Survivor pleads to have remaining grenades removed from streets

The city is still reeling from the recent grenade that detonated on Kraal Road. One man, Lusby Martinez, has been charged with the murder of fourteen year old Rudolph Flowers, the victim of that explosion. But fear continues to grip the public since it is known that many more grenades are still in the hands of criminals. News Five’s Jose Sanchez spoke to one survivor who is pleading for a end to the violence.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting
There are at least eighteen fragment grenades on the streets of Belize. Upon explosion, hundreds of pellets shoot out and penetrate walls and innocent bystanders. There have been four grenade attacks on Belize City Streets in the past two years. The first and fourth have resulted in fatalities. The May sixteenth 2008 grenade attack on Mayflower Street injured a dozen people and killed sixteen year old Darren Trapp. A resident of the neighborhood described the incident as the sound of war.

Annette Gentle, Mayflower Street Resident
“Dehn deh pan di ground di tremble up yoh undastand? Dah like Iraq, wah war, dah like wah war. Yoh know how yoh si man get blow inna explosion like Iraq? Dah wah explosion just like when di man when yoh si dehn dah war deh pan di ground di pull like dis like when somebody foot come off and thing and yo di pull pan di ground. Da mi wah ugly sight. Afta dat yoh just si like everybody di run different direction and some drop pan di ground, can’t even move. When dehn pick up dehn, one ah di lee bwai eye di come out like almost di coming out, whole ah yah eat out and all ah ih body and ting dehn. Can’t describe dis miss. Dat dah mi wah ugly sight and wah ugly sound.”

After being hurled at a target, fragment grenades are designed to scatter shrapnel at high speed. The steel projectiles, notched wire and ball bearing would then indiscriminately slice through targets like a knife through butter. Teddy Reyes is a survivor of the Mayflower grenade attack.

Teddy Reyes, Survivor of Mayflower Grenade Attack
“I am one of the lucky ones cause I get injured right side ah di grenade weh dehn throw. Di doctor give me up about two times so I dah one ah di luckiest ones. I gone through lot ah injuries from yah, heart, everything.”

Jose Sanchez
“When you look at the news in the past couple days and you see more people dying from grenades, what goes through your mind at this point?”

Teddy Reyes
“It brings back memories ah weh I gone through and weh people gone through and mothers cause inna dah one deh wah sixteen year old mi dead, di one weh mi happen pan Mayflower Street. Yeah, ih bring back memories fi me and si weh I gone through fi dah whole two years now.”

Grenade attacks have become the new face of urban terror, the offensive or fragment grenades that were used to injure and kill did not originate from the criminal underworld, it came from a stock used by the British Forces in Belize.

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Germain, Former Comdr., BATSUB
“Well, the police have shown us the fly-off lever, not me personally, and the batch number that indicates on that shows that that was issued to BATSUB in December 2003 so that leads me to believe that it went on to the streets some time in 2004 through whatever method. It could be a British, it could be a B.D.F., it could be a civilian; I just don’t know to be honest.”

Four months later, during the carnival parade, another grenade was thrown in front of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. That grenade did not explode but the security of BATSUB’s arsenal was being questioned.

Lt. Colonel Peter Germain
“After that incident in the parade, we felt that our measures were amply rigorous and certainly in the compound now, it’s a heavily fortified compound, it’s guarded twenty-four-seven by armed B.D.F. guards. So I would be very surprised if anything were to go missing from there. Obviously, we do countless accountancy checks of the equipment and the ammunition stored in there and I can confirm that all is present and correct there. As I said in September, those grenades are issued to troops to use in the field and inevitably once they get out of the compound and they are being used in the field for proper military training, it is more tricky to be quite so rigorous as we are in the compound. However, because of the incident in September, we have looked into every single procedure of where those grenades go and look for any measure possible where we could tighten up any potential loophole that someone might have found in order to take some grenades. All it takes is one dishonest person out of nine hundred to a thousand or so who might have had access over the period when they’ve been using them. And if that dishonest person chooses to find that loophole and make use of it, then it makes it tricky for us but I think that in the last two months since September we’ve done all we can to tighten up any potential possible loophole and because no one has yet been found to give us a feel for how the grenades got out.”

On November fourteenth, 2008, another grenade boomed into the night; this time on Faber’s Road. No one was killed. Two weeks later, the former colonel attatched to BATSUB admitted it the grenades have gone missing from at least five years prior the attacks in the old capital.

Lt. Colonel Peter Germain
“As far back as five years ago in May, 2004 there was another incident where some grenades were reported missing, again from BATSUB and it was the subject of a police report to try and establish how they’d gone missing. Unfortunately, with the forensics and efforts to try and establish it, they were never able to work out exactly where they’d gone missing from given that they were stored in a secure compound. We weren’t sure whether they went missing in transit from the UK and no one was ever able to establish beyond doubt, where they went. So they were on the street and of course, happening for five years now.”

There would be more attacks. In March of 2009, the home of the comptroller of Customs David Gibson was pummeled with shrapnel. The family was unharmed. But at the end of 2009, a minor, fourteen year old Rudolph Flowers was killed after an explosion on Kraal Road. One suspect, twenty-five year old Lusby Martinez was charged for his murder. But there are more grenades on the street. One survivor pleads tonight for the weapons to be handed over to the authorities.

Jose Sanchez
“A grenade does not discriminate. It just hits and hurts everything in sight. What would be the message to those people who still have those eighteen outstanding grenades on the streets?”

Teddy Reyes
“Well di message dah just fi hand in ova dehn thing deh cause dehn thing deh could kill a lot more. Just hand over den deh.”

Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.

The Conscious Youth Development Program has been trying to get gang leaders to commit to a truce that would also see an end to the urban warfare. An inconclusive first round has been held but the next scheduled meeting between CYDP and street leaders is set for Wednesday afternoon.