Mothers Organized for Peace plan rally
It’s a story we cover pretty much every week. But while solutions to the problem seem as far away as ever, one group trying to stem the deadly tide is not about to give up.
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Thankfully there are no murders to report in Belize tonight, but with a homicide rate approaching record levels, the subject of fatal violence is never far from our consciousness. Today the president and vice president of Mothers Organized for Peace sent out a strong message to the families of troubled youths to get involved.
Therese Felix, Vice President, M.O.P
“Stop encouraging your children in doing wrong. If you know that your son no the work an the bring home this and the bring home that, he do doing something illegal, do something to that, put that down one time you know. You can’t the encourage your son and when thing happen to ah you wah get out deh an cry and expect we fu help you. You have to start from now; get to them from now because if they noh the work, they the thief and if they noh the thief, they the sell drugs and once they the bring home the money to you, you the encourage them and when thing happen to them now you want to cry.”
Since January of this year sixty-nine persons countrywide have been murdered. Thirty two of those homicides have occurred in Belize City making it a major concern for the police and community.
Erwin X, President, M.O.P
“Violence in Belize at this level and at this rate, Jackie, will put Belize on a black list. It affects tourism, it affects trade and commerce it affects our very own sanity. There are many of our mothers who cannot sleep. Pop shot bust and mothers the look to faint away much less a gunshot. This madness Belize has to stop.”
The police have promised an increased in foot and mobile patrols. On Sunday M.O.P will be holding its second candle light vigil to end the violence.
Erwin X
“it is not a solution that will work overnight but with the agenda we have and the programmes that we have, if the leaders and the business community and all God fearing Belizeans could lend a helping hand, it could be
resources, it could just be to make a stand, it could help us to print a flyer, it will work Jackie; Belize is very small.”
Just one year and five months after twenty-six year old Tyrone Felix was gun down and three weeks after Roy Bennett is shot in his back, their mother Therese Felix says it would have been easy for her to have chosen to live a life of revenge for the murder and attempted murder of her sons but instead she continues to work hard as one of the mothers organized for peace.
Therese Felix
“You have to talk to your children. No care what you go through, you have to talk, you can’t stop talk. Once you want the thing to stop, you have to talk. Like is said, I talk to mines. I send my son gone look fu wa job the seventh ah September. Coming back from the job hunting, somebody shoot he in his back and up to today nobody arrest fu that and like he say lot of people talk about retaliate. I noh into that, I tell people I the go fu peace now and things like that, you have to continue talk and so far like it does not want to stop and we the try mek it stop.”
Sunday’s candle light vigil starts off from the Battlefield Park where participants are asked to gather by three-thirty in the afternoon. The march will proceed through the principal streets and end at the Belize City Centre where a peace concert and rally will take place. If you would like to contribute to Mothers Organized for Peace or this weekend’s activity call telephone numbers 207 – 6418, 604 – 2066 or 604 -6895. Meanwhile in connection with the shooting of Roy Bennett on September Seventh, today police arrested seventeen year old Cardinal Myvette Welch for the crime. Myvette has been charged with Attempted Murder, Wounding and Use of Deadly Means of Harm.
