Last night, we brought you extensive coverage of the latest conflict in the Belize/Guatemala territorial dispute. The Belizean, Jorge Emiliano Espat, is a land-owner on the western edge of Benque Viejo Town, and he owns several properties right next to the border between Belize and Guatemala. That location is known as the Barrio El Juda area.
He says that whenever there are elections in Melchor, politicians there try to muster support by using land-ownership as the lure. He says that these politicians encourage the Guatemalan voters to pursue parcels of land near the border on their side. Eventually, these voters then encroach on Belizean territory; in this case, right onto Espat's land. And int doesn't stop until the Belizean authorities step in and remove them.
In this instance, however, one of the encroachers, the Guatemalan Paula Reyes, has made a loan with a Guatemalan bank, and over the past few months, she has built a concrete house on Espat's land. That should be a simple land dispute to be resolved by the court, but the issue is complicated by the Belize/Guatemala dispute. So the Belize authorities have to handle the situation delicately, which takes time.
While the Foreign Affairs Ministry tries to resolve it through diplomatic means, the squatter's roots are taking a deeper hold on Espat's land, and he is frustrated that there has been no decisive action to reverse the wrong.
Yesterday, you heard how he complained about the Foreign Ministry, and so, when we got the opportunity today, we asked Minister Wilfred Elrington for a response. Here's what he had to say this evening:
Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Espat will be the first one to tell you that we have been dealing with this thing for months, if he were to be candid, as a matter of fact I personally spoke to the foreign minister of Guatemala, the deputy foreign minister of Guatemala, the United Nations as early as September about it. We spoke to them more recently and what they explained to us essentially is that we are going through a transition period. Remember they just recently had election. One administration coming in, one administration going out and it is not the easiest, not the best of times to deal with these issues, but they have asked us to be patient. They understand, they have contacted the mayor of Melchor, they are seeking to cause this matter to be resolve as quickly and peacefully as possible and Mr. Espat knows that fully well. As a matter of fact as soon as he wrote talking about the matter, I responded to him personally which is uncharacteristic, but because of the urgency of the situation I wrote him back, I told him we are dealing with, I told him feel free to go and see your lawyer. Whatever you can do on your own to try to resolve it, we have no difficulty with that. What more can a country do?"
Reporter
"Minister, what exactly would it entailed in terms of actual steps to get these people out of there?"
Hon. Wilfred Elrington
"I don't know if you have any experience of squatters of lands in Belize, well, right now if you try to take off some of those squatters that are on Belizean land, the first thing they do is pull their gun and they pull their machete and tell you to come if you are crazy and they want to do violence against you. That is the kind of thing that can happen near to the border and nobody wants that to happen. So we are working along with the Guatemalan authorities to ensure that we solve it without that kind of thing happening and Mr. Espat also knows that, because he has been dealing with the OAS. The OAS people are actively involved in trying to resolve it. But it's not the kind of thing that you could resolve easily. The truth is that if a squatter was on my land I would have trouble getting them off."
Reporter
"How do you bridge the gap between, okay we want to be diplomatic and gentle in the way we approach the situation because its delicate, but at the same time this gentleman is expecting results."
Hon. Wilfred Elrington
"I don't think you have been hearing me at all. We are working on it but it takes time. You see the problems that the Japanese have with the North Koreans firing off these missiles in their direction? a dangerous situation. They want to have it resolved, but they have to try and deal with it properly and diplomatically, otherwise it can spiraled out of control and when it spirals out of control it's like a fire. You have a small fire, but if you don't handle that small fire properly it can turn into a big confrontation and burn up everybody. So you have got to let the experts deal with it. Mr. Espat can't determine how it is to be dealt with, it's a matter for the experts and the experts both in Belize and Guatemala and at the OAS are dealing with it. If he is impatient we can't help that and as we said to him go and see your lawyer, let your lawyer tell you what to do if you think there are other things that can be done properly. Feel free to do that."
Espat has agreed to escort the media to his land in the Barrio El Juda area, and we'll have that story for you in tomorrow's news.
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