Foreign Affairs Minister Comments on ‘Narco-Cattle Ranching’

Wilfred Elrington

Friends for Conservation and Development has been documenting threats within the Chiquibul Forest for eleven years. Those threats include illegal logging, poaching, and gold panning, which was the biggest threat in 2017. But according to Executive Director Rafael Manzanero, there is an even bigger threat on the horizon. It’s known as “narco-cattle ranching” and it is has been detected along the western border in both Belize and Guatemala. Manzanero says that several reports of illegal cattle ranching have been forwarded to the government, but the issue has yet to be addressed. According to Minister Wilfred Elrington, to address this problem, our borders need to be established and the only way to do so is by taking the Guatemalan claim to the I.C.J.

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“The biggest problem that you will find when you try to deal with narco traffickers is that you will find that they will say that this is Guatemalan territory. It’s not Belizean territory. So what will you say to them? You have to get your border established. Once you get your border established, you will have the people at the O.A.S. to come and verify it and then you find them across here and say you have to get off. But right now they take the view that this is Guatemalan territory so the most we can do is try to get the matter resolved as quickly as possible at the I.C.J. That’s one of the reasons that it’s urgent because there is a problem with land in Guatemala. You see that problem with the migrants from the northern triangle. Well you also have migrants in Guatemala from the West to East. The Peten is projected to have nine million people in the next thirty/forty years. Belize won’t have a million.”

Reporter

“Yes but I am saying if the matter goes to the I.C.J. that would take many years.”

Wilfred Elrington

“No. The I.C.J. is going to have the matter resolve, if it goes, within five years, maximum.”