PM Maintains Position on Rupert Myles’ Unlawful Arrest

Dean Barrow

Last Monday, the prime minister commented on the unlawful arrest of Rupert Myles, who was bound and shackled by villagers in Santa Cruz.  Despite the unlawful detention and the subsequent prosecution of thirteen men and women, including MLA President Cristina Coc, the prime minister reiterated his position that what was done to Myles clearly violated his constitutional rights as a Belizean.  Should the incident be repeated, he says, it will result in a similar outcome.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“I’ve repeated what I said…what the villagers did was absolutely wrong and I’ve tried to set it out in the statement I gave today from a legal and constitutional point of view. I don’t care whether in fact and there are doubts about where Mister Myles’ place is, is some sort of a sacred spot because as I understand it, it is a house he has that was there before. And when the Mayan from who he got it was living in it, there was not a problem. But grant that the Mayans of the village were correct in wanting Mister Myles to be dispossessed or be removed, you cannot go about it in that way. As I pointed out, under our law, if someone you say is in wrongful occupation of your land, you get a court order for an eviction and that’s is when the agents of the state can go in to help you enforce that court order. When the Mayans say they had been writing to the police; the police cannot respond to them because that is not the job of the police. It is a dispute between them and their claim as to ownership and as to cultural patrimony and another private citizen. They first needed to get a court order and that is where the wrong is. Cristina Coc seems to think that our acceptance of the entitlement of the Mayas in, Toledo, in southern Belize, to some kind of land rights is tantamount to some concession of sovereignty. Some concession that they have rights that supersede the laws o this country. That is absolutely not the case and she and the MLA must get that straight if we are to be able to proceed. That having been said, I made the point that we have conceded that they have rights. And those rights must be vindicated—and must be spelt out, must be defined with some precision—but until that is done, if ever they do what they did again, the same thing will happen.”