O.A.S. says No Guatemalan Military was in the Area

Roger Plett

Over the weekend News Five was able to reach a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via phone. He told us that they had been able to verify with the O.A.S. that no military personnel from Guatemala were in that border area behind Spanish Lookout. Plett, however, says that he was there and he knows better. Today, he was able to provide a description of the men who forcefully took him across the border into Guatemalan territory.

Roger Plett, Detained by Guatemalans

“Not all of them were armed. I would say probably….there was a good amount of them that were armed. They had…I recognized them as machine guns. The guy in charged had a machine gun and he had a next weapon in a holster by his chest area. Each soldier had a machete; each machete I recognized had a name on it. I can’t remember the names on the machetes that I saw on the machetes, but each one had a name in white written on the machete. And each one had a black rope over their shoulder and they had a rank on this side here. I recognized some; they had like an arrow pointing up on the right shoulder and the kind of hats they were wearing was the bigger ones with the loose fabrics around the outside.”

Reporter

“How long have you worked in the area? Has it been years and is it the first time that you have had an encounter or even seen men in military uniforms around the area?”

Roger Plett

“No, we have been working there for many years and this is not the first time that we have seen the Guatemalan military come into the Belizean side. This is a reoccurring thing; this is just the first time that they have managed to get a hold of me and tie me up. We have had many times where they come across the order and talk to our workers there, the ranch people that take care of the ranch. This is just the first time that they got a hold of me and tied me up.”