Guatemala City, May 15 (EFE).– The Guatemalan government on the weekend denounced what it said was a new incident of the “excessive use of force by the Belizean army” after the detention of three Guatemalans for illegal gold mining in an operation that resulted in one of the men being wounded.

In a brief communique released by the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry, the government rejected the official version of Belize, which says that the wounded Guatemalan advanced on a member of the security patrol “in an aggressive manner with a machete” and that, after firing a warning shot that was ignored, the security official shot the man in the leg in self defense.

“The Guatemalan government regrets and denounces before the international community a new incident of excessive use of force,” adding that the wounded Guatemalan could not have attacked a “heavily armed” security patrol with a machete.

The incident to which Guatemala referred occurred on Friday near the Chiquibula National Park, 8 km (5 mi.) east of the unmarked border in territory “administered by Belize.”

The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry said that diplomatic personnel are in the zone to clarify the incident, but he added that Belize will charge the detained men with “illegal entry to a forest preserve and illegal extraction of gold.”

Tensions increased in the relations between the two countries, which have maintained a border dispute for more than a century, in April after a 13-year-old boy was killed and two of his relatives were wounded by Belizean gunfire in the no-border zone. EFE