Guatemalans visit Hattieville prison

A group of Guatemalan officials spent more than two hours today at the Hattieville Prison. And while visits from embassy officials to check up on the condition of jailed Guatemalans are routine, today’s twelve-member delegation included representatives of Guatemala’s Human Rights Commission and press corps. Prison officials tell News 5 that originally the group had requested to meet with seven Guatemalans currently on remand or serving prison sentences; but when they arrived, one more name, that of Juventino Saldivar, was added to the list. Saldivar is the man slapped with a battery of charges including attempted murder and illegal entry, after a group of Guatemalan farmers illegally harvesting xate leaves in the Chiquibul Forest Reserve, opened fire on a Belize Defence Force patrol. Not much is known about what transpired in today’s meeting with Saldivar, as the only Belizeans that were in the room represented the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs. Prison officials say the directive they got from Belmopan was that the visiting Guatemalans were to have full access to Saldivar on the condition that Guatemalan reporters going in to see the inmate were not to take any photographs and no recording equipment was allowed in the room. Meanwhile, the Guatemalan press, primarily Prensa Libre, continues to incite political passions over the incident. In a front page story today, the newspaper reported that Lorenzo Ramirez, the man who claims he was wounded in the April seventh incident, has been giving his side of the story to the Guatemalan public. Ramirez is reported to have told the officials that had he not abandoned his partner and fled the area, he would have been killed, and made the inflammatory suggestion that it was commonplace for the B.D.F. to kill Guatemalan farmers in order to cover up their tracks, after alleged incursions into Belize. Minister of Foreign Affairs Godfrey Smith told News 5 last week that he is satisfied that reports from the B.D.F. confirm that the Guatemalan xateros were seventeen kilometres east of the border, well inside Belizean territory and that it was the Guatemalans who opened fire on the B.D.F. patrol, which responded in kind. Guatemala has protested to the Organization of American States about the incident and the government of Belize has stated that it would welcome an investigation by that body.