In less than a week, Guatemalans will vote in a referendum on whether or not to go to the ICJ. And while that court seeks a civil solution - military force continues to be the currency used most often by the Guatemalan military on the Sarstoon River.
It reared its ugly head again yesterday morning when Wil Maheia and a group from his Belize Progressive Party tried to go down the Sarstoon River. He told us via phone today why the experience was particularly galling:
Wil Maheia, Deputy Leader, BPP
"When we were approaching the Sarstoon less than a mile from the mouth of the Sarstoon from Belize side we encountered no less than 20 Guatemalan fishing vessels and they were setting nets and by the time we got to the mouth of the river we and the Guatemalan both started to fire up its engine and when we tried to go around the island they intercepted our boat, they say we are not going around the island today, so we said this island is our island but we only had one boat, we didn't have a backup boat or anything so we turned around. They had guns and we didn't have guns so we turned around. We was disappointed in the fact that the Guatemalans continue to dominate and take control of the river and our government do absolutely nothing. The boundary as they say, is the deepest part of the river on the south side of the Sarstoon Island, we were on the north side of the Sarstoon Island, so there was not even any kind of argument as to whether or not we were in Belizean waters. We were clearly in Belizean waters."
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