Tonight, Guatemalan and Belizean authorities are paying keen attention to Belize's southern border at the Sarstoon River. BDF Commander Lloyd Gillett confirmed to 7NEWS that on Tuesday May 29 a Guatemalan Navy vessel prevented a Belizean Coast Guard vessel with BDF soldiers from entering the southern side of the Sarstoon River.

For those who don't know, the mouth of the Sarstoon River, which marks Belize's southeastern border with Guatemala, is divided in the middle by the Sarstoon Island. Belize's border mark is recognized as the deepest channel on the southern side, which in this picture would be the left side and that's why the BDF have always entered on the south. Well on May 29th they were prevented from doing this by a Guatemalan Naval vessel. The Guatemalans maintain a Naval base on the banks of the Sarstoon.

General Gillett confirmed that when faced with the blockage, the BDF boat which was taking in soldiers for a changeover simply diverted and entered the river from the northern side. Still, though, they had been forced to deviate from standard practice, and more than that they had been intimidated into doing so by a larger vessel - within Belizean territory.

To solve the problem, General Gillett says he called Guatemalan Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Matio Aguilar Bran to a meeting. That was held last week Wednesday in the Sarstoon River area. He says they came to a gentleman's agreement on how to jointly operate in the southern part of the channel.

Again, we stress that is Belizean territory. But it adjoins a small Guatemalan community, the fishing village called Barra Sarstoon. So the General says he agreed that his soldiers would treat it as a "no wake" zone because the Guatemalans are complaining that the BDF boats go through too fast and generate surf.

That's all good and well, but we checked; in 2004 SATIIM had declared it a no wake zone in that area and put up signs, which still stand, declaring it so. And this is the complication. SATIIM manages the national park which includes the river and today coordinator Greg Choq says his park rangers are concerned for their own well being because they patrol the river mouth very regularly.

Choq says his rangers have been taking precautions because he doesn't know about any "gentleman's agreement" that General Gillett told us about. At any rate, today General Gillett says the situation has been normalized because yesterday a BDF boat went up the southern side of the river without problems and proceeded with a changeover as planned. Changeovers happen every Tuesday.

He says they have also agreed that both militaries will conduct joint border patrols on the river, similar to what happens on foot at the western border as part of the confidence building effort.