“When Government Preaches Compassion Abroad and Neglects Justice at Home”

By Omar Silva | Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Belize

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Friday 24th October 2025

PART 2

The Politics of Selective Humanity

Only days after the Briceno Administration signed the controversial Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States — effectively opening the door for Belize to receive asylum seekers rejected by Washington — the country buried Angelita Magaña and her two children, victims of a system that could not protect them.

Two stories. One government. Both reveal a disturbing truth: Belize’s political elite are fluent in humanitarian rhetoric but illiterate in domestic compassion.

Foreign Minister Francis Fonseca boasts that the agreement “is not secret” and will bring “a transparent, open process.” Yet the same administration refuses to release the full text of the treaty, its annexes, or the financial obligations Belizeans must shoulder. Opposition Leader Tracy Panton is right: “We are being asked to trust what we cannot see.”

And while Cabinet speaks of protecting migrants from abroad, it has failed to protect the women, children, and poor right here at home — where justice dies not in theory but in daily neglect.

Foreign Humanitarianism, Domestic Indifference

How can Belize claim to be a “Safe Country” for asylum seekers when it cannot guarantee safety to its own citizens?

Every ministry that praised “whole-of-society approaches” after Angelita’s murder is the same machinery that presides over:

• police indifference to threats,
• courts closed when victims seek restraining orders,
• repeat offenders freed on bail, and
• emergency hotlines that go unanswered.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming. The Prime Minister’s spouse, the Special Envoy, issued an emotional statement declaring, “The system failed this family.” But who oversees the police? Who chairs Cabinet? Who determines justice reform priorities and budget allocations?

It is this same government — the same ministers — now asking Belizeans to host rejected asylum seekers from one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Tracy Panton’s Warning: A Rare Voice of Logic

For once, even a fractured opposition found clarity. Tracy Panton warned that Belize cannot “commit to absorbing asylum seekers… when our own citizens continue to struggle for access to basic social services.” She is correct.

Our social fabric is frayed. Our hospitals are underfunded. Our housing programs are politicized.

To take on new humanitarian burdens without capacity, transparency, or legislative readiness is not diplomacy — it is delusion.

Fonseca’s assurance that “it will only be ten people a year” insults the Belizean people. History tells us that international agreements rarely stay within their “pilot limits.” What begins as ten can easily become hundreds once Washington’s immigration machinery sets its precedent.

A Government That Speaks in Two Tongues

This is not just administrative contradiction; it is moral dissonance.

The government condemns the system’s failure to protect a mother from domestic violence, yet maintains the same policies, officers, and judicial bottlenecks that caused her death.

The Special Envoy denounces police inaction yet remains silent on the Ministry of Home Affairs’ failure to reform those very procedures.

Meanwhile, in foreign policy, the administration pledges to cooperate with the United States on refugee protection — a noble goal on paper, but in practice, Belize risks becoming a holding bay for displaced souls while failing its own people.

What Belize Truly Needs

Before signing new international obligations, Belize must fix its domestic dysfunctions.

That means:

• Full overhaul of domestic violence legislation with equal gender accountability.
• Establishment of specialized GBV courts operating daily, not weekly.
• Mandatory protection order mechanisms even during court closures.
• An independent judicial reform commission insulated from political control.
• Publication of all international agreements before Senate ratification.

And most of all, a redefinition of sovereignty that prioritizes Belizean safety, dignity, and justice before global optics.

Kicker: Belize Cannot Be “Safe” Until Belizeans Are

Angelita’s death is not only a tragedy — it is a warning.

A nation that cannot defend its own cannot defend others.

If Belize truly wishes to be a “Safe Third Country,” it must first be a safe first country — for every woman, child, and citizen betrayed by the system that now pretends to grieve.

Until then, the government’s tears and treaties mean nothing.