But what would Elrington have done if faced with a similar choice to Eamon Courtney's? He's already said that he'd have accepted Khan but this afternoon he was keener to talk about the other refugees he'd be inclined to accept; that's Belize's fellow CARICOM citizens: the Haitians.
Cherisse Halsall:
"Coming back to Al-Qeada terrorists Sir, you said that it never crossed your desk, but let's suppose for a moment that it had, why do you believe would have been your reaction to re-settling someone."
Wilfred Elrington, Former Minister Of Foreign Affairs
"My reaction would have been the same, I have had, and I would love to see us resettle some Haitians. Hartin is under the most terrible conditions now and those people are suffering but we have a fairly large Haitian population here, relatively speaking. Do they cause any harm? No. Are they involved in crime? No. So, resettling them here would not affect the country, even though it has such a bad reputation. We have a terrible reputation with gangs but those gangs are of our own making it's Belizean gangs it's Belizeans who are terrorizing our society not foreigners, although we have a lot of Salvadorians and a lot of Hondurainians, and a lot of Haitians but they are not the ones that are causing problems in Belize. It's the Belizean youth so that is where we need to be more focused on, how do we help the Belizean youth to change, make that transformational change, so that they become good productive law-abiding citizens?"
