Guatemala Willing to Assist in Agricultural Initiatives for Border Residents

Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington

According to Elrington, despite the fact that Guatemalan authorities were unable to prevent the despoliation of natural resources on their side of the border, they are prepared to work with Belizean counterparts to come up with agricultural initiatives that will see less encroachment on Belizean soil.

Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“I am confident that so long as you have the will to do it you are going to try to at least contain it and prevent it from going without any control and I think that the Guatemalans have that capacity.  They have that capacity because it is easier for them to deal with their own people who are doing it across our side than it is for us to deal with their people.  But Guatemalans who live on Belize’s border are largely ex-military people and ex-guerillas, so they are seasoned in war and warfare.  They are use to fighting and they are very violent people in large measure, not people that we normally come across with and can deal with and we absolutely need the assistance of the Guatemalans to help them to do that.  And in what way are we helping them contemplating doing it?  Not militarily, not force but helping to provide them with alternatives.  So if we give them like this, what is happening in Monte de Los Olivos, these alternative projects and both the international community and the Guatemalan government are committed to providing international projects so that these people will be able to earn their living, not from despoiling Belize’s forest, not from cutting down Belize’s forest but from agricultural activities in their own country which the international community and their own government will help to provide them with.”

With Rosado’s departure, Lawrence Sylvester replaces him as C.E.O. in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.