BELIZE CITY, Belize (23 Apr 2005) -- Throngs of students apparently fed up by disruption of Internet and phone service staged a demonstration that turned violent this week in this tiny Caribbean coast country. Police arrested more than 100 young people, mostly college and high school students, who were protesting a telecommunications strike that shut down telephone, fax and Internet services throughout Belize. Most of the 500 employees of Belize Telecommunications Limited, or BTL, have returned to work, but technicians have yet to restore all of the nation's fixed, cell and Internet services and police are still deployed there. The protest began as a peaceful sit-in by students on a bridge in the capital, Belize City; they defied police who tried to disperse the crowds. Additional protesters, most of them unemployed, inner-city youths, joined the demonstration and began lighting fires on the bridge. An angry mob headed to the downtown area and looted music shops and cellular phone stores. The rioting lasted more than two hours until a riot squad restored order. | | Police commissioner Gerald Westby said his forces initially exercised restraint because the protesters were mostly students, but his department will put down any acts of vandalism and deal with perpetrators. Prime Minister Said Musa appealed to Belizeans to remain calm during a news conference Thursday morning. He also blamed Dean Barrow, the leader of the opposition, for inciting civil disobedience. The BTL strike was designed to return the company, currently foreign-owned, to Belizean hands. BTL is caught up in a foreign tug-of-war between Carlisle Group, headquartered in Hertfordshire, England, and Innovative Communication Corporation, of Christiansted on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. SOURCE - CSI |
