A few months ago in this column, I mentioned a couple young brothers who’d stood for UBAD in 1969 and 1970 before they migrated to the States. One of my friends in L.A. e-mailed me to the effect that one of those brothers was a distant relative of his, and that the gentleman was puzzled that I’d remembered him.
Well, to quote Runyon, a story goes with it. When Shabazz and I were on trial for sedition in July of 1970, the Special Branch photographer was Maxwell Samuels. Yes, one and the same. The photographic equipment he was using, turned night into day where his pictures were concerned. A year or two later, for whatever the reason, Max Samuels gave me a couple of the pictures he’d taken sedition night.
In one of those photos, there’s a crowd of ecstatic UBAD supporters after we had been acquitted about 7:30 the night. You always remember people who were there for you when you were in trouble. At least, you should. The brother who is “puzzled,” was there for me. I’ll never forget.
Come to think of it, on Friday afternoon while driving along North Front Street, I saw this senior guy walking what would have been his grandchild. I said to my driver (at the time Cardinal “Wiley” Usher), that guy was the foreman of the jury when I was tried for sedition in Supreme Court.
More than that, since we were moving slowly in traffic, I rolled down the passenger window and said like this. Moises Saldivar? He turned and smiled. “You were the foreman when I was tried. I’m glad you ruled not guilty.”
Back to Max Samuels. As a result of that incident where he’d given me the photos, I never thought of him as hostile to me. Special Branch is the most secretive organization in Belize. They are the spies, the secret intelligence service of Belize. Just on the mere face of it, Samuels was in violation of Branch regulations to let me have a couple of his photographs. That is, unless there was a plan higher up for me to consider him a friend. You always have to be looking at things from different levels once you are considered a “security risk,” as I was(?) for many years.
Now check this out. When Belize became self-governing in 964, we already had native Belizeans as heads of government departments, except for the Police. The Commissioner of Police was always a British expatriate, until 1969, when the first Belizean ComPol, Arthur Adolphus, was appointed.
My question always was, just when exactly did Special Branch stop working for the British and begin working for George Price’s PUP? Again, what happened to all the photos, documents, files and other intelligence material which related to the PUP leaders and followers, when the PUP, who had been the target of the Branch spies, became the people to whom the spies were to report?
Similarly, in 1984 when the PUP were removed from office for the first time since self-government, what did Special Branch do with the twenty years of material they had gathered on the NIP, the UBAD, the UDP, etc., in the service of Mr. Price, Mr. Rogers and the PUP? The Branch had to do the same thing in 1989 (PUP replaced UDP); in 1993 (UDP replaced PUP); in 1998 (PUP replaced UDP); and 2008 (UDP replaced PUP).
For sure there was one set of files that could remain in place all through the years – the Evan X Hyde, Rufus X and other UBAD files. PUP or UDP government, they all wished to keep tabs on Partridge Street.
Now then, around 1982 Maxwell Samuels became Commissioner of Police. The position was, to a certain extent, his reward for loyalty to the PUP during the Heads of Agreement uprisings in 1981.
The indictment of Belize Police Superintendent Vallan Gillett in a Florida court in May of 1983 on cocaine smuggling charges, suggested that there was a disconnect between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), even though both are arms of the government of the United States. The relevant cocaine moving through Belize in its way north from the south was a CIA operation. But the DEA obviously didn’t know. Hence, the Gillett indictment. (If the CIA is upset by this statement, they can say it was “rogue” CIA. Whatever, whatever.)
Today, we know that there is a division in the police between those who are loyal to Washington and those who are loyal to other people. The same thing is true in the military. In the old days, they would charge one for sedition (or something) for saying this. In the streets, we know these things to be facts, but you can’t prove them in court.
A lot of things were happening between 1981 and 1984 in Belize. A ranking member of Prime Minister George Price’s Freetown constituency committee was a big time drug trafficker. But very, very few people knew this. When a Mexican magazine published a story linking a Mexican drug trafficker slain in Texas to the Price government, a reprinting of that article cost this newspaper a lot of money in the Supreme Court of Belize. I was railroaded. The individual on Mr. Price’s Freetown committee ended up spending the rest of his life in Chetumal. He had to run from the law here because of a gruesome murder in the Benque area.
Some other time, we’ll talk some more. Inshallah.
Power to the people.