Our once peaceful, paradise has now become the Country with the world’s highest murder rate per capita.  The types of gruesome, cold murders and the frequency are only becoming worst.

This while Belize is currently one of the few Countries to still have the death penalty by hanging, in our constitution.

 While no executions have been carried out since 1985, Belize continues to support capital punishment.  Belize has voted against all four U.N. General Assembly resolutions for a global moratorium on executions, most recently in 2012.

According to the Cornell centre for Death Penalty Worldwide,

Belize’s Crimes Punishable by Death are the following:

“Aggravated Murder.
The law defines “Class A murders” as murders committed in the course of or in furtherance of theft, murders by shooting or explosion, murder committed in the course of resisting arrest or escaping prison, murder of a police or prison officer, and any murder “related to illegal drugs or criminal gang activity.” [1] All murders, defined as intentionally causing the death of another person by unlawful harm, [2] are punishable by death. [3]

Murder.
Any murder which a Class A murder is not is defined as a Class B murder, and includes murder committed without aggravating circumstances. [4] All murders, defined as intentionally causing the death of another person by unlawful harm, [5] are punishable by death. [6] Where a member of the military commits the civil offense of murder outside Belize and is convicted by a court martial, he is liable to suffer death. [7]

Treason.
Where a member of the military commits the civil offense of treason outside Belize and is convicted by a court martial, he is liable to suffer death. [8] Members of the military may also be sentenced to death for a number of treasonous offenses committed while carrying out their military duties (see section on Military Offenses Not Involving Death).”

Lets keep in mind here that Treason , according to Cambridge definition, is (the crime of) showing no loyalty to your country, especially by helping its enemies or trying to defeat its government

And while the United states and other world powers try to bully us into their “human rights “agenda…Their very own New York times has followed studies conducted on this very topic and According to roughly a dozen of those  studies, executions save lives. For each murderer put to death, the studies tell us that, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.

The results were better monitored, in Texas and other states that execute condemned criminals quite often and relatively quickly.

The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time; and they say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise.

Now, the mere fact that the United States can do these studies tell us that they are performing executions to protect the majority of their citizens… they were allowed by the world to executed Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq . The united states even  put themselves at odds with signatory countries to the European Convention on Human Rights,  and other international treaties that prohibit the death penalty and the extradition of suspects to countries where capital punishment may be carried out. Still this did not stop the “great defender of Human rights”. What rights would they have then to try to discourage Belize from protecting our law abiding citizens by practicing the very laws in our very own constitution?

According to the US Embassy   These are our murder rates …because of these they put up travel advisories against traveling to Belize , hampering the backbone of Belize’s economy. 

Murder
2015	2016	2017
Belize	66	70	82
Cayo	27	34	28
Orange Walk	7	11	9
Stann Creek	8	11	12
Corozal	6	7	8
Toledo	5	5	3
Total	119	138	142

As a Nation, there are very tough decisions we must make and the death penalty must be high on our list of priorities. We simply must understand that we either want to protect the lives of criminals or the lives of the hard-working tax paying citizens of our country. We can not do both…It has not worked and the longer we wait to make these tough calls the deeper into the darkness our country falls.

If we continue to protect the lives & freedoms of murderers, rapists, burglars, thieves , and criminal minds; then we fail to protect innocent lives.

These murders and criminals have become a nuisance to our society .

How many more young lives will we loose , how many mother wont get to say goodbye, how many innocent children will be robbed off their innocence? How much more will our people take before we realize that it is our country we need to take back.

The wheels are in motion. We must push forward ! we must unite , break the chains of corruption and build our nation the way it should be built. We make a few examples of criminals before things can fall into place.

For most of us, Belize is all we have. There is no escape for us, we cannot just fly away. We must stand united for the future generation  and for our peace.