Leading Guat newspaper attacks Belize police
Posted: 04/04/2007 - 10:37 AM
Author: Keisha Milligan
Amandala today spoke with the officer commanding Benque Viejo Police Station, Inspector Louise Willis, and Inspector Claudio Mai, chief of security for the Western border, who is also attached to the Benque Viejo Police Station, in connection with an article titled “Denuncian agresiόn beliceňa,” meaning “They denounce Belizean aggression,” in the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre, dated March 31, 2007. The article charges that Belize police not only beat four Guatemalan taxi drivers in the tourism industry, but also fired in the air to intimidate the men.
Mai told Amandala that on Thursday morning, March 29, sometime after 9:00 he arrived at work at the Western border, and as usual was doing his rounds to ensure that the place was safe and secure.
He then observed a group of about eight Guatemalan taxi drivers lotering in an area referred to in the Prensa Libre article as “No man’s land,” at the Western border separating the Guatemalan and Belizean customs.
Inspector Mai said that in fact, the taxi drivers were about 150 feet from the border, and clearly in Belizean territory.
Mai approached the men and told them that they needed to move their vehicles and get off Belize’s territory. When he did that, however, one of the complainants mentioned in the Prensa Libre article, Roberto “Luquillo” Garrido, defiantly stood up, clenched his fist and began cursing him, saying that he would not move because that was Guatemala’s territory, said Mai.
Moreover, Belize was putting up a fence as if though the border dispute has been settled already, Mai claimed Roberto said.
That was when the other taxi drivers stood up with him, said Mai, and seeing that they would not back down and had begun cursing him in Spanish, he began backing down from the group. If he had not done so, he would have been caught by a punch that was thrown at him from one of the men, said Mai.
He was then challenged by Roberto to come and fight, said Mai.
Inspector Mai said that three officers then came to his assistance, and the cursing, irate taxi drivers drew back.
Later the policemen were joined by two more Belizean officers, added Mai, at which point four Guatemalan policemen came over the border. At that point the taxi drivers, who were driving vans and cars with Guatemalan license plates, left the area after the Guatemalan police spoke with their Belizean counterparts, and then went back to their side of the border.
Willis, who said that she was not on the scene at the time of the incident but had gotten a clear version of the incident from Mai and the other officers who saw and later became involved in the incident, said that she has read the article in the Prensa Libre, and that it is totally false. She said that our policemen never fired at the Guatemalans, as charged by Prensa Libre.
Mai told her that he and his fellow officers took out their guns just to show that they meant business, because the men were behaving in a very hostile manner.
Willis said that for several months they have been having this problem with Guatemalan taxi drivers who come across the border on a weekly basis to meet travelers at the border and solicit jobs from them.
The drivers, however, have been told many times not to park in that area - to either park in a neutral area or on their side of the border, and also, not to loiter on Belizean territory. As a matter of fact they have had several meetings with these same taxi drivers, said Willis. They have had the board of management of the Customs Department attend meetings with the Guatemalan taxi drivers, telling them what they could or could not do. Even personnel from the Organization of American States (OAS), housed in a building nearby, in front of which the incident reportedly occurred, have spoken to them.
The drivers don’t listen to anyone, and continued doing as they please, said Willis. The Guatemalans are also very disrespectful, hurling racial taunts at the officers and picking up stones as if to attack the Belizean policemen.
Last week Thursday was no different, added Willis – the Guatemalans continued with their aggressive and disrespectful behavior, to the point that the Police Department is considering pressing charges against the men for assault and using obscene and threatening words to an officer.
The report in Prensa Libre is totally the opposite of what we were told by Belize police.
According to the newspaper, the Belizean policemen were the ones who tried to intimidate the Guatemalans, because after drawing their firearms, they fired several shots in the air.
It went on to say that the Guatemalans have since filed a report with the Guatemalan consul to Belize, Luis Dardon, because the four men (and not eight men as reported by the Belize police) were only waiting for a group of tourists to come out of the building, to be taken to the archaeological sites of Tikal and Yaxhá. The taxi drivers are requesting action against the “aggressive” Belizean policemen, said the Prensa Libre report.
The newspaper also alleged that, “Belize police …beat them.” The taxi drivers mentioned are Julio César Ramos, Hugo Mayén del Cid, Roberto Garrido and Roberto Solόrzano.
Amandala tried to interview Luis Dardon, but was told by his secretary that he was very busy and that moreover, he said that he could not give any information about the incident. He would not even give a confirmation on whether he had received a report from the complainants mentioned in the article by Prensa Libre.
The secretary said that Dardon told her to inform us that we had to “call back on Tuesday next week” to get the information.
Police liaison officer, G. Michael Reid, said that he is aware of the incident, but that he has not yet received a report from the Guatemalan consul Luis Dardon.
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