7 News Belize

The BDF’s Work in Haiti
posted (August 24, 2010)
You see the BDF daily on the streets of Belize City in the apparently endless operation Jaguar, but since the last week in June, a team of 38 soldiers from the Belize Defense Force Light Engineer Company has been deployed in Haiti to participate as part of a Task Force. They have been working jointly with the Louisiana Army National Guard to conduct general engineering projects such as the reconstruction of schools and clinics in the vicinity of Gonaives Haiti.

They will come home in September and last week the BDF Commander General Dario Tapia flew to Haiti along with the government press office.

Here's what they came back with:...

General Dario Tapia, Commander BDF
"It's gratifying to see that they worked on a good cause. The Haitian people were badly damaged as a result of the earthquake and I think the fellows did a fantastic job and that's all the words that I get from the American task force commander. They will return around mid September because that's the time the mission will end, all the schools would have been completed and then the boys will return. The US government pays to move the troops here, they come by civilian air and feed and accommodate them throughout their stay here. The government of Belize gives them an additional allowance to be here."

Col. Michael Boyle, US Army
"The engineers and the BDF; there has been a great collaboration between the Louisiana National Guard and the Belize Defence Force and we look forward to doing this again next year. The Louisiana National Guard has the lead on conducting the New Horizons 2011 here in Haiti and we are anxious to collaborate with the BDF and do it again next year."

Lt. Rogelio Pop, BDF
"It is very satisfying; it's gratifying to know that regardless of how small an effort we are making it is in a positive direction to try help Haiti recover from that major disaster that they suffered earlier this year. On a sad note the memorable one is the first day when we landed at Port-au-Prince airport and you see the sad eyes, the grief that is visibly apparent in all the Haitian children that were around the airport. That was a memorable sad occasion. The big gap that we saw from Belize to here that will always linger not only on me but all of us, and it sort of helps you to become more grateful in terms of what we have in Belize. Whatever, we have we learned to appreciate it more."

Tapia visited for a 24 hour whirlwind tour of Haiti on the 19th to 20th August. Every month the troops are rotated and another thirty soldiers are deployed.

They come home on September 18th.

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