In September, the Guatemalans disrespected Belizeans when their soldiers uprooted Belizean flags from the Sarstoon River island and took the flags to Guatemala City.
   
A few days ago, the Guatemalans again disrespected Belizeans when they described Belize’s recent approach to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to turn back Honduras’ claim to the Sapodilla Cayes as “deplorable.” “Deplorable,” because Guatemala says the Sapodilla Cayes are theirs, even though the cayes have never been recognized as such by the regional or international community. 
   
A few years ago, then Guatemalan president, Jimmy Morales, massed troops on Guatemala’s border with Belize because he claimed to believe that a Guatemalan youth trespassing in Belize had been murdered by Belizean soldiers. These were a frightening few days for Belizeans.
   
What we are about today is establishing a pattern, a pattern where the militarily superior Guatemalans speak and behave disrespectfully to Belizeans about our 8,867 square miles of Jewel.
   
Now Russia’s invasion of and war with Ukraine has proved that the technology of modern military equipment can enable a smaller, weaker nation to neutralize the size advantage of a larger one.
   
But in order for such modern military technology to have an effect, the smaller nation must have fighting morale, which Ukraine has demonstrated that it does. This is not the case with Belize, where most citizens, it seems to me, still have a mental dependency on the British where any Guatemalan emergency is concerned.
   
There is an old cliche which says that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Belizeans who have migrated to the United States believe they still have a vital stake in Belize, the nation-state. I agree, but successive Belizean governments have indicated that they do not hold the Belizean diaspora in high regard where the ICJ and the Belizean constitution are concerned. 
   
The new Belize government elected two years ago has done a lot of talking about changing “competencies” and other technical matters in education, but there has been almost nothing said by their spokesmen about African and Mayan history.
     
Well, the truth of the matter is that the Maya are the best jungle fighters in Belize’s little army, and the fearless Garifuna (of African origin) comprise probably the largest percentage of that army.
   
The truth about Maya history in this region is important if one wishes to expose the injustice and cruelty of the military/corporate oligarchy in Guatemala. There was a very bloody civil war fought in Guatemala between 1960 and 1996, and while there were ideological issues involved, the ethnic issue was large. Guatemala is a racist nation, and the large, probably majority, Maya population is considered and treated as inferior.
   
We come now, in this brief essay, to the so-called Creole population of Belize, a population which features many spokesmen who refuse to consider themselves African, as such. What is the reality? British pirates and business investors brought our African ancestors here in chains for a specific purpose from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries: our ancestors worked the forests here, the British made a lot of money, and our women and children had to dump our waste into open sewers in Belize Town.
   
There were rebellions by our ancestors in 1894, 1919, 1934, and 1950, and after we achieved self-government in 1964, we believed that we were about to inherit these 8,867 from the British enslavers and colonizers. In 1964, we Belizeans knew almost nothing about something called “corporations.” And we knew next to nothing about the international Cold War, a fight for ideological control of the post-colonial world.
   
The Creoles, by 1964, had developed a superiority complex with respect to the Maya and the Garinagu. This was a complex which was created and nurtured by the British. That is why I have said that you must read Peter Ashdown’s essay on “Creole Historiography” in order to understand what has gone on here since 1964.
   
I hope that Audrey Matura’s new organization will encourage discourse and debate about some of these issues which the academics controlled by the Roman and Anglican churches pretend do not exist. In a way, I don’t blame the present academics for being scared: the Roman and Anglican Churches are used to maintain European supremacy by the neoliberal corporations.
     
’Nuff said.