body,td,th { font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; }
We spoke to Maheia this evening about the encounter. He says the Guatemalan soldiers had their hands on their weapons. He explained how it all started with a patrol around Sarstoon Island where they saw those Guatemalans fishers:
Will Maheia, Belize Territorial Volunteers
"Going down to the Starstoon this morning, we definitely saw close Guatemala gill netters on the Belize side. And we after we encountered them, we proceeded on into the mouth of the Starstoon River to go around the island. As we are going around the island. When we circled the island. The Guatemalan armed forces came at us and they came at us in almost a very aggressive way and told us that we were inside Guatemalan territory and I insisted that, according to the 1859 treaty, we are inside Belize's territory."
"I think that was probably 14 of them altogether. That was heavily armed. I don't think that's good for the people who we take. I mean, you know, we're not used to that in Belize."
Jules Vasquez:
"What was your perception of the exchange with the Guatemalan military?"
Will Maheia, Belize Territorial Volunteers
"Well, clearly, the Guatemalan military was very almost violent. And, you know, they grabbed their guns, they had their hands on their guns. And the guy in charge was very angry. He seemed very angry and at the same time I know for a fact that we are in Belize's territory, and I insisted that we are not going to back down. This is our country, this is our territory. We can't let other people come into our territory and bully us."
Jules Vasquez:
"We're always looking for micro-aggressions or macro-aggressions and escalations. How would you rate the tone of today's encounter in terms of the first, Obviously the tone that the ranking officer involved who was berating you, but also the fact that it was so clearly within Belize, he was right in front of the BDF base."
Will Maheia, Belize Territorial Volunteers
"Yeah, it was definitely a macro because he was right in front of the BDF base. He saw our soldiers standing there and he was acting like they were not there. He was acting that even the BDF should not be there. He was he was getting angry, as you can see. But you know what? We showed our boys that we did not back down and we are never going to back down to Guatemala. We know where the border is."
