On Saturday, the Belize Territorial Volunteers went to one of the southernmost communities in the Toledo District called Dolores on their second expedition to clear the border. It's part of the organization's patriotic - and largely symbolic effort - to provide the country with a clear delineation between Belize and Guatemala.
The BTV, numbering in almost 70 persons, left PG Town from about 4:30 a.m. on Saturday and headed west. This time, there were no jungles or forests; instead, they were met with cleared land for Guatemalan plantations and farms which they strongly believe - also backed up by GPS readings - are encroaching on Belizean territory.
He spoke to us about the effort via phone with us today, and he also touched on the alarming road access that Guatemala has to these border communities if they should decide on military intervention into Belize.
Here's how he described it:
Wil Maheia (Via Phone) - Organizing Border Clearing Efforts
"When we got to Dolores, we began the trek towards the border. So, after about an hour or so hiking toward the border, we were met by the OAS Representative, just before we got to the border. When we got there, the OAS informed us that we were very near to the border line, and that we should not proceed any further. But we had some Mayan brothers with us who told us that they born in the village and they knew that this area we were, wasn't the border line. So, we ignored the warnings of the OAS, and pushed westward, and he just kept saying that we were moving into dangerous territory, and that we were aggravating the Guatemalans. I am saying that well, we need to know exactly where our borders are, and according to the GPS, and the knowledge from the persons in the villages, we were not at the borderline. So, we continued to proceed westward until we came to a cement marker. But when we got to that cement marker, we surprised at the kind of development that's happening right on the borderline itself. We met a huge African farm plantation, which in no way, shape or form is owned by any indigenous Mayan farmer. And there was a huge road directly to the Belize borderline. In fact, the OAS vehicle drove all the way to the Belize borderline. So, we were just alarmed at the level of development that's happening in that area. Of course, we went to clear the borderline but the line was already cleared by these huge farms in the area. After the meeting with the OAS, seeing the borderline and realizing that there was nothing much to clear since it's already cleared, we trekked north from that point near Dolores for several hours. And the more we trekked the more farms we encountered. We encountered corn fields and pastures. So, all in all, we were out there for between 6 and 8 hours, and we did not have to really clear anything because most of it had already been cleared. Since we began this border clearing expedition, we have now found, within less than half a mile of the Belize border, there are roads which lead to the major Pan American highways, and they are 5 of them, 1 at Gracias Adios, 1 which we found now at Dolores, 1 close to the village of Poite, 1 at Jalacte, and there's' 1 at San Vicente. All these are border points where it is active, and I just find it mind-boggling that a country like Belize has so little interest in protecting its border."
Journalists who were on the trek with the volunteers reportedly approached the OAS Representative who was providing oversight, but this person refused to comment.
According to Maheia, only the Belizean side is respecting the Border Adjacency Zone, and Guatemalan citizens continue to show no regard for it. The BTV plans to make a next trip to the border, this time to Aguas Turbias, Garbutt Falls, and Gracias Adios between April 27 and April 30. Maheia says that he is organizing around the date of April 30, because it was on that date in the year 1859 when England and Guatemala signed the original agreement on where exactly Belize's borders are.
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