the crowd.”

Janelle Chanona
“So next Friday, what happens?”

Dean Barrow
“We are coming back.”

Janelle Chanona
“We might have pre-empted that because even though we are talking about next Friday, there’s still this bunch of people I told that have set up alongside in between the police station and the post office and they’re still going at it with the police. This isn’t the riot squad, they are regular officers.”

“This is in the Ministry of National Resources there, this parking lot. We are told this vehicle is for the Commissioner of Lands, it’s driven by him and they shattered all the windows. People are still throwing missiles, trying to cause destruction; we’re gonna see a shot. If you listen right here there’s a whole bunch of people saying let’s go dah social, let’s go dah social, meaning the Social Security Board and they’re actually starting to move. This is the hallway, the entranceway to the Ministry of Lands and we’re just kind of following at a safe distance behind the rioters and trying to size up what’s been left behind by them. This is, I think, Mr. Marcel Cardona and he’s trying to mediate there with Mr. Michael Peyrefitte. We’re too far to find out exactly what their situation is. I think some people may have been detained but just a lot of glass in grass kind of thing. This woman told us that she had been shot by a rubber, a pellet from the police unit and this is actually right near the Social Security building cause we went there to see what’s happening there and we caught a couple of people still intent on…they had police presence and security officers of their own inside the yard. And I have to say to the right of your screen you can make out some buses, some people were just trying to I think get on the bus to go home but I guess there were a few egg rilers, you know they were egging on the crowd to continue rioting and causing damage so they were just throwing anything that they could basically. And we’re still getting threats to stop filming and people telling us that they’re gonna break our cameras and everything and as we drove out of Belmopan it was just kind of like a lot of people milling around and all of a sudden Independence Hill just looks blatantly deserted and it was just for me Marleni, I spoke earlier about being emotional, it was just so sad because obviously whatever happens tomorrow or next week or next week Friday, whatever the real issue was that these people wanted to demonstrate and protest about is gonna be overshadowed by the violence. For me that was like it didn’t have to come to that.

Marleni Cuellar
“It was a huge disappointment. And seeing how the morning had gone by so peaceful. I mean people had their placards, they were chanting whatever it is they wanted.”

Janelle Chanona
“It was like a party at one point, they had the Turtle Shell Band, you had the Drum Corp from Orange Walk Central, and you know it was just this kind of party, fiesta episode.”

Marleni Cuellar
“And the people that I saw, they were so infuriated. I found one man taking a 2 x 4 and just beating a tree. Just the plants that are in front of the Ministry Building itself, just beating it. And there’s nothing to gain from it but he was just so angry. The riot squad was coming along, people kept stoning the buildings, there was so much anger that you can sense.”

Janelle Chanona
“And I got the feeling that a lot of people were nervous too like when we drove into Belmopan this morning we were saying that First Caribbean had made the decision to shut down for the day and when we pulled in they had their shutters up and they were prepared for anything. And when all of this happens, I’m thinking Jeez you know, their worst fears are confirmed when all of this starts taking place but also I had some props in front of me, I know there were some concerns that people were being shot at with live ammunition and I just wanted to show, this is one of the canisters that the police was using to fire the rubber ball pellets and it actually says that on the side of the canister and this one same thing, it’s called the super sock and both of them are filled with this kind of round rubber pellets inside and I just wanted to let people know there was no live ammunition being used. But I have to say that we saw more than a handful of people that were armed with real like nine millimetre handguns but thank goodness it never…”

Stewart Krohn
“You mean the police force or …”

Janelle Chanona
“No, people in the crowd. That made me a little nervous. But I have to say the police, I don’t know if it’s from Trade Winds or what but they were using alternative means to try to get that control of the situation so I just wanted to point that out in their behalf. But obviously Marleni, for our crew, what I think really sent the demonstrators over the edge was seeing that first guy that comes out by himself with the gun that fires these canisters and that just pushed them over the edge and you know the police obviously know why they made that decision but some people are saying well you know maybe the situation didn’t warrant his presence at that time.

Stewart Krohn
“Well you know, looking back 2005 you covered that riot, I covered that Riot. Marleni I’m not sure, you were in PG at that time maybe, but obviously today’s events were not anywhere near the kind of rage that took place then. It was a totally different scene, but anyone who showed up today would have to have had in mind that at least the possibility that this is what could happen. Nobody went in there foolish to think oh well this is gonna be a party, this is gonna be all peaceful, this is gonna be fun.”

Marleni Cuellar
“It was a lot of nervousness for people who went along, especially people who weren’t party supporters, I know that individuals who travelled to Belmopan were thinking ok is this the best situation to be in, what is going to happen and what’s interesting is that even though some people had their personal radios around nobody really had any idea what was going on inside the House, so it’s not like the conversation that was happening inside there was inciting.”

Janelle Chanona
“At one point I saw John August, the Mayor of San Ignacio and Santa Elena, he had a transistor radio and he was holding it up next to the megaphone and the crowd could hear part of the confusion that was going on inside.”

Stewart Krohn
“The same thing, the Legislators inside didn’t know what was really happening outside. We could go up to the windows and actually we had a very good view of what was going on but then two things were going on in Parallel and I think as we’ll see shortly when we come back after the break there were some points actually where what was happening outside did intersect with what was happening inside, so that should be fun.”

Janelle Chanona
“Yeah, definitely. But going back to 2005, after I covered that story I just thought that maybe this was like a peak and it won’t happen again. You know everybody just kept saying that I’m talking about Head of Agreement and that being the last big flare up and all that and we had the 2005 and for me it was just sad to see that people might start associating that with a regular occurrence.”

Marleni Cuellar
“We don’t want to get lost and believe that our protests has to be violent every time and that we need to bring the riot squad out anytime someone wants to take a stand on an issue and unfortunately a lot can be lost when riots occur like this. You tend to lose sight of the issue at hand. People are angry, people are frustrated, we can see that but the way in which we can act on that is very important with affecting the issue at hand.”

Janelle Chanona
“I mean even to drive into Belize City and see like all these businesses downtown at four in the afternoon closed for the day, shuttered up. Thinking that the violence might leave Belmopan and come to Belize City is a real concern. It was still very much disappointing.”

Marleni Cuellar
“They had people in the crowd around me that were saying downtown Belmopan, downtown….and it just immediately came back to mind what I had seen on TV at that time, Albert Street, Albert Street. I think they wanted to get that whole feel going. Somebody saying let’s just burn down the whole building, anybody have a lighter and all these things are coming out now. I mean it just takes just one person to initiate it at the same time these things can actually happen. Hopefully and thankfully it didn’t.”

Janelle Chanona
“And I think she was right. Now both parties… obviously the UDP are saying oh it wasn’t our supporters, it’s P.U.P. instigators and the PUP are saying look, we neva have nothing fi do with that, so like I say it just detracts from the whole issue of what we as a people should be dealing with which is the issue that was happening inside.”

Stewart Krohn
“That’s a tough one. I think the one lesson you’ve learned is that violence is very easy to start but once it starts, it’s not very easy to stop. Maybe we need to get a little more creative in how we protest.”

Janelle Chanona
“Yes”