Belize's PM Briceno Says Fight Will Continue Against Illegal Drugs Trade
BELMOPAN, Belize – Prime Minister John Briceno, vowing that he will not allow Belize to come like Mexico, says he expects by the “middle of next year” the country will be able to acquire a radar to help in the fight against the illegal drug trade after several planes have landed at illegal airstrips across the country in recent times.
Prime Minister John Briceno (Image from Channel 5 Belize)In the most recent cases, several police officers have been brought before the courts on charges linked to the illegal landings. Earlier this week, Police Commissioner Williams told reporters that he is working to deal with the situation of police officers’ involvement in the illegal drug trade and that he also had a word of caution for corrupt police officers who choose to run afoul of the law.
Prime Minister Briceno told reporters that “this is nothing new” regarding the frequency of plans making illegal landings here with drugs, adding “this has been happening for some time, but in this instance now, here we have a government that has been busting them more often.
“We are breaking up or catching more than what leaves Belize and that is what’s important. So, we are doing our part and at the Police Department to be able to make some radical changes so that it could meet the needs that we have to be able to protect our country and to defend and protect our citizens.”
He said as it regards the acquisition of the radar, the authorities have been in discussions with various stakeholders and working through COCESNA, a non-profit and public service organization providing air traffic services, aeronautical telecommunications, navaids and aeronautical information within the Central America.
“We were in the process of getting one from COCESNA but…the Americans are prepared to provide a radar that will have a long reach. It will be able to cover all of our exclusive economic zone and go far into the air space of other countries around us, that from far we’ll be able to track these planes that are coming and to be able to predict where they are – the place where they’re most likely going to land.”
But Briceno said that it would require more than just that because in some instances, “these plane landings are in far-to-reach places (and) it’s difficult to get there.
“So, by the time the police get there, they are gone. So we need to do a number of things. One, is to be able to see, to increase our intelligence, so whenever we see an area being prepared as a potential landing site, we go and destroy it.”
He said that the Belize Defense Force (BDF) has been doing a number of that, along with the police. “But we also need air cover, like what they are starting to do in other countries that you could deploy a plane that can follow these drug planes when they are trying to come into our airspace.”
Prime Minister Briceno said that the fight against drug lords will be a continuous one because they have already set up a network “that we now have to break up.
“It’s a matter now of following the money to see where the drugs end and go after the people, whosoever is involved. Certainly, now with the Police Department we have to take a hard look as to what is happening there and see what changes we can make.
“Whatever changes that need to be made we will make it because we have to do everything that we possibly can to be able to stop the landing of planes in this country. One of the things that keep me up at night is drug lords coming and taking over Belize because it could happen with the amount of money that they have.
“Look at what has happened to Mexico, that over the years the government allowed them to put a solid hold into certain areas of the country, and for the past decade they have been fighting with big guns and everything between the drug lords and the Mexican army and we don’t want to get to that point because we do not have the resources that the government of Mexico has, so we need to nip it in the bud,” Briceno added.
