“The end of Swiss bank accounts is coming – and soon. At least the end is coming for the storied secrecy of these accounts. The official end likely will come next month when the Swiss Parliament is expected to change the rules about secrecy.
“Ah, yes, secrecy … that was always the source of the appeal for wealthy dictators, industrialists, movie stars, Nazi thieves and others of notoriety and fame. And for untold numbers of lesser mortals, we’re learning.”
– pg. 11, Houston Chronicle editorial, Tuesday, May 18, 2010
When we elect our leaders in general elections every five years or so, we expect these electorally empowered Belizeans to look out for our humble interests at all material times. It really doesn’t work that way these days. In the time of Mr. Price, it seemed different. Whatever the criticisms having to do with Mr. Price’s policies and politics, we, the Belizean people, did not feel that our everyday way of life was endangered. That may have been, of course, because everything was slower those days.
So, what was our everyday way of life in the beginning of Mr. Price’s rule in the 1950s? In the capital city of Belize, our weekday lives revolved around the Central Market at the foot of the Swing Bridge, that was in the morning, and, later in the twilight hours, the two movie theatres – Palace and Majestic on Albert and Queen Streets, respectively. The activity at the Market began in the pre-dawn darkness and lasted until about maybe 10 a.m. or so. Our weekday night lives began with Palace and Majestic around 7:30, 8 p.m. and lasted until around midnight, and later.
If life was slow in the city then compared to these days, it was even slower in the towns and villages. They were cut off from the city because the roads were very difficult. It would take you six hours to drive from the city to San Ignacio or Corozal Town, and the ride was rough. Stann Creek Town involved the Hummingbird, and that was always a real adventure. Punta Gorda was so distant and troublesome to reach by road that most contact was by sea. You took the Heron H early in the morning and reached P.G. late in the evening.
The first threat to our way of life was the Guatemalan claim, and in this respect we became agitated by Mr. Price’s adventures and ambiguity. In the midst of that, we missed the first major attack on our way of life – the change of the school holidays from April, May and June to July, August and September. That took place in 1964 and went without a hitch. A few years before, oil companies had begun blowing up portions of our reef searching for petroleum, but these violations of our heritage were kept a secret. Only the rare, wandering fisherman intruded on the process of seismic dynamite.
The marijuana business and outboard motors really changed our way of life in the 1970s. The gangster life of weed cultivation and exportation began to be the thing, especially in the North, and outboard motors greatly speeded up previously somnolent life on the sea.
Television in the early 1980s affected our way of life, but more important were crack cocaine and gangs in the middle 1980s. Just as important, and simultaneous, was the opening up of the tourism, real estate and “economic citizenship” industries by the UDP government elected to power in 1984. The economic citizenship program, which is to say, the sale of Belizean passports to wealthy foreigners, had been on the PUP table before government changed in 1984. The UDP implemented that, sprayed the weed fields with paraquat, and then sold the Newtown Barracks. They got away with all of that because of the grace period they enjoyed. Belizeans had had enough of Mr. Price and wanted a change. That paradigm political change, coming as it did just three years after 1981’s political independence, went hand in hand with a change in our way of life.
Governments began to be changed, then, every five years, and there were a lot of new politicians coming to office who became dazzled at the opportunities for quick riches. We lost the country, Jack. Our politicians sold us out. Plain and simple. In all the real estate, passport, and banking transactions, our politicians were facilitated by the lawyers, a bunch of whom became multimillionaires in the process and took the money to overseas banks for safe keeping.
In the post-1984 era, the new politicians who were being shuffled in and out of office realized two things. They realized how small and defenceless Belize really was on the regional stage, and they realized how rich Belize was in raw, natural resources. Our new politicians found themselves having to bow and scrape in front of the relevant members of the shadowy “diplomatic corps” – Washington, London, Mexico City, Guatemala City, Havana, Taipei, and so on. Belize was a proposition which depended on the goodwill of “friends.” Humbled by the geopolitical and military realities, our leaders had to make a decision: would they take the real time to develop Belize’s natural resources in partnership with the people of Belize, or would they, in cyber time, sell off the natural resources and fatten their personal bank accounts for life ever after. You and I know what happened. Our political leaders decided to fatten their personal accounts, and justify their perfidy by the need to sprinkle crumbs amongst their cronies and constituents for re-election purposes.
Except for 2003, however, that re-election plan never worked. The reason was that the Belizean people were keenly aware of the individual and Cabinet greed of their leaders, and we removed them every chance we got. But, not much changed, overall, when we changed the faces. The foreign governments here were too influential, and the deals were too tempting. The politicians said one thing when they were campaigning, but when they came to office they began to grab. It never failed.
The one administration we gave a second chance in 2003, the same administration responsible for gambling casinos, uncontrolled Ashcroft, and wild tourism, was kicked out five years later. They appeared to accept their fate philosophically, resigning and all that, but now they actually want to come back. Would you believe? They know about the sugar in Belmopan, trust me, and simply cannot bear to think that someone else is fattening the personals.
Remember now, that these things I feel are not so important any more. I am an old man who loved the reef and the sea and the Lakota Sioux vision of life. I loved sailboats and moonlight and them things. But, the real question today is how the younger Belizeans think, and where they want to go. The rulers will never return the holidays to April and May. The foreigners will never sell us back the land we sold them. Strangers we don’t even know from places we’ve never seen now own Belizean passports. The old way of life is gone. The question is, just what exactly is the new one? I’d really like to know.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.