Email

Print

And there is a lot of confirming to be done.  First, the Government of Belize is trying to confirm who grabbed Roger Plett and tied him up.  Plett is saying that they were Guatemalan military.  And indeed, pictures posted by Guatemalan Luis Gongora on Facebook on Wednesday, the day before Plett was detained show persons dressed in what appear to be military uniforms involved in fighting the forest fire. 

But, Guatemalan officials told the government of Belize that no one was detained by their military – because no military was in the area:…

H.E Lawrence Sylvester - CEO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
"We are given every assurance that there's no Belizean detained and that the Guatemalan armed forces were not on any patrol near the areas or adjacent to the Mennonite property on that day."

George Lovell - CEO, Ministry of National Security
"The thing is we are in fact trying to confirm precisely who it is because Roger is still insisting that it's Guatemala and we can't take that away from him, he was the one on the ground and he saw these people. The OAS who I believed may have spoken to the Guatemalans are saying listen the Guatemalans are saying we have not had a military patrol in that area for quite a long time, it cannot be our patrol."

Reporter
"It was military and civilians together."

George Lovell - CEO, Ministry of National Security
"I'm just saying what they are saying so to answer the question as to who was holding them we need to go in there and establish that and the only way we can establish that is having that verification that the OAS will go in there with the Guatemalans and say okay who were the people that had encountered them. We can probably if I don't know get pictures or whatever the case may be and have Roger confirm if these were the people who had them. It's not a matter that we wish to happen to any of our citizens and it's not a matter that we would hope and I hope it would never occur again where we have to go through this kind of sort of explanation."