When diplomacy ducks, sovereignty bleeds.

By: Omar Silva I Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Belize I Digital 2025

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Friday 12th September 2025: Earlier this week, Guatemalan soldiers walked onto Sarstoon Island and planted their flag. Not in their waters, not on the far bank—on Belizean soil. Our troops confronted them with words while the world watched a humiliation by inches. Government now says the flag is gone, after “high-level talks.” Perhaps. But Belizeans deserve more than a line in a press release and a pat on the head. We deserve the video, the coordinates, the truth.

For a decade we’ve begged for a Sarstoon Protocol and got seminars instead of signatures. The result is a river that rewards the bold and punishes the lawful. The GAF understands this. They probe when our presence is thin; they retreat when cameras roll; they return when our resolve has cooled.

Let’s be clear: this is not about sabre-rattling. It’s about credibility. Credibility is a patrol that shows up every day, not just after a scandal. It’s a small boat with working engines and night-vision that actually leaves the dock. It’s a plan the public can read and measure.

Our servicemen and women are not the problem; they are the solution we keep underfunding and undersupplying. Most of the Defence budget is eaten by salaries and utility bills while readiness lines—fuel, spares, hours on hulls—fight for leftovers. The Coast Guard and BDF need a ring-fenced readiness fund and a riverine surge now.

Publish the footage. Publish the de-confliction rules. Publish the draft Protocol. Then put steel on the river and eyes in the sky. That’s how small states hold their ground—by making every square meter of it seen, recorded, and defended. A flag on our mangrove should never fly again.