Sedi Addresses Issue of Sarstoon Incident in Debate

Today’s session in the House of Representatives, the second day of the new budget for the fiscal year beginning April first, was led by Area Representative for Pickstock Wilfred Elrington. But for him, as for his colleagues before, issues took precedence over any actual debate in the figures in the budget book. For Elrington, the primary issue is of course the ongoing situation with Guatemala. The Prime Minister has said that tensions between both countries in the Sarstoon are at an all-time high following an incident between both militaries in Belizean waters. Elrington maintains that the situation is in good hands and that all is proceeding well, and any suggestion that the sky is falling is nothing but misinformation.

Wilfred Elrington

Wilfred Elrington, Area Representative, Pickstock

“There is some suggestion in the media and other quarters that in fact we were hiding reports that incidents had been occurring and that they had to get some secret document to show that over the last sixteen years we had ten incidents. We were not hiding any reports; we were not hiding the fact that incidents are occurring. I have complained at the United Nations about incidents. And as I said to you in 2000, under the watch of the member from Fort George, the Guatemala took seven of our security personnel. We had to smuggle them out of Guatemala. We had to smuggle them out of Guatemala to get them safely back here. That is within the sixteen-year time. So it’s no secret. We have nothing to hide, but what we are not going to do is to cry wolf. We are not going to make a mountain out of a mold here; we are not going to inflate an incident and make it more serious than it is because the international community is going to condemn us for it. They are going to say that we are crying wolf. We are not experiencing anything near to what is happening in Palestine and Israel; nothing near to it, nothing even close to it. We are not experiencing anything that happens in case of Russia and Ukraine; nothing like that. We have not lost a soldier, we have not lost a Belizean in any military combat and that’s the way we need to keep it. We cannot afford to lost a single body, a single person.”