Relocation of border community still in the works

It’s been nicknamed the “village in the middle” but tonight it appears the border community of Santa Rosa is one step closer to being strictly Guatemalan. A press release from the Organization of American States today indicates that Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza today presented a progress report on the resettlement of the village to Belizean and Guatemalan officials as well as representatives of the international community at a meeting in Washington, DC.
According to Insulza, following the framework agreement and confidence building measures signed two years ago, the OAS has been investigating “the purchase price of land to which the community is to be resettled as well as the phases of the project and the related budget”. News Five visited Santa Rosa back in 2002 and found several families living in the village located just inside the Belizean border in the south-eastern foothills of the Maya Mountains. At that time, the Guatemalan residents expressed ignorance about the location of the border but their number one priority was having access to resources to maintain their families.