Email

Print

Back in September, a revealing article was published online at a site called Open Democracy.  The article was named “Death of a double agent: British torture and betrayal in 1980s Belize.â€￾ It details how in 1983, the British military,  working secretly with the Guatemalan government â€" used the Belize police department to detain and interrogate an informant from the Belize side of Arenal named Pedro Barrera.  He was expected to lead the British forces to a hideout on the Belize side of the border border where the Guatemalan guerrillas were stashing weapons.  Those guerrillas were engaged in a civil war against the murderous Efrain Rios Montt regime which was decimating the indigenous population.

To make a 10,000 word story very short, this Pedro Barrera never could find the guerrilla weapons stash that the British wanted him to. So, they did the most traitorous thing that anyone could do to an informer: they handed him over to the Guatemalan military.  He was held in prison, and then murdered by Kaibiles on the Belize side of Arenal on June 5th, 1983, within hours of his release.  

It is an act of betrayal and treachery by the British government - typical of their history of diplomatic duplicity - but still not a conscionable act.  And the point of the article on the Open Democracy site is that the family of Pedro Barrera is asking the British government for an apology for what they did to him.  The article closes by urging readers to write to the British High Commissioner in Belize - demanding the apology in behalf of the Barrera family.  Last week we asked her about it:

Jules Vasquez
"Basically it alleges that the government of the UK during colonial times in Belize, had assisted in the torture and execution of a man from Arenal, which is between Guatemala and Belize and that the British government is responsible."

Claire Evans, OBE - British High Commissioner to Belize
"I don't think today is the day we should be talking about that."

Jules Vasquez
"Have you received any mail about it, it encourages people to mail to you, your office."

Claire Evans
"You have received some mail and they have received a response but I would rather not be drawn on that because I don't think it's important when we're talking today about conservation and the leading work that Belize does in conservation."

As you heard, she didn’t want to discuss it, but we will keep pressing the matter too see if there is an apology forthcoming for the Barrerra family.

In 2013, the British Government apologized for crimes committed by British imperial officers during the 1950’s in Kenya.  They also offered a compensation package worth 20 million pounds, to be shared between more than five thousand Kenyan claimants.