BELIZE AND GUATEMALA SECURITY FORCES DISCUSS BORDER CRIME

December 04, 2008

Security forces from Belize and Guatemala talked about crime along the border in a meeting yesterday in Benque Viejo. We get the details from the officer commanding the San Ignacio Police Detachment Senior Superintendent Paul Wade.

Senior Superintendent Paul Wade; Officer Commanding San Ignacio

“A meeting of the Security Forces of Belize and Guatemala was convened at the OAS office in Benque Viejo Town. Representing Belize was myself the officer commanding the Cayo District and Superintendent Desiree Phillips, Officer Commanding the Benque Viejo Town Police Formation. Guatemala was represented by the municipal commanders of both the military and the police. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the recent robberies in the Arenal Area on Friday last where several Belizeans were robbed. We discussed better cooperation and better coordination of our efforts to better coordinate our efforts to try to address this issue. We agreed during that meeting for joint coordinated and regular patrols of our security forces. This will commence as early as today. Most security forces have a pretty good relationship. The OAS facilitated the meeting and these are meetings has been happening for several years now and have led to good cooperation between security forces in Guatemala and Belize. We will go and do joint patrols so that we could see and understand the location first of all better where these incidents are occurring. The objective is to ensure that if an incident occurs we will have a better response. If we go out and do the joint check when an incident occur and we ask for support from Guatemala  they will know precisely which area we are talking about so that we have better coordination which would eventually lead to the apprehension of some of these criminals and that is our main objective. If we don’t coordinate these efforts these incidents will continue.”

Superintendent Wade also has an invitation for Cayo area residents.

Senior Superintendent Paul Wade; Officer Commanding San Ignacio

“I want to take this opportunity to invite the citizens of San Ignacio and Santa Elena to a Town Meeting on the 11^th of December; 7pm at the Sacred heart Junior College Campus. Present at the Meeting will be the Minister of National Security and the Commissioner of Police and so I want to take the opportunity to invite the citizens to come out and discuss how we can work together to fight crime.” 

Senior Superintendent of Police Paul Wade, Officer Commanding the San Ignacio Police Detachment.

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