7 News Belize

Begging to Be In BDF
posted (October 11, 2017)
A crowd of young men from all over the country have been camped out in front of the BDF Price Barracks for 12 days - waiting patiently to be called in from the standby list. Well, all their money and food supplies have run out and they haven't gotten any call as yet. Instead of being welcomed with open arms by the BDF, they say they are being chased away and even roughed up by police. Now when we say 12 days - we mean they have not moved from that spot. So their beds are cardboard boxes and their bathrooms are the nearby bushes. Today when we spoke to a couple of them they say they are enduring all this to get a job.

Delyn Jones, Crooked Tree Resident
"We came from October the 1st that is 2 weeks now."

Courtney Weatherburne, reporter
"2 weeks actually out here, staying here."

Delyn Jones
"12 days, yes ma'am."

Sheldon Bernardez, Dangriga Resident
"We brought some money for snack and passage to go back. First we were alright but a big man came out and he said that we could wait a little bit more and that people will fall out so we actually spend out our money because we have confidence that we will get in but as far as we can see they are just driving us from here like they don't want us to go in."

Akeem Crawford, Esperanza Resident
"We just frustrated because the police came and they were trying to harass us and grab us up and take us from here and we are not committing a crime we are here trying to get a job and come off the streets you understand."

Sheldon Bernardez, Dangriga Resident
"We do not want the job we need the job, and we as young Belizean youth we are trying to be responsible so the younger generation like our brothers and sisters can see we are doing something good with our lives so they can follow."

"We plan to stay out here until we see people drop out because we really need the job so we do not intend to go from here, not even if the police come drive us away, we will push because we need the job."

Now they might want to rethink that hardline position because according to BDF Acting Commander Colonel Steven Ortega, none of them are getting in even if their names are on the standby list. Here is why:

Courtney Weatherburne, reporter
"They are saying that you guys are not giving them a chance, they are here trying to find a job but you guys are not allowing them to come in, what is your side to this story?"

Col. Steven Ortega, Acting Commander, BDF
"Well what happened we had over 500 people who took the test and we only have space for 100 people in there as you know everybody will not be able to come in and so we already have the list of people who came in first, they are on the first list and they are in training and then we have a standby list which is the list we use to replace people who fall out of training for whatever reason and those are the persons who are called in to replace those persons."

"We already informed them that they will not be called in if they stay out there even if their names are on the standby list they won't be called in because they are disobeying an order to move from there initially. So if you want to join the BDF, this is an organization of order and you receive an order and the first order you can't comply with? It means you don't want to be in the BDF."

"From the first week our force police has been out there to tell them every day to leave, the force major has been out there to tell them to leave. Today we had to call in the civilian police to ask them to leave and if you notice they came back and they are still out there."

"We have always had people stay out there and it was a decision made this year that we do not want them out there because we notice when they stay out there and go into training they are not as effective as they would like to be and those are the persons who always fall out quickly because their body has already been degraded quite a bit, lack of sleep, lack of nutrition and so those are the people who always fall out so we don't want people to stay out there."

Oretga says that many have dropped out and have been replaced with those on the standby list but those guys who camped outside and refused to leave, basically blew their chances at placement. Ortega says if the men would have simply followed the order to go home and wait until they are called - they would have gotten the opportunity to train. According to the men, they did not know that they should have gone home and waited. Now many of them are stranded without money to return home. When we left the Price barracks this afternoon some got a ride back to the city with us while others stayed. About 50 people in total were outside initially but today we saw about 25 men still waiting outside.

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