And while the SOE was a last resort, it was one that was long criticised by the PUP while they were in opposition.
Now the tables have turned - and they've done the acrobat thing, but the Home Affairs Minister said that they weren't forced into an SOE, but felt it necessary to instigate some much needed dialogue - but, apparently, with men behind bars, leading to, yet another mediation session.
Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries
"When we look at human rights is that there is a basic right to life that we have to observe even as human rights advocates, we see where the trend was going, the patterns of young men killing one another and it really is a domino effect because the retaliation that is taking place as a result of one single murder, it then amounts to about 10 in two weeks and so really we thought it was necessary to his the pause button, reluctantly so, we don't want to have to resort to this but we have to at this time because ewe saw in May where I think there were ten murders that were gang related and early on in August we had about 4 or 5 so we have to have these young men sit down so we can discuss, we can have intervention teams, counsellors go in to try to sort out the differences with these young men because this is not something that any government would like to do but at the same time we have to protect our law abiding citizenry."
"Kassman Gill was shot, he's a third form student and by all accounts an innocent by stander to have gotten the repercussions of this gang warfare that is taking place in Belize city, we see now houses are being burnt, there are threats of further arson and so this is really getting out of control so we have to get these young men together to sit down to see what it is we can do to resolve this conflict."
"While they're there, the investigation continue, the police investigations into these murders, into all the crimes taking place continue and so with the intelligence that is being gathered, if charges can be laid against any of those individuals, they will be laid, but certainly the policing efforts will have to be ramped up and continued, constant patrols in these crime ridden areas will have to continue after this SOE."
