Belize’s population center, Belize City, is still in shock following the Ramnarace execution murders on New Year’s Eve in Belmopan, our capital city. But it is safe to say that the shock must be much worse in Belmopan, because their residents are so completely not used to this type of violence.

Belmopan was a city built following Hurricane Hattie’s massive destruction of Belize City, the old capital, in October of 1961. The new capital was opened for business in August of 1970, and the vast majority of public officers had to move there to work. Many commuted back to Belize City every evening, but slowly the new capital grew. My parents moved there to live (my father was a government head of department) with four of my younger siblings — Christine, Colin, Francine, and Ronald.

I never liked the place, because it was so respectable and well-behaved. Although I come from a middle-class Belize City family, I was raised right across from Bolton Bridge (corner Regent Street West and West Canal), and from Rick’s Bar and Rick’s Club (downstairs and upstairs in a wooden building which used to be the office of the wealthy, legendary mahogany contractor, Ben Stuart.)

There was a bunch of sinful activities going on at Rick’s Bar and Rick’s Club every day, and the atmosphere was exciting. In Belmopan, if you wanted to party, to gamble, or smoke reefer, you had to go across the river to Roaring Creek. Belmopan was super clean and completely without sin, except behind closed doors, some rumors said.

Whatever the case, my parents moved back to Belize City in 1978 when my dad retired from the government service, and then they sold their Belmopan home. My first cousin, Lewis “Buck” Belisle, Jr., married a Belmopan lady and made his life there. Tragedy struck the couple when their daughter, Vivian, was gunned down by a hit man with her husband and her brother-in-law. Belmopan, to repeat, was totally shocked.

When I began thinking about this column, my intention was to note the 54th anniversary of the founding of the United Black Association for Development (UBAD), which was organized on February 9, 1969. I wanted to remark on how curious it is that UBAD, a black-conscious group, was formed just 19 years after a genuine self-rule revolution began here with the foundation of the People’s Committee/People’s United Party (PUP) in 1950. The PUP was established in Belize City, which was majority Black in population in 1950.

The Black working class (proletariat) of British Honduras was all PUP in 1950, but the public service class, which was clearly majority Black, supported parties in opposition to the anti-colonial PUP, those opposition parties being first the National Party (1951), and then the National Independence Party (1958). After the light-skinned, Mestizo-appearing George Price overthrew the Black leadership of the PUP (Leigh Richardson and Philip Goldson) in 1956, the Black public officers began to accuse Price of Latinizing the colony, but the fact is that the Black working classes remained firmly PUP.

So where did UBAD come from? In the first place, UBAD was youthful in composition, and it did not begin with the children of public service families. UBAD was mainly comprised of what the scholars call the lumpenproletariat (unemployed youth.) It has always seemed to me that the UBAD supporters originally came from PUP families. The question would then become: how did the Black PUP of 1950 come into conflict with its own children?

It is an intriguing question, and the issue of class must be studied. The Black public service (bourgeoisie) was anti-PUP, because they were pro-British, hence anti-Guatemala. The Black working class (proletariat) was PUP all the way, because they were anti-British. The Black lumpenproletariat was feeding off the black civil rights and black power movements which had become militant, violent even, in the latter part of the 1960s.

Everyone assumes the Ramnaraces were a classic middle-class Black (cum East Indian) Belmopan family, but Belize is such a complex society. The Ramnarace boys’ maternal great grandmother was Florence Quallo, a Belize City Creole lady who had four daughters — Mrs. Violet Gomez, Gertrude “Gatch” Young, Jean Young, and Cutsie Young. Cutsie Young, who died a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, had a daughter who married the East Indian guy with the unique name of Ramnarace in Belmopan. So then, the Ramnarace boys who were gunned down had family roots in the heart of Southside Belize City, where Florence Quallo lived her entire life.

Florence Quallo, like her daughter “Vio,” a KREM Radio regular when she was alive, spoke with a slow, drawling tone. Florence Quallo was famous in the old capital for frequenting the Belize City courtrooms, and predicting the outcome of cases, especially in the Supreme Court. Did her great grandsons ever know her?

When you watch the death announcements on local television stations, half the relatives of the deceased are usually resident in the United States. It is for sure that Belize has changed in the last 54 years. It is also for sure that in 1969 the majority of Belizeans had little idea how truly wealthy in natural resources The Jewel was. So that, many of us, when given the opportunity, left the scene for the gold supposedly in American streets.

So then, I will say this to you. Those of us who choose to remain here had better find out what the hell went on in Belmopan on New Year’s Eve. If something so horrific can take place in bucolic old Belmopan, we have much worse yet to see in the streets of the old capital.

What has happened with our young people in Belize City from the lumpenproletariat class, would not have happened in the days of UBAD, because the UBAD ten-member executive had credibility in the city streets. Our officers were very respected. Granted, the coming of cocaine in the late 70s/early 80s surely ratcheted up the potential for deadly conflict, but UBAD was for real. UBAD would have adjusted to the new realities, I do believe.

I have never believed that the United Democratic Party (UDP) was for real insofar as the interests of the Black lumpenproletariat were concerned. We saw the UDP run the country for 12/13 years, this supposedly Black UDP, and their leaders became super rich. The Black lumpenproletariat, meanwhile, were being buried in shallow graves.

I rest my case.