If you examine the period in British Honduras between 1964 and 1979 carefully, you may come to understand why an old timer like myself would be so intrigued by the recently revealed FBI files of January 1968 concerning the Hon. Philip Goldson. These papers bring the British intelligence group, MI-6, into play where the British Honduras Governor in 1968, Sir John Paul, is being quoted.
When British Honduras became a self-governing colony in 1964, there were people in the leadership of the ruling People’s United Party (PUP) who believed that we would be moving forward to political independence in a few years time. The PUP, led by Hon. George Price, was very, very popular and powerful in 1964, but the Belize Estate and Produce Company (BEC), the British mahogany/chicle/real estate conglomerate which had controlled the settlement/colony for more than a century, was still a major player here. It was believed that BEC had financed the pro-colonial National Party (NP) in 1951, and that it was supporting the National Independence Party (NIP), established in 1958, which was Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, led by Hon. Goldson, when self-government was introduced.
In Washington, which had become interested in Belize with our move to self-government, the primary concern of American foreign policy experts in this region of Central America would have been the violent turbulence in Guatemala. Some scholars say that the Guatemalan civil war, which did not end until 1996, began in 1960 with Marco Yon Sosa and Luis Turcios Lima, rebellious Guatemalan army officers, but other scholars have pointed to 1966 as the beginning of the civil war. Whatever the case, in 1964 Guatemala was in turmoil because President Ydigoras Fuentes had been overthrown by a military coup the previous year – 1963.
In the larger region of Central America and the Caribbean, the Americans were focused on Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba, which was like a proxy state of the Soviet Union in 1964, and which had been the cause of near nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union in October of 1962. It was for sure that revolutionary Cuba was having an influence on the various leaderships of the oppressed Guatemalan masses, and the Americans would have been worried about material Cuban support for Guatemalan rebels in the Petén entering and passing through British Honduras.
It may be safe to say that what significance little Belize had for the mighty United States was as a result of our strategic location between Guatemala and Cuba. In 1964, the so-called Cold War between America and Russia for world hegemony was a really big deal, and Guatemala was American, with Cuba being Russian. So then, where was The Jewel headed?
In June of 1965, the British and the Guatemalans agreed to a settlement of the Belize question to be mediated by the United States. The representatives of the PUP government and Mr. Goldson, representing the Opposition NIP, were sworn to secrecy when the talks began in 1966. I guess the Belizeans were mere “observers.” (I always thought the 1966 talks were in Washington, but Mr. Compton Fairweather says it was London.) The thrust of the proposals by attorney Bethuel Webster, the American mediator, so alarmed Mr. Goldson that he flew home and held an emergency public meeting in Belize City to inform the Belizean public. What Mr. Goldson remembered of Webster’s proposals in 1966 became known as the Thirteen Proposals. They sparked violence in the streets of the old capital.
The political upheaval in Belize was such that when Webster finally released his proposals officially, the Seventeen Proposals, in April of 1968, the ruling PUP had no choice but to reject them. Independence for Belize went on indefinite hold, because the Americans wanted Belize to become a satellite state of Guatemala’s, and Philip Goldson became persona non grata in Washington and London, if we are to believe the aforementioned FBI papers. The FBI papers of 1968 are saying, for what they are worth, that Mr. Goldson’s loss of favor in American foreign policy circles would have been because of his alleged relationship with the Cubans.
In Belize, no one knew of the FBI papers fifty years ago. All we knew was that Mr. Goldson, a full-fledged national hero, with that status having been confirmed and enhanced by the official release of the Seventeen Proposals in 1968, was challenged for NIP leadership in 1969. It was unbelievable: he was suddenly being attacked in the party he had founded, in coalition with the NP, in 1958. By December of 1971, when Mr. Philip had desperately led the NIP into a Belize City Council election coalition with the young, politically inexperienced UBAD Party, Mr. Goldson’s career as Maximum Leader of the Opposition, it is incontrovertibly clear in retrospect, was over.
Yet, Mr. Goldson was so popular amongst Belizeans that his removal as Maximum Leader could not be processed through a democratic convention. The formation of the new United Democratic Party (UDP) in September of 1973 took place behind closed doors while Mr. Philip was studying law in London.
The new UDP was flush with cash and solidly organized when Mr. Goldson returned from London in mid-1974. I remember the UDP was so “high tech” that their signs and banners in the streets were iridescent: they glowed in the dark. Their performance in the November 1974 general election was the Opposition’s best ever: 6 seats out of 18, and within 17 votes of winning 3 more seats and throwing the House of Representatives into deadlock! That performance enabled the UDP’s power brokers to publicly declare attorney Dean Lindo the new Leader of the Opposition. (There was no convention.)
By now, Mr. Price, who had been totally compliant with all things American during the early and middle 1960s, had begun to move in a socialist direction. And UDP momentum, financed by business and political sources in the United States, soon reached such a level that it was widely expected that they would topple the PUP in the 1979 general election. But, so confident were the UDP leaders that talk began about replacing Lindo, who had been smeared with the Jim Jones scandal in Guyana in early 1979. Those in the UDP who released the “someone-else-except-Lindo” trial balloon came primarily from the Liberal Party, which had been the weakest but best financed of the three parties which formed the UDP in 1973. I know whereof I speak.
Because of the UDP power struggle behind closed doors, Mr. Price survived the 1979 general election and led Belize to independence, with big time Cuban support, in September of 1981. The question is, what would have happened if the UDP had won the 1979 general election, as they were expected to do?
Whenever I consult with Clinton Canul Luna, I find his opinions and analyses to be consistent. His position is always that the Americans own and control Belize. I do not believe, however, that that was the case, if only briefly and temporarily so, when Mr. Price led Belize to independence. I believe that between 1979 and 1981, Belize was in a state of revolutionary nationalism. For sure if the UDP had won in 1979, Belize would have become like Guatemala, a total ally of Washington’s. Perhaps we would have been better off financially in the macro statistical sense. Who knows?
I believe this, though, that there is a price a people must pay for national dignity. And between 1979 and 1981, the Belizean people were willing to pay that price. The point I want to make, above all, is that Mr. Philip Goldson was always, from beginning to end, a brave and unflinching Belizean patriot. Whether the FBI (and MI-6) allegations are true or not, these allegations explain, at least to me, why certain things took place in the Opposition between 1969 and 1973.
Washington’s position was clear: political independence for Belize, but as a Guatemalan satellite state. Mr. Goldson would have died rather than submit to such a condition. The indications are, however, that there were other people in Opposition circles who were ready and willing to fiddle and diddle with the Americans. Mr. Goldson was not. And, as history shows, neither was Mr. Price. So that, these are our Belizean national heroes. And they both died without material wealth. We with eyes to see, we see.
Power to the people.