7 News Belize

Guatemala Vigorously Rejected Belize’s Protest Note
posted (March 15, 2016)
Since the weekend, the local news has been dominated by the report from the Government that the Guatemalan Armed Forces aggressed the BDF soldiers stationed at the Sarstoon Forward Operating Base currently in construction. Belize Ministry of Foreign Affairs has since a diplomatic note of protest, and Guatemala is vigorously denying that their military did anything wrong.

We've come across this website in which a statement was released yesterday by the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry. It's in Spanish, but we've translated it verbatim, and for proper context, we've not paraphrased it in any way.

Translated, the statement says, on Friday March 11, a boat belonging to the Belize Defense Force, without following the security protocol that is customarily used (status quo) on the Sarstoon River, entered the internal waters of Guatemala in the Sartsoon River and sailed to shores of the river.

On Saturday March 12th, radio contact was made with the BDF boat to indicate to the crew that they should follow the security protocol customarily used (status quo) on the Sarstoon River and informed them that in crossing the river, they had cut a drag-net belonging to the a Guatemalan resident in the area, a communication that was met with insults by the Belizean crew.

At no time was there any provocation by the Guatemalan authorities towards the crew of the Belizean boat, and what was asked of them was that they follow the security protocol customarily used (status quo) on the Sarstoon River.

For this reason, this Ministry considers that it is false to state that the Guatemalan officials behaved in an "extremely hostile and threatening" manner when the only thing that they sought was to ask the crew of the Belizean boat to follow the usual security protocols established for the Sarstoon River (status quo).

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirms once more that the Sarstoon River belongs to Guatemala, so that as long as the territorial, insular and maritime differendum existing between both countries is not resolved definitively by the ICJ, the Government of the Republic will continue to exercise and defend its sovereignty as it has done to this point.

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