About a week or two ago, I read a story on the published version of CNN News about a Guatemalan man gaining entry into the United States by hiding in the landing gear of an airplane flying from Guatemala to the United States.

It is very, very cold 30,000 and 40,000 feet up in the sky. Thing is, the flying would last only two or three hours, but that Guatemalan must have been one tough, determined hombre.

I am willing to bet that he will be given asylum in America. I have not heard anything more about the Guatemalan, but, from what I know of America after spending three years there in the Sixties, I am willing to bet that some private citizen in the United States will feel compassion for his plight and make a place for him, so to speak. Americans will admire him for his courage. Well, maybe not the Donald.

Around the same time this happened, I wrote about four Belizean youth who used to cross the border into Honduras and Mexico during colonial days in the 1940’s. What I didn’t tell you was that my sources had told me they made stowaway trips to the United States on banana boats heading out of Honduras to the U.S. I don’t have details, but I know that Rogers, Cain, and Justice were very strong, very physical. “Tata Tiddle” Smith was a slim, light-skinned youth, but very bold and macho.

Anyhow, thinking about the Guatemalan, and Justice and his friends, I remembered a story wherein Belizean immigration officials treated three Haitian children in as brutal and inhumane a way as anyone could visualize.

The thing is, the Minister of Immigration in November of 2001 was a black Belizean, and in matters like these the rule is that such a case would have been placed on the Minister’s desk for his judgment and decision. But this story was never really investigated to that level, and then the story died a death that I believe was a sort of journalism homicide.

The Haitian children, two fourteen years old, and one just twelve, had hidden in the back of a ship somewhat ironically named GUATEMALA, for four days without food and exposed to the elements on a small ledge just above the ship’s rudder, “clinging for dear life,” as Janelle Chanona told Belizeans in a November 22, 2001 story on Channel 5.

When I remembered the story earlier this week, I had asked a couple of my associates about it. One did not remember. The other remembered the outline of the story, but had no details. It was the former editor-in-chief of our newspaper, Russell Vellos, who did the computer research and sent me the stats. I am seriously grateful to Russ, because I would never have been able to find the story on my own. It’s more than twenty years ago. Belize was cold and heartless.

Milton Cherrington, a Security Supervisor at Port Authority, told Janelle that the children had jumped aboard a BEC Company barge being unloaded from the ship GUATEMALA. They spent several hours cooped up in a tiny barge manhole where they were found later by dock workers.

Cherrington said they gave the children food and clothes, but only had them for half an hour before Belize immigration officials arrived and started to question them: David Saint, 12; Gregory Francois, 14; and Walner Philippe, 14. Where are they now, Rasta?

Just an hour after they were brought to the port compound, the immigration officials put them on a tugboat and sent them back to the ship. Janelle reported that she was informed that as soon as the ship was unloaded and received her cargo, the GUATEMALA would head back out to sea en route to Haiti.

There are so many people in Belize who claim that they are Christians. My knowledge of Christianity leaves me with the impression that true Christianity’s greatest characteristic is compassion for one’s fellow human beings. But such an incident as the one I have recounted about the three Haitian children tells me that this Belize is not a Christian country.

The matter of race would be something else, and I would have to talk about that another time. l have said this before, and I will say it again. We Belizeans were blessed with the opportunity to travel to the United States by land, unlike the case with the British Caribbean islands. In addition, for decades American immigration officials did not know that there was a Central American country (Belize) with predominantly black people who spoke English. So, once Belizeans reached the border, the American immigration officials thought we were African Americans.

Working class people all over the world have dreamed about going to America. Or, in the case of Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall, “Coming to America.” (Smile.) We Belizeans had the opportunity to make it to America relatively easily, especially after Hurricane Hattie in 1961. So that’s what we did. In a sense, we gave up Belize. Other people have taken it over, and it appears that there is no turning back now. This is a different Belize from the one I returned to in 1968. Let it be.