Mexican President Vicente Fox is no longer in office, but the agreement he signed for Belize and Mexico to cooperate on security matters is still valid. And today, 14 representatives from Mexican security and law enforcement agencies came to Belize to work on a border security plan. The Mexicans are from that country's customs, immigration, military, and police, and they met with their Belizean counterparts in a one day session at the Radisson today. Mexico's ambassador to Belize Arturo Trejo and Police Commissioner Gerald Westby told us that they are looking at a multi agency approach to border security, even though they admit, the border will always be somewhat porous.
Ambassador Arturo Trejo, Mexico
"Well you know cooperation is important and it is not depend on the size of the country. Mexico and Belize have always had a very good relationship in political terms and cooperation among the different authorities. We want to achieve a more systematic way of working together. We are addressing general issues of security.
You know borders, we cannot...it is impossible to seal a border and a good example is the border between Mexico and United States. When there are needs of the people to look after certain living conditions, it is almost impossible to seal a border. We want to achieve more security. There are people crossing illegally yes but what we want is to avoid high risks."
Gerald Westby, Commissioner of Police
"We came out with an action plan on how to improve our coordination and cooperation along our common borders and we are looking at five sub-groups. We are looking at immigration, Customs, international terrorism, counter-international terrorism, we are also looking at drugs and organized crime. Migration is a very critical area and trafficking in persons. Certainly we want to get each other so that we could have improved coordination and cooperation."
Mexico has a similar agreement with Guatemala, a country with which it shares a larger border than Belize.
