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Today’s hearings were possibly the most crowded it has ever been since Senate Inquiry on Immigration began back in November. The UDP’s were gathered in numbers wearing white or red t-shirts captioned, “Belizeans Against Courtenayâ€￾, and the PUP’s were also there, but nobody got confrontational.

The press asked Opposition Leader John Briceno for an explanation on why he asked for the Senate hearings to be postponed. He said that he was trying to avoid a PUP vs UDP confrontation, which the Government would have used as an excuse to end the hearings. Here are his comments on that:

Hon. John Briceño- Opposition Leader 
"It is obvious that, as I said earlier, that the UDP wants to go to great lengths to bring this senate inquiry to an end. That is what they want to do. We asked last week for there to be a postponement of last week just to calm things down. Because we realized that the UDP wanted us to respond for us to take out our people out here to support and not only senator Courtney but all senators, including the social partners. We believed that the idea would have been: they have their people, we have our people, and they are going to create an effect out there. Somebody in the UDP would have picked a fight with one of our people so that then they can use that as an excuse to end the senate inquiry. For us it is of utmost importance to keep this senate inquiry going. If the Prime Minister has nothing to hide then he should allow the senate inquiry to run its course to bring in everybody including all of the ministers that have been called in that report; for them to come an answer, for them to come and say the truth and for them not to have a case of amnesia that they would not remember what has taken place."