It must be a hell of a time to be a police officer in Belize. In the first place, one is trying to enforce the law in a country which has lost its sense of community values, its morality and its self-control over the last 35 years.
Secondly, one is being brave in the apprehension of criminals who later enjoy an extremely high acquittal rate, in large part because our lawyers are often unscrupulous, the people on the bench are sometimes bunglers, and the prosecutors are usually less competent and less motivated than the defence counsel.
In the third place, it has become routine over the last 35 years for ruling politicians and their cronies to interfere in police investigations and other procedural matters.
Fourth, the citizens of Belize have become cynical and cowardly, and they refuse to assist investigations or to testify in the courts. Witnesses who are not cynical or cowardly are frequently killed.
In the fifth place, the Police Department has been divided for 35 years by the issue of drugs – first marijuana, now cocaine and pseudoephedrine. Some police officers support Washington, and American efforts to interdict drug shipments into the United States, which is the largest market for illegal drugs on planet earth. Other police officers, on the other hand, have succumbed to the lavish financial blandishments of the drug traffickers who supply the lucrative American narcotics market. There is this chronic tension amongst police officers because of the division in their ranks.
In the sixth instance, the Minister of National Security is not a charismatic leader. Others are more unkind than we are. Suffice to say that Mr. Perdomo does not appear to be getting the job done.
Seventh and finally, the police brass manifested more confusion between Holy Thursday last week and Tuesday this week than we have ever seen. It appears that amidst the institutional depression at the top, the police stumbled on to something between last week Wednesday night and Holy Thursday morning. In their excitement, they may have tied some loose ends together in too much of a rush. The Minister of National Security was out of the country. But the Hon. Prime Minister was available, and he bit on the bait, so to speak, agreeing to sit with the police brass at a press conference hastily announced for 11 o’clock Holy Thursday morning.
To understand what followed, you have to understand what Easter is in Belize. It’s very, very big. It is the largest of all weekends – from Good Friday to Easter Monday. Easter in Belize is a holiday, a family party and a national tradition. In the old days, most excursions had to wait until government offices closed at 4 p.m. on Holy Thursday. Today, people get out of here early on Thursday. It’s a mad rush.
The Commissioner of Police and the Prime Minister were truly relieved to have the opportunity to give the Belizean people good news on Holy Thursday morning. The good news “made” the cops’ and the government’s Easter, and they believed it would “make” our Easter too. They had broken a ring of corrupt cops, and they made the strong suggestion that these guys were responsible for some recent big-time armed robberies, like Social Security Belize City, Scotiabank Spanish Lookout, and Courts Belize City. The biggest of these was the Scotiabank job, which fell within the jurisdiction of Senior Superintendent Paul Wade, officer-in-charge of the Cayo District. Wade, hot on the trail of the culprits, some of whom had fled to Guatemala, apparently was not made aware(?) of the complicated press conference drama unfolding Thursday in Belize City on Racoon Street. When KREM Radio got a chance to talk to him Tuesday morning this week, after he had made major headway in tracking down the suspects, he declared that no policemen were involved in the Scotiabank job. Later, in the Tuesday evening television news, Fitzroy Yearwood, the Acting Police Press Officer, concurred. Wednesday, April 7, 2010, was therefore confusion in the Police Department. Thursday, April 1, 2010 had been consternation. When consternation and confusion try to make music together, the result is cacophony – pure and simple.
The societal destabilization in Belize over the last 35 years is largely a result of the huge sums of money involved with the narcotrafficking processes. If you look at what has been happening in Mexico, you get a sense of how really bad it can get where the corruption of the security forces by narcotraffickers is concerned. So, things can become worse in Belize.
Now then, how can things get better? Here’s one suggestion. At this newspaper, we believe that our citizens have to take a serious look at ourselves, and ask ourselves if we are a part of the solution or a part of the problem where narcotrafficking is concerned. We do not think the masses of the Belizean people understand the sometimes hidden costs of embracing narcotrafficking as a way of life. We Belizeans have a laissez-faire attitude towards narcotrafficking. That is because we like money, and we do not appreciate the socio-economic costs of the corruption of our security forces, drug addiction, narcotics-related crime, gang violence, and the other heavy negatives which accompany narcotrafficking.
It is not that we want to isolate and avoid narcotrafficking in order to assist Washington. No, we want to isolate and avoid narcotrafficking in order to save Belize, in order to uplift Belize. It’s a hard decision for Belizeans to make, to turn away from narcotrafficking, because the money is big and the money is fast. Until we Belizeans make that hard decision to isolate and avoid narcotrafficking, however, we can’t begin to clean up Belize. Only the people save the people.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle!