FCD Says Poisoning of Only Water Source in Chiquibul Highly Unlikely

On Holy Saturday, B.D.F. Staff Sergeant Richard Lambey was shot near Valentin Camp in the Chiquibul. Days after, a report into the incident commissioned by the Ministry of National Security was leaked to News Five. In that document, the claim is that Lambey was ambushed, possibly in retaliation for the arrest of a Guatemalan one month prior. That was bad enough, but the report also pointed out that it was possible that the Guatemalans would seek to poison the only water source available to the B.D.F. in the area of Valentin. Executive Director of Friends for Conservation and Development Rafael Manzanero is very familiar with that part of the Chiquibul. He told News Five that he finds that scenario extremely unlikely.

Rafael Manzanero

Rafael Manzanero, Executive Director, FCD

“I would feel it rather remote that they would want to do that because in reality they depend upon that water source, particularly right now in the dry weather. The Guatemalans actually have two sort of water points in that zone. One is within their territory, and one is in Belizean territory. The one that basically never dries up is the one in Belize. So I can only suspect that they would not want to do it because there is no other source in that area of a liquid that is good enough for that community. The way that the Chiquibul is zoned, there is a lot of water I the Chiquibul, particularly in the Southern part. The headwaters of the Chiquibul start in those mountains, in the Southern part. Although we have a lot of water, it’s really subterranean water. In the northern part which is along Valentin, it’s very, very scarce.”