In Defense of Corporal Eldon Arzu
Eldon Arzu
Corporal Eldon Arzu, President of the Belize Police Association, is suing Commissioner of Police Chester Williams and has been granted judicial review of the legitimacy of his post as the duly elected leader of the group of law enforcement officers. On May sixth, Justice Shona Griffith ordered that Corporal Arzu report to work in Belmopan where he has been transferred since January. As a result of his absence from the assignment, Arzu’s salary had been frozen and would only be reactivated upon assumption of the desk job at the department’s headquarters. It’s a messy situation involving the ComPol and association president, one that has found its way into the regional discourse. In late May, the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police held its annual general meeting in Grand Cayman and out of that gathering came a position in which the ACCP agreed that the Caribbean Federation of Police Welfare Associations was out of line and should not be meddling with the internal affairs of the Belize Police Department. Earlier today, the General Secretary of the CFPWA, in a letter to Colin John, President of the ACCP, responded by stating, “The concern raised, never intended for the ACCP to intervene into matters affecting the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Police of Belize. 
Our issue is concerned with the performance, development and training of Commissioners of Police in the region, as their leadership directly impacts on police officers throughout the region. What we say is that all right-thinking leaders in the Caribbean have and should exercise moral jurisdiction whenever there is a misstep by one of their colleagues.” The letter goes on to say, “The fact that Belize is a member of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police, confirms that the Belize Police Welfare Association should be allowed to be a member of the CFPWA. Notwithstanding, the CFPWA will at the very least exercise its moral jurisdiction whenever police officers are being unfairly treated.” The matter resumes in the courtroom of Justice Griffith on July twenty-second and twenty-third.
