BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC -Former prime minister Dean Barrow is questioning why Prime Minister John Briceño took a long time to get involved in the “abduction” of a Belizean national and his subsequent surrender to Guatemalan authorities last month.
Barrow has since called for an independent investigation into the matter and said that Belizeans deserve answers, even as he questioned whether politics played a role in Budna’s abduction.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Briceño said he had instructed Police Commissioner Dr. Richard Rosado to proceed on 45 days ‘leave “in the first instance” as the controversy over the “abduction” took yet another turn.
Former Prime Minister Dean Barrow
Prime Minister Briceño had earlier asked his Home Affairs Minister, Kareem Musa, to provide an update on the controversial “abduction” after the Belize Police Department on August 24 said it had officially launched an investigation into an incident involving Budna, which occurred on August 22.
“The Policia Nacional Civil (PNC) of Guatemala has confirmed that Mr. Ryan Joseph Budna is in their custody pursuant to an arrest warrant; however, they have not disclosed the details surrounding his apprehension,” the police said, adding that its own investigation was initiated based on an official report filed by a witness to the event.
“The witness reported observing a confrontation involving several individuals, one of whom matched the description of Mr. Budna, who was subsequently placed into a dark-coloured SUV bearing a Belize City license plate,” the police added.
But a government statement said that Prime Minister Briceño had received the police report from Musa and “found the Report to be incomplete and, therefore, unsatisfactory.
Barrow, an attorney who served as the country’s fourth prime minister from 2008 to 2020, stated that what happened to Budna constitutes a blatant violation of the rule of law and questioned how the police can investigate themselves, especially when the Commissioner of Police is at the center of the controversy.
“What was done to Mr. Budna is a signal violation of the rule of law. The authorities are completely out of order, and this is something I am grateful for and happy to see that the Belizean public is condemning out of hand, as well they should. This is absolutely intolerable, it cannot be countenanced in a democracy,” Barrow told the Greater Belize Media (GBM) television news programme.
He said it cannot be allowed in a country where the rule of law is the “cornerstone of our democracy, the cornerstone of the fundamental rights to vindication and the observance of the basic rights of citizens.
“The notion that the Commissioner of Police is on leave, I imagine that’s paid leave,… and as I understand it, a [Deputy] Commissioner of Police has been charged with investigating the matter. There are so many things wrong with that that one doesn’t know where to start.
“How will the police, in this instance, investigate the police, and how will a junior officer investigate the Commissioner of Police, and that is what is involved. That’s number one. Number two: I don’t see how the government can imagine that it is okay to proceed with an investigation regarding the actions of the Commissioner of Police, suggesting, well, that’s where the buck stops.
“In my view, there’s a need for a far broader inquiry, a far broader exercise because five will get you ten. No Commissioner of Police will do what it is alleged that this Commissioner of Police has done without either instructions from the political directorate or without at least permission from the political directorate,” the 74-year-old Barrow said.
He said Belizeans deserve answers and is also casting doubt on claims that Prime Minister Briceño was entirely unaware of the situation.
“The inquiry, the investigation needs to also look for answers to the question that right-thinking Belizeans will be asking. Was there not some political involvement in this? Did not the ultimate instruction come from the political directorate?
“Or, did not at the very least the political directorate know what was happening, and did not the political directorate sanction what was happening? Those are the sorts of things that a proper inquiry, conducted by the right person, not a member of the Belize Police Department, would reveal. Those are the questions on which such an inquiry ought to focus,” Barrow said.
He said he finds it “hard to believe but I won’t say that it’s impossible. It may have taken a while to get up to speed, and he (Prime Minister Briceño) may well say that nobody, neither his minister nor the commissioner, acquainted him with what was happening.
“I find that difficult to accept, but I can’t say that it absolutely did not happen. The bottom line, though, is this: it’s not just a matter of a political convention, as it were or the convention having to do with the chief or the holder of the Office of the Prime Minister and the fact that it is a totally inflexible principle in the canons of our kind of parliamentary democracy where the prime minister is head of government. That, to put it in layman’s terms, the buck stops with the head of government.”
Barrow said that Prime Minister Briceño needs to explain why he wasn’t informed from the very start of the Budna abduction.
“Since the buck stops with the prime minister, since ultimately, he is the one who is politically and constitutionally responsible. He needs to explain to the people of Belize why he did not get up to speed until very late…
“And he also needs to make plain that he is not immune, that neither the prime minister nor any other minister of government or member of the political directorate can act with immunity, and he needs to assure the Belizean people that he had nothing to do with this.
“He needs to say that, he needs as well to tell the Belizean people, I won’t ask you just to take my word for it. There will be an independent investigation, which I am sure will conclude that, in fact, I, as Prime Minister, had nothing to do with it. Until that happens, I don’t see that the public will be satisfied,” Barrow told television viewers.
The government stated that the Acting Commissioner of Police has recommended that Deputy Commissioner of Police Suzette Anderson be assigned the responsibility of completing the police investigation into the Budna matter and submitting a comprehensive report by the end of this month.
“Once the Investigative Report is properly prepared and submitted, the Prime Minister, along with the Cabinet, will act swiftly on its recommendations,” it said.
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