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Last week, PM Briceno made a comment that had Belizeans going, whaaa? While speaking on the tensions between Belize and Guatemala, he said that our military is too low in numbers to be able to invade Guatemala, "as much as we would like to."
The comment took on a mind of its own, and today, Briceno expressed his disappointment in the media - particularly 7News, for highlighting the comment. So today, he clarified that statement.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"You guys, you are amazing. You know, you are amazing. And I want to contain myself because the point that I was making that we need to be careful how we go in that area. We don't want to antagonize the Guatemalans. We fully recognize that half of the Starstoon belongs to us. But I'm saying that what if, God forbid, somebody would get shot, somebody gets trigger happy, and then they shoot a Belizean citizen, anybody, and the BDF they are going to respond, they constantly stand in front of the of the Guatemalans."
"They do not allow themselves to be bullied. And then there's a shoot out. I know that there's some people say, oh so what we do, we can't leave ourselves. My point is that we need to recognize that Guatemala is a country of about between 16 and 18 million people. We have 400,000. Anybody who believes that we can invade Guatemala is stupid and I am disappointed on you when you are going to put your caption that I'm talking about invading Guatemala."
"That's a stupid statement that you are making. My point that I'm trying to make is that we need to use the diplomatic channels, which is what they have been doing. The PUP government has been doing that from George Price days. The UDP government has been doing it and we continue to do that. We do that because that's the only option that we have. I hope I've made that abundantly clear."
