New Guatemalan settlements found in Belize

Just when we thought that our border problems with Guatemala were being sorted out, along come some new complications. The Ministry of National Security announced today that two new incursions by Guatemalan farmers have been discovered on Belizean territory. The first was found by a BDF patrol in the Edwards Central area of Toledo’s Columbia River Forest Reserve. It consisted of a party of twelve Guatemalans who were just beginning to clear the forest approximately four kilometres inside of Belize. They were ordered out of the country and subsequently returned to Guatemala. With their suspicions raised, the soldiers continued to search the vicinity and two days later, on Monday, came across a more well developed settlement consisting of thirty-five families and twenty-six rudimentary structures. This was located two point nine kilometres from the border. Under the agreement signed in Miami on January seventeenth, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has notified the Government of Guatemala and a joint verification exercise will be completed within seventy-two hours. The settlers will then have three days to move out, after which time Belizean authorities will be free to forcibly evict them. The illegal settlements at Edwards Central lie approximately six miles south of the one at Machaquila.