1 killed during protest; PM suspends core sampler

We begin tonight’s newscast with a decision from the office of the Prime Minister just before five this evening announcing the suspension of the core sampler for the rest of this year’s sugar crop season. But that came after one person, identified as Antonio Felix Gutierrez from the village of San Victor, was killed and an unconfirmed number of persons injured in the north in a violent confrontation between striking cane farmers and the security forces. At news time, the situation is still tenuous and farmers are demanding the release of numerous persons detained by the police. A News Five team is on its way back. We’ll have a full report later, but we repeat the situation in Orange Walk is still unstable and security forces are on the ground.

Early this morning, at the crack of dawn, striking farmers blocked access into Orange Walk Town cutting off the northern part of the country from the Tower Hill Bridge. The situation is volatile to say the least and the images coming from the north show an increasingly hostile scene where hundreds of cane farmers have taken over the area around the Belize Sugar Industries. The strike began simmering last Tuesday and has now reached boiling point. At about four this afternoon, the situation turned ugly; live shots were fired, and tear gas was thrown to disperse the crowds. There are reports of burning tires and one vehicle from the Ministry of Works was set on fire and so were numerous cane fields. It all has to do with the core sampler which was introduced to determine the quality and price paid to farmers for cane deliveries. As we said earlier, it is day seven of the strike and whether or not the situation was misread by Belmopan and allowed to escalate, it reached an extremely dangerous point today. When finally Prime Minister Dean Barrow, addressed the issue today, he threatened to send in the security forces in light of quote “the mob scene”. News Five has been following this developing story from all fronts and we go first to the tough talk from the P.M. at a press conference.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“They will call off this blocking of the roads, we will meet in a mutual place in Orange Walk. Those are the only three conditions. If I can hear from them by four o’clock that they are prepared to do this and they actually proceed in that fashion then we’re on for tomorrow. If I don’t hear from them by four o’clock, then the security forces of this country will do what they need to do to clear the roads and to ensure that innocent, law abiding citizens can go about their business. There is no problem with negotiations on my side and BSI has assured me that the same is true for them, but I will not negotiate in the context of a mob scene. Secondly, in terms of the issue that has provoked all this, I am open to what the farmers have to say. BSI assures me that it is open to continued dialogue. Finally, while the security forces will be asked to exercise every restraint, the people in this country need to know that law and order will prevail and the farmers need to respect the rights of others. We have exercised a great deal of restraint so far. They have every right to advocate their cause but then let’s do so in a way that we see them still within the bounds of the law and we see them respect the rights of other citizens of this country.”

“Neither I nor BSI would negotiate in those circumstances and he needed to try his best to persuade them that we really needed to meet in a neutral place to try to work things through. Understand that I was not even, as a precondition saying, you must remove your vehicles, you must stop burning tires, you must allow free passage to regular civilians wanting to do their business; all I said was we cannot negotiate in that atmosphere in Orange Walk at your office. It will have to be at a venue removed from the hurly burly. If they are not going to call off what is happening this evening so that we can get together and talk, the situation will get worst. It is already a disaster… it is going to be a disaster magnified a thousand fold if we cannot all come to our senses and begin the process of negotiation again.”