Tonight, the government of Belize is calling on the OAS after what is being described as a major incident unfolded on Belize side of the border yesterday morning.
As we reported, a BDF soldier shot Guatemalan campesino, 21 year old Luis Alberto GarcÃa Pineda yesterday morning at 11:05 in the area of Sapote one - which is on the Belize side of the Border.
As we reported, a BDF unit was in the Sapote area - which is on the Belize side of the Adjacency zone - waiting for their Guatemalan counterparts to do a joint border patrol - when an armed posse of five Guatemalans rode up on motorcycles - and one of them carried an AK47 - a more powerful weapon than the M-16 which the BDF soldiers carry. When the group did not halt, the BDF shot one of them. The guatemalans recovered the injured man and retreated.
Tonight it is being handled as a major diplomatic incident and the Government Belize has called in the OAS, and will engage in talks with the Guatemalan military to make sure there is not a re-occurence.
The Prime Minister told us this evening that, quote, "it is very, very serious." He didn't want to discuss details because of the sensitivity of the situation, but said that they want to make changes in how the joint border patrols are arranged before they go back into the area.
And so while government is going on a full court press engaging the OAS and the Guatemalan military, today the old Guatemala propaganda machine was fired up once again - to tell the story of Garcia.
According to Prensa Libre's report the BDF was holding three children who were collecting firewood near the border and the Five men went to go get them but they were allegedly fired upon from 300 meters away - injuring Garcia in his hand.
The article goes on to say that Garcia and four other villagers were forced by the military Belizeans to kneel and beg for the release of juveniles.
The BDF would not comment on the article today - except to say that the report presented by Major Dalton Roches on last night's news is the true and accurate account of what happened.
Here's what Roches told us last night:..
Major Dalton Roches, Operations Training Officer - BDF
"While on patrol at the link up position the patrol as per normal would do their security of the area and where they were doing that they saw 5 Guatemalans coming across the borderline into Belize and one of them had a AK-47 assault rifle and the others had short arms along with machetes. The security team asks the individuals to halt and they reach for their weapon and on that point the security team had to open fire at the individual who pull the assault rifle."
"It is believed that one person got injured because they saw this person fell and the remainder got that individual and pull him in the bush. They withdraw from that location as the individuals fled back to what we referred to as our base position and then farther we draw back to Caracol location because this is in the general area of the Caracol ruins. The team was later extracted."
"However you got to keep in mind that you are not waiting for someone to fire a round at you on the borderline. This individual and the others that were accompanying raise their weapons at the patrol. We believe the patrol felt threatened and by so they return fire."
The next joint patrol should be conducted within two weeks and government is determined to revise the protocols before that time.
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