The late Dr. Leroy Taegar’s opinion was that the reason that poor people (East Indians, Creoles, Garinagu, etc.) had been able to inhabit the waterfront lands in Belize and Honduras for so long was because the big money did not know how to build hurricane-resistant structures for all those years. When the oligarchy could build massive, powerful structures on the prime real estate on the waterfront, they were moving the poor off these lands, because the waterfront real estate had shot up in value.  

    I regret that the conversation was a brief one insofar as that particular topic was concerned. Taegar and I moved on to other things. So that, for instance, I have no idea when precisely the oligarchy, both domestic, American, and otherwise, began buying out the waterfront, from Belize to Honduras.

     We know that resistance by the Garifuna people to these oligarchical incursions has been met with deadly violence in Honduras. Garifuna leaders have disappeared and have not been heard of since. 

    In the case of Belize, a Garifuna friend of mine, as long ago as the turn of the century, took me on a ride south of Hopkins. For miles and miles the waterfront had been taken over by strangers and the oligarchy. The result was that Hopkins would not be able to expand south.     

    Our newspaper editor published a fascinating post in last week’s edition from a Belizean lady who lives in St. Louis. She was explaining how the big people devalue specific real estate with nefarious initiatives, such as guns and drugs and gangs, so that they can buy cheap and then “gentrify” the area. 

    Two or three decades ago, the late Galento X Neal, who had migrated to New York City in the early 1970s before returning home two or three decades ago, tried to explain to me how Harlem had been “gentrified” and grabbed up by high-flying white people. (“Gentrification” was a concept new to me.) Remember, historically Harlem had been the depressed home of Afro-Americans who lived in the Manhattan borough of New York City. (New York City has five boroughs — Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island.) 

    Next to Harlem, Brooklyn was, it seemed to me, the next “blackest” area of New York, but Brooklyn was more middle-class than Harlem, which was definitely roots until Whitey decided he wanted it, or wanted it back. Whatever. 

    Where am I going with this? Before Hopkins experienced bloody disaster a week and a half ago, the Southside real estate of Belize City had been in the process of being devalued for more than three decades. As the St. Louis lady described in her post, which was with reference to the Hopkins incident, somebody orchestrated the flooding of the Southside with guns, drugs, and gangs. Somebody wants the Southside real estate, but they want it cheap. Somebody wants to “gentrify.”

    If you ever talk to Clinton Canul Luna, he will describe watching a similar process in an area south of Acapulco (Mexico). Luna had been sent as a child to Acapulco, a famous tourist destination, by his mother to live and work after Hurricane Janet destroyed Corozal Town in 1955. Luna learned so much he ended up managing high- class hotels and later became active in trade union activities before returning to Belize in the early 1990s.

    We’ll be promised jobs and development on the Southside. This is always the bait. But the jobs and development are bogus. Our people will just become third millennium slaves. The gentrification of the Southside will destroy all the dreams our grandparents and great grandparents had cherished when they began fighting for self-rule in 1950.

     Mr. Price did not like the tourism concept. Neither do I. But Mr. Price is dead, and I consider myself an anachronism. Hence, we are both irrelevant. The people who are relevant are all those Belizeans who have achieved success in the American diaspora and dream of returning home to retire in the Belize they remember with love and nostalgia. But there’s a problem. The Belizean diaspora is not organized, and the oligarchies in Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize are.

    You need to study the shadowy oligarchy in the south of Belize. After that, you can mix in Amnesty and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arbitration. For me, these things add up to a Belize which will be different from the one my generation knew. 

    You may notice, readers, that my writing is not really passionate . I would view this column only as an attempt to record some aspects of our history over the last century, with my focus being on my disappointment with the futility which always seems to accompany recent diaspora efforts to be active in The Jewel.   

    (As somewhat of an aside, when Samuel Haynes, Jr., visited Belize a couple years ago and was interviewed by Nuri Muhammad on KREM Radio/TV, I spoke to him afterwards and asked him if  it was true that his famous father did not fly in airplanes. He said that, to the best of his knowledge, his dad had never flown in an airplane.) 

    I met the late Samuel Haynes, Sr., in 1965 at a meeting held by Hon. Philip Goldson at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. I was 18 years old and knew nothing about the 1919 Ex-Servicemen’s uprising or Mr. Haynes’ famous career. As the years went by (Mr. Haynes, Sr., died in 1971), it seemed to me that the late Compton Fairweather, chairman of the British Honduras Freedom Committee, was giving a lot of credit for the formation of the Freedom Committee to Mr. Haynes. 

    Back in those days, New York City was the leader of Belize’s diaspora population. Today, that leadership role belongs to the Los Angeles diaspora community, but they have not been able to achieve the cohesion and strength which the Freedom Committee had.

    It may be a reach to say that the Freedom Committee saved Belize from Guatemala. We do know that the Freedom Committee was able to bring pressure on Great Britain, which wanted to sell us out. Today, it is the United States which is selling us out. Only the Los Angeles diaspora can organize Belize people abroad in time to neutralize some of the sellout initiatives I believe I see taking place. For what it’s worth, that is my thesis today — Wednesday, August 10, 2022.