Tonight, a group of Mennonites from Spanish lookout are refusing to take the vaccine because they say it's the mark of the beast.
That's what we saw in an unsigned letter addressed to Prime Minister John Briceno in a letter dated yesterday.
And this morning we had word that the same group had lawyered up hiring attorneys Arthur Saldivar, Richard "Dickie" Bradley in preparation to take legal action against the government and its vaccine mandates.
And while the elders are lawyering up, others in the community are voicing their discontent by flying a Black flag emblazoned with the words free Belize. Cherisse Halsall saw them flying when she dropped into the Mennonite community today. Here's that story.
Spanish Lookout is a community proud of its heritage and the six plus decades they have been in Belize, where they have gone from settlers to sole providers of many of the most basic foods.
And that pride is made manifest here at the Heritage Center and Town Hall. Now, that same rugged sense of self-determination and other-ness is fueling WHAT SEEMS TO US AS a strong, and well funded anti vaxx campaign - but it is presented as a fight to retain individual liberties. The spirit of which is captured in these defiant Black flags, which say free Belize.
But free Belize from what?
Community member Ronnie Plett told us that the Free Belize movement isn't anti-vax, in his opinion they're fighting for basic human rights.
Ronnie Plett - Community Member
"The free Belize movement has no stance pro or against the vaccine, we believe everyone should have the full right to be vaccinated or not as they please. What our concern is that the government is over stepping their bounds into territory that will remove freedoms from all Belizeans that we will perhaps will not get back."
And while that broad argument is the rubric for resistance, is claiming liberties - in fact, taking liberties in the middle of a public health crisis?
Cherisse Halsall
"Is this community Belizean or is it something that's set itself apart and is threatening the rest of the country into following its mandates."
Ronnie Plett
"I cannot comment on that because I have not been in contact with those persons but more importantly Spanish Lookout is 100% Belizean, I was born here, I was raised here, everything I have in this world is in Belize, this is my home and I believe that is the feeling of the wider Mennonite community that this is our home and we want the best for our home for the future and we are feeling the support of Belizeans, the wider Belizean public is 100% on the same side, very desperately concerned about the freedoms that are being threatened at this time, the freedom to choose what we want to do over our very own bodies and that is genuinely a very concerning idea to lose that freedom."
And whatever the community thinks Plett admits that they still have to live within the confines of Belizean society. Still, he says he feels that the Minister of Health's new mandate on public buildings goes one step too far.
Ronnie Plett
"We all, many of us drive, many of us need police reports for various issues that we deal with, we need passports, I.D's, just the fact that it's a public building, the idea now of changing it to a government buildings, is I believe the intention is to lighten it for now but it is clearly not changing the mandate, and the mandate will proceed forward. The initial statement by the minister was not public government buildings, the statement was private buildings to which the citizens have legal access to shows that the government is willing to take drastic actions to take away personal freedoms on private properties."
And, driving around this agricultural community,we didn't see many people wearing masks apart from the workers from the surrounding villages.
Cherisse Halsall
"But I do have to ask you Sir, because it seems that there are some people who are against vaccines in this community and we've heard that Belizean laborers who work here have been fired for getting a vaccine. You know anything about that?"
Ronnie Plett
"No one in Spanish Lookout has been coerce to take the vaccine and no one has been forced not to take the vaccine. The vaccine as in all Mennonite communities is fully voluntary, I have many employees who work for me personally who are vaccinated and I have no concern with that and I also have some employees who do not choose to be vaccinated and I leave that entirely up to them."
And at 4 p.m this afternoon, what they call a Freedom campaign continued to pick up steam
with this so called Freedom Drive, under the theme "It's time to Stand Up" and that libertarian catchphrase is what the Mennonites say differentiates this from an anti-vax campaign.
Ronnie Plett
"We are losing those freedoms and we have seen repeatedly in our history and in the history of the world, not only in the history of the Mennonites but in the history of the world where governments take liberties that they are not given constitutionally and they never give them back to the public."
THE Prime Minister met with the Mennonite community yesterday and - he told us in a comment that no concessions were made. In that unsigned letter to the PM, there is a claim that their people have had success with, quote "alternate treatments.".
