Security Forces Complete U.S.-Backed Human Rights Law Training in Belize

Thirty members of Belize’s armed forces and security services have successfully completed a two-day workshop on Human Rights Law. Hosted by the Belize Defence Force (BDF) in partnership with the United States Army’s Southern Command, the training brought together personnel from the BDF, Belize Coast Guard, and Belize Police Department to develop a unified approach to human rights enforcement among militaries and security forces across the Western Hemisphere. According to Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Olivera, the BDF’s Force Legal Officer, this will help enhance the various departments. 

Lt. Col. Lionel Olivera, Force Legal Officer, Belize Defence Force: “Within the past two days or so, these participants had the opportunity to focus on women, peace and security, which is not naturally a new area but it’s something that is untouched in our region and Belize having created our agenda in 2021 we had different conversations about Haiti and we had a specific professor from the William Perry Center in Washington to actually give in-depth discussions about the past experience of Haiti the current situation and probable future projections as what will occur. And because we are a part of the region and we do participate in peacekeeping operations this kind of puts us in a position to know how do we react to this moving forward. Equally, yesterday we had some conversations about international humanitarian law which believes we are signatories to the Geneva Convention and several of the Hague laws dealing with rules of war. And so it’s very strange that people would naturally don’t understand that human rights is a huge part of the business that we do. And if we’re protectors of the state we have to ensure that we do it in the right way and this is what this program is about.  We have soldiers cross-section, well soldiers and officers cross-section from Cayo, PG, and we equally included personnel from the police department as well as the Coast Guard, the Human Rights Commission, and the family support and gender affairs department within the Human Services. Why they were important to this session is that whenever we have any issues we would go to them as being the subject matter experts and they would guide us through some of the process and equally, it allows us to, under the circumstance, to help build new policies that we have to integrate moving forward. So the BDF is not the best organization when it comes to those situations. So it’s equally that we look to our partners to help us to improve these training and these policies.”

The program, first established in 1997, welcomed Belize as a member in 2022 but this is the first time the country has hosted the event.