Earlier on in the newscast we reported on the latest encounter in the Chiquibul between BDF soldiers and aggressive Guatemalan outlaws.
It's the third armed encounter in as many weeks - and underscores a persistent problem that the Guatemalans who live along the border see Belize's forest reserve to the east of their homes as a rich, untapped resource - with soil that's good for farming and trees that are lucrative for timber extraction.
We've been following this situation on the ground since 2009 - and indeed 7news is the only media house that has repeatedly gone deep into the Chiquibul.
To provide some context to these latest aggressive incursions - we take you back to 2009 - when we accompanied a BDF patrol at the border point where they found a Guatemalan freely hunting inside Belize's protected forest:
Benigno Garcia was found at the western edge of Belize within the Caracol
Archaeological reserve; he had been hunting, and he carried weapons. He was
intercepted by BDF Patrol and a Ranger team Friends of Conservation and Development.
They were in the far reaches of Belizean territory, 600 meters from the Guatemalan
border in what is called the adjacency zone and 7news was embedded with them.
Here's what happened.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
"He has a machete; he has a weapon" those were the words
of the BDF as they chased down Benigno Garcia and captured him here -
600 metres from the Guatemalan border in the Caracol Archaeological Park.
Q: "What is he doing in Belize?"
A: "I am just taking a walk around."
Q: "And then they ask him - does he know if
he is in Belize"
A "The truth is I don't know - I just came
and I do not know these areas"
But what he knows to do is hunt gibnut as was amply demonstrated when he opened
his sack.
Still it's crime, hunting in an archaeological park, and hunting in another
country.
Lt. Justo Velez, Officer Commanding
"This is normal, the Guatemalans always coming into Belize to do either
xate cutting, hunting, farming, and all these illegal things that they always
do. For us whenever we go to the border, whenever we encounter somebody well,
we just detain them as per procedures."
Since then, the logging incursions have moved across a wider area of the Chiquibul..
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