7 News Belize

A Small Protest To Keep The Border Closed
posted (July 15, 2020)
And while the totally unregulated border jumpers are driving the COVID numbers up - many Belizeans are equally concerned about the opening of the Phillip Goldson International airport to tourists, especially American tourists coming from city like Houston and Miami which have soaring infection rates.

Tonight, that re-opening is exactly one month away and one group armed with picket signs protested the decision in Belize City's cornerstone of resistance, the Battlefield park. Cherisse Halsall went into the crowd.

There were less than a dozen protesters gathered in Battlefield park this morning. They were a Ragtag bunch who'd made their placards and signs out of recycled cardboard but they didn't lack passion. We spoke to one woman who's concerned about what reopening the airport will mean for children who will have only recently returned to school.

Makeda Marin, Protestor
"As a parent the plan to open schools five days before they open the airport is a big concern to me. My daughter is 7 years old so the other kids in her class are six or seven or eight. I don't think children that age are old enough to follow social distancing rules to actually be on the lookout for if they touch something not to touch their face. I don't think that small children will be able to protect themselves just using social distancing rules when they go back to school."

"We were not consulted as citizens about the opening of the airport at all, we were just told a plan we were not asked how we feel about this plan."

"Did we have a better plan, so that's why we're out here we need a better education plan and we need a better health plan when it comes to opening this airport."

Another Protester Timmy Stamp worries that the re-opening will provoke a return to lockdown something that would once again put his livelihood in jeopardy.

Timmy Stamp, Protestor
"I am a businessman. You understand me I have a grocery shop and like I said it doesn't make any sense for the airport to open. Things are already bad what will you open the airport for, for what."

"If the place they have to close down at a certain time -- you aren't really making any money. You understand me you are bobbing and weaving trying to survive."

"I don't think it makes any sense that the airport opens because at the end of the day our Belizean people will get more hurt."

And while their fears are sound and perhaps reflective of those of many Belizeans. We had to wonder why there were so few of them.

Cherisse Halsall:
"What kind of support do you feel you have out here today?"

Makeda Marin, Protestor
"I have a few people strong but this is a small number of people that are representing a silent majority because we know for a fact that this is what the majority of Belizeans are on. We are not interested in having this airport open so even though I don't have everyone that I'd want like 100's of thousands of people out here exercising their rights and showing these people what we're out there for."

"I feel good about the online protest because of the crowd that we have and because of our online protest we have about 300 signatures already so I feel like the support is strong and the Belizeans that are passing in cars are blowing their horns and letting us know that they support us too."

And while Marin is practical, the protest's organizer Yaya Marin Coleman has a unique perspective on the numbers.

Yaya Marin Coleman, Activist
"We are never alone it doesn't matter how many people we see out here our ancestors are with us. If you knew about ancestral energy and vibration then you wouldn't ask that question?"

And it might be the ancestors that have inspired an old school survival approach in this group as they advocate for a complete economic switch up, with one of their makeshift signs compelling Belizeans to "Statt to Plant".

It's conviction brought on by fear. A fear that if community spread is once again detected lives other than just those of decision-makers will be lost.

Yaya Marin Coleman, Activist
"Definitely don't open that airport until the curve flattens in the United States for damn sure. And we are not with the economic health of this country taking priority over the health of Belizean people. It's not any ifs or buts. Once that airport opens August 15th, 2020 if the government chooses not to listen to what we are saying to more of us. People that look like us black and brown people will die."

A dire warning in which the government has decided that the country must survive not just physically but economically as well.

The protest went from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm and at its height, the numbers peaked at 25 including children.

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