7 News Belize

Hon. Wilfred On The Fiasco In Cayo
posted (October 12, 2012)
And before going to Ladyville - Ablonczy visited with Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington.

That was an important meeting at this juncture - because Guatemala is trying to make an international diplomatic incident over the killing of one of its citizens in Belizean territory.

Letting her hear the Belize story first hand was important because Canada is a part of the "Friends of Belize" - nations that are trying to move along the differendum process.

But while Elrington seems to have gotten on well with Ablonczy, he made a major gaffe in Cayo on Wednesday night. That's when he hosted a town meeting and incensed the townspeople with his candid remarks.

He told them that Cayo parents were not raising their children properly, and that Government did not have money for a forensic lab, and that they, the citizens, had to do their own fundraising - among other things.

That prompted a mass walkout - but Elrington says the walkout that most of us saw on LOVE TV didn't happen. Here's his interpretation of the situation:..

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Attorney General
"No, that was not what happened. But the reporter who obviously had his own agenda there reported that the people left. I heard him saying that this is the straw that broke the camel's back. It was only one young man who seems to have carried a group people there. When you listen to that whole meeting I was so depressed to tell you the truth."

Jules Vasquez
"You are accused of making very insensitive remarks."

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Attorney General
"Yes because I was so depress Jules because I was faced with a congregation of people who seem to have thought they could do nothing for themselves. They don't have as many murders in Cayo as I have right in Pickstock alone - the whole Cayo District are not experiencing many murders as I am experiencing in the Pickstock Division."

Jules Vasquez
"Yes but when people are experiencing grief and loss it is insensitive to say such things. If I went to the home of a grieving family and I say you all don't feel no way; a good friend of mine got killed the other day, this will pass. That is insensitive, that is not the right thing to say, it is impolitic."

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Attorney General
"You see Jules there are so many impolitic things to say in Belize that you don't say anything. The other day I said that the border was artificial; that is the correct technical word. I know it, you know it, everybody supposed to know it but nobody wants to say that to the Belizean population. You have to educate your population Jules. You can't allow your population to remain in state where they don't know things."

Jules Vasquez
"You don't regret how things unfolded? You don't wish you had been perhaps less caustic or more sensitive in your remarks?"

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Attorney General
"My only wish is that we had the capacity to better inform and educate our people."

We also asked Elrington about the fact that none of the five UDP representatives from the Cayo District were there for the meeting. He said indeed they should have been because the townspeople are their constituents.

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