In this photograph taken in the then United Democratic Party (UDP) office on King Street (next to the Playboy Club), the late Dr. Theodore “Ted” Aranda is at the head of the table, chairing a meeting of UDP leaders.
From the left are the late Sam Rhaburn, the late Curl Thompson, possibly Hubert Elrington, the late Dr. Manuel Esquivel, Dr. Aranda, Henry Young, the late Derek Aikman, and the late San Perdomo.
This photo would have been taken sometime between 1980 and 1982. The man who would become UDP leader following the 1998 general election, Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, was then an attorney and man-about-town working out of his uncle’s (Dean Lindo) Church Street law firm. He would enter electoral politics in time for the December 1983 Belize City Council election, His timing, in retrospect, was impeccable. So Mr. Barrow is not in this photo. Neither is Hon. Michael Finnegan, who was the boss of the UDP’s Youth Patriotic Front (YPF) and a powerhouse in the UDP, but an absolute Dean Lindo loyalist still at the time of this photo.
It has often been said before in UDP circles that Dr. Aranda’s problem during his leadership of the UDP between 1980 and 1982 was that he attempted to lead the UDP from Dangriga, an opinion I heard repeated by Hon. Finnegan on Channel 7 on Monday.
While it appeared to me, as publisher/editor of this newspaper in late 1982, that Dr. Aranda was forced out of UDP leadership, Dr. Aranda himself insisted to me that he had resigned from UDP leadership of his own accord.
Having resigned as UDP leader in late 1982, Dr. Aranda formed his own party, the Christian Democratic Party (CDP), in 1983 I presume.
Esquivel, Lindo, and Hon. Philip Goldson ran for the leadership of the UDP in early 1983. Esquivel won; Dean Lindo became UDP chairman. Then in December of 1983, Dr. Esquivel led the UDP to a landslide victory over the ruling People’s United Party (PUP) in a Belize City Council election.
In early 1984, March or April, there was a bye-election held in Dangriga for two seats which had been vacated on the Dangriga Town Board. I was campaigning hard for the UDP at the time, for my personal reasons, and travelled to Dangriga to support the party.
As soon as I reached Dangriga, I went to the club run by the late Paul Guerrero, my compadre, and his wife, the late, stylish Din Din. This club was at the very entrance of the town, at the southwestern side.
In the club, I met and began to socialize with the attorney Simeon Sampson, who seemed to me to be the de facto leader of the PUP’s bye-election campaign. Simeon said like this to me, “We don’t have to campaign: Dr. Aranda will ruin the UDP.” And so it was. The UDP was defeated in Dangriga just months after smashing the PUP in Belize City.
Dr. Aranda was a very private man. He returned to Belize in 1969 or 1970 as a high official in an agency of the United States, possibly the Peace Corps. I did not know of any of us Belizeans who had earned a Ph. D. at the time. This was a man who, in effect, was a pioneer. To be appointed to such a high post in an American agency meant that he had cleared American security requirements. I had never heard of him. Where had he come from, and how had he succeeded so brilliantly?
Whatever the case, the media here is saying that he joined the UDP in 1974. The UDP’s Dangriga candidate in the October 1974 general election was the said Paul “Pags” Guerrero. Pags won the seat, the first time the PUP had been defeated in the constituency, and then at some point afterwards graciously turned over the constituency to Dr. Aranda, in time for Dr. Aranda to win the Dangriga seat for the UDP in the 1979 general election, an election the UDP was expected to win but lost dramatically.
Of the UDP’s five 1979 seats, two were from Toledo (Charles Wagner and Basilio Ah), two from Belize City (Goldson and Thompson), and the aforementioned Dangriga seat. The three district area representatives voted for Dr. Aranda to become UDP Leader and Leader of the Opposition.
Dr. Aranda joined the PUP, which had lost the 1984 general election, in time to run as the PUP’s Dangriga candidate in the September 1989 general election, which the PUP won narrowly. Dr. Aranda became Minister of Health in the 1989-1993 PUP Cabinet.
But the PUP lost the June 1993 general election, with Dr. Aranda being defeated by the UDP’s Russell “Chiste” Garcia.
In 1998, Dr. Aranda reclaimed the Dangriga seat for the PUP, which won a landslide victory in the 1998 general election. But Dr. Aranda was not a stooge, and a major problem developed between himself and the two PUP powerhouses, Prime Minister Said Musa and Finance Minister Ralph Fonseca. I do not know the details of that rift. In fact, it is a complete mystery to me.
Lady Sylvia Flores became the PUP’s Dangriga candidate for the March 2003 general election. Visiting Dangriga for a University of Belize ceremony in January of 2003, I was apprised of the state of the PUP’s political situation by Garrincha Adderly. He said that Lady Sylvia would likely lose to the UDP’s Chiste if Dr. Aranda did not endorse her. Since I was supporting the PUP, I went to Dr. Aranda and asked him to support Lady Sylvia, which he did. Lady Sylvia won, and Dr. Aranda and I began to discuss the idea of a Black Summit, something I had been thinking about for ten years.
So Dr. Ted Aranda and I became allies, and his World Garifuna Organization (WGO) and the UBAD Educational Foundation (UEF) held a successful Black Summit in September of 2003 at the Belize Biltmore Hotel. The summit would never have taken place without Dr. Aranda.
In February of 2017, when the iconic artist Pen Cayetano organized a tribute to myself in Dangriga, Dr. Aranda was a featured speaker.
We never became close, because, as I said, he was a private man. But, for sure, Dr. Aranda was a special Belizean, and I honor him at this time of his passing. I express my deepest condolences to his widow, his family, his friends, and his admirers.
