By: Omar Silva I Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Belize I Digital 2025

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Thursday 9th October 2025

Belize faces rising violence and constitutional risk as the Briceño Administration turns again to the BDF — but offers no measurable strategy for lasting public safety.

For the first time since 2019, soldiers from the Belize Defence Force are being redeployed to Belize City streets — not to guard our borders, but to patrol neighbourhoods wracked by gang feuds. Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa confirmed that the Coast Guard will also join police patrols as part of an adjustment to policing in response to shootings that left children and officers wounded and the city gripped by fear.

This is not mere redeployment. It is a confession: after two terms in office, the Briceño Administration has no publicly presented, measurable, or rights-respecting national strategy to reduce violent crime, dismantle gangs, or tackle the root causes of violence. Instead, Belizeans are being offered a repeat of a familiar scene — uniforms, checkpoints and the theatre of force — while the hard work of prevention, intelligence reform, social investment and judicial efficiency goes ignored.

The symptom, not the cure

When governments turn to soldiers for street presence, they reveal a policy vacuum. Militarized patrols can provide short-term visibility, but they do not stop the pipeline that feeds violent crime: unregulated firearms flows, youth alienation, entrenched poverty, drug-linked networks and policing blind spots. History in Belize shows the cycle: militarized response, temporary calm, a spike in armed retaliation, public outrage, and then another short-lived remedy. The structural problems remain.

Worse, the constitutional lines we rely on to separate defence from policing risk being blurred. The BDF and Coast Guard are institutions charged with defending Belize’s territorial integrity and maritime domain — not with exercising arrest powers under the Police Act. Their presence on our streets without a clear legal and oversight framework raises immediate questions about accountability, use of force, detention practices and long-term civil-military relations. The public deserves to know: under what authority will soldiers and coastguardsmen act? Who will investigate complaints? Who will ensure people’s rights are protected?

The High Court’s rebuke: consequences of policing by exception

Belizeans have already seen the damage that emergency powers can produce when deployed without careful legal guardrails. The High Court has found unconstitutional detentions under the 2020 State of Emergency and awarded damages to victims — a judicial rebuke that cost the state and shamed the institutions that enforced those orders.

These rulings were not academic. They exposed how, when the state chooses force over strategy, the human cost lands on innocent families while the government faces expensive legal, moral and political consequences. Yet the current debate in Belmopan over the so-called 13th Amendment — a constitutional change critics warn could allow suspension of rights in designated “high risk” zones — tells a worrying story: instead of fixing systems, the state contemplates writing more power into law without convincing Belizeans that existing powers are being used lawfully, effectively or transparently.

A checklist the government has not delivered

A credible, comprehensive public safety strategy should include, publicly and in writing:

1. Clear roles, laws and oversight — a public memorandum of understanding describing exactly what BDF and Coast Guard personnel may and may not do in urban patrols; independent civilian oversight mechanisms; guaranteed access to lawyers and clear detention protocols.
2. Intelligence modernization — integrated databases, witness-protection measures, and prosecution pipelines so arrests lead to convictions rather than more street feuds.
3. Firearms control — a national action plan to trace, seize and reduce illegal weapons, regional cooperation on border gun flows.
4. Community policing and restorative options — trained, local policing teams embedded in communities, outreach, social workers and conflict mediation, not only raids.
5. Youth and prevention funding — meaningful, funded alternatives for at-risk youth (education, apprenticeships, counselling), with results tracked publicly.
6. Transparent metrics and audits — monthly crime data, independent audits of special measures, and a parliamentary committee to evaluate outcomes and human rights impacts.

None of these items have been fully tabled and debated in Parliament as a unified plan. What Belize is seeing is improvisation: personnel moved, commanders reshuffled, and emergency powers invoked — but no blueprint for how this will produce long-term safety. That is the core grievance of communities who rightly ask: will our children be safer or merely more frightened?

Militarization fuels escalation, not peace

Experts and community leaders warn of an arms race: when the state escalates force, criminal actors frequently respond in kind — higher calibre weapons, more ruthless tactics, and deeper civilian harm. That’s not speculation: our cities have already endured instances where heavier weaponry appeared following intensified policing operations. Belize cannot address this with showmanship; it needs restraint and strategic planning.

Minister Musa insists deployments are temporary and tactical — a stopgap to stem immediate violence. But temporary measures become permanent when the underlying system is not fixed. And when temporary measures erode rights or produce unlawful detentions, the state pays — in trust, in money and in legitimacy. Recent court awards totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars for unlawful detentions serve as a stark reminder.

Who will hold the ministers and commanders to account?

Public safety cannot be a private exercise. It requires democratic control. We call on Parliament to demand from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of Defence a short, clear package for public scrutiny within seven days:

• A written National Public Safety Strategy with timelines, budgets and measurable targets.
• Legal instruments (or emergency regulations) explained in full, and their sunset clauses spelled out.
• A binding commitment to civilian oversight and a public register of complaints and outcomes.
• Independent audits of any special operations that involve defence personnel.

Citizens should not have to wait for lawsuits and court rulings to discover the human cost of improvisation. The instruments of state cannot be used as props in a political show that sacrifices liberty in the name of safety.

Alternatives the government must try before permanent force

There are practical policy measures that, implemented together, reduce violence without turning cities into garrison zones:

• Focused deterrence & intelligence-led policing: Target the small number of recidivist actors responsible for most shootings, while protecting communities and offering clear exit pathways for low-level associates.
• Gun-tracing task force: Joint Caribbean and Central American action on weapon sources; public reporting on seizures and prosecutions.
• Community reinvestment: Fast-track paid apprenticeships, night schools and youth counselling in high-risk neighbourhoods — funded transparently and measured for impact.
• Judicial fast-track: Create a specialist prosecution and witness protection stream for gang and gun cases so arrests lead to prosecutions and convictions.
• Civil-military conduct code: If the BDF or Coast Guard are temporarily deployed, a publicly available code of conduct must be enacted, with independent monitoring and rapid complaint resolution.

The choice before Belizeans

Belize is not powerless. It can choose policy, not pageantry. It can choose investment over intimidation, well-designed interventions over militarized optics, and accountable institutions over opaque emergency measures. The test now is whether the Briceño Administration will step up with a real plan or persist in cycling through the old script: force, headlines, retreat, and then another last-minute show.

Security without liberty is not safety — it is submission. Belize must demand a plan, not patrols.