Commission of Inquiry opens on border deaths

The Commission of Inquiry appointed to investigate a shooting incident which claimed the life of three Guatemalans in November of last year got underway this morning in the Belize City Magistrate’s Court. Six witnesses took the stand this morning, who gave their account of what happened on November twenty-second 2001 when sixty-one year old Jesus Ramirez Senior and his two sons, eighteen year old Jesus Ramirez Junior and twenty-one year old Virgilio Ramirez, were shot to death when they allegedly attacked a joint B.D.F./Police patrol near the Guatemalan border in San Vicente Village, Toledo. B.D.F. Private Jose Luis Carias testified that he was part of a five-member patrol and saw three machete-wielding men coming up the hill where they were deployed to investigate a land dispute. Chairman Lord asked why he couldn’t have fired a warning shot at the men since they were at one point aiming their M-16 rifles over their heads as they came up the hill. Carias responded by saying that it was the police constable who shot the men and that as a B.D.F. soldier he wouldn’t have fired a warning shot because soldiers are trained to kill. Lord also asked why the patrol withdrew without checking if the men were dead or if they could have been helped. Private Carias maintained that he was only following orders to withdraw to Fairweather Camp. The Commission, appointed by Prime Minister Said Musa, is chaired by Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord and includes Maria Gamero of the Human Rights Commission of Belize and Ombudsman Paul Rodriguez.