PM Briceño Chimes in on Guatemalan Incursion at Sea

On Tuesday morning, a Guatemalan gunboat made its way into Belizean waters near the Sapodilla Cayes. The Belize Coast Guard reported that the naval vessel was spotted near Ragged Caye, just three miles south of Hunting Caye, where coast guard personnel are stationed. After a verbal exchange, the Guatemalan sailors eventually left the area. This incident prompted a strong response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which announced it would firmly protest this illegal incursion. The ministry is urging Guatemalan authorities to ensure their armed forces do not enter Belizean waters without permission. Earlier today, we spoke with Prime Minister John Briceño to get his take on the situation in Belize’s southern sea space.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We take any incident serious.  Any time the GAF would, the Guatemalan Armed Forces would enter our borders, sometimes they do it innocently, they don’t realize that they are in it and other times they do.  But whenever that happens, we take it seriously and we would go and confront them and inform them that they are in Belizean waters.  In most instances they would leave without any incidents. Sometimes they would argue but they would leave, and that’s important for us, to be able for them to understand that we are monitoring them, we are watching what they are doing and also, at the same time, I think pretty much in every instance we write to the OAS, we copy it to them, to the Guatemalan government to point out that once again they were infringing in our territory.”

 

Reporter

“What do you tell Belizeans who feel that we are too passive in these instances?”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I will be calm, I will be nice.  What do they expect us to do, shoot everyone out of the water?  There are fifteen, twenty thousand of them, fully equipped.  Obviously, we need to be able to be firm but diplomatic in ensuring that, making sure that they understand that they are in our waters and that we will not allow them to come into our waters. As much as we might want to do more, what else can we do?  Whatever citizen would say that then I will ask them to advice, I’d like to hear their advice, what would they do?”

 

Reporter

“Do you acknowledge that there is a lack of respect by the Guatemalan Armed Forces.  They were all the way in our waters, they weren’t near the border.”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I will repeat again, whenever that happens we go to them and we tell them that they are within our waters and they leave.  They don’t put up a fight, they leave.”