As the years have gone by in Belize, general elections have become more and more a big money thing. The leaders of political parties here are not as powerful and independent as they pretend to be. They are controlled by the big daddybucks. Let me give you an example.

It is difficult for me to explain how loyal Rufus X was to the United Democratic Party. He was there from foundation, and he stood up for the UDP when they were struggling to establish real credibility.

Let me give you an instance of what I have seen Rufus do in the service of his party ? the UDP. There was a large PUP public meeting at the Cinderella Plaza one night when I was allied with the PUP. This would have been maybe 1977, 1978. Wearing his military clothes as usual, Rufus walked through the crowd until he was standing right in front of the PUP rostrum. Hon. George Price, Party Leader and Premier, was speaking. Rufus stood there amongst all those people for whom Mr. Price was an absolute idol. Then Rufus slapped his right hand down to his large army pants pocket, in an action as if he were going to draw his gun. He did this more than one time, yet all the PUP tough guys stood frozen. Then Rufus walked away. Based on what had happened in early 1975 at the Courthouse Wharf, Rufus? actions amounted to his risking his life in the service of the UDP.

I saw Rufus pull a similar stunt at the corner of Craig and Daly Streets when the PUP were rallying in their hundreds. For me, the man?s UDP credentials were totally impeccable.

In 1987/1988, when Rufus X decided to challenge Sam Rhaburn in the UDP?s Belize Rural North convention, I advised him against it. Rhaburn had won the Belize Rural North seat in 1984, with Rufus? substantial assistance, defeating the PUP incumbent, Fred Hunter, and Rhaburn had become a UDP Government Minister. The UDP leadership, the way the party system works, was going to protect Rhaburn, because he was inner circle.

But it was more than that. Black power Rufus X was non grata to the big financiers of the ruling UDP, and so the UDP ruling faction understood that he had to be prevented from becoming a UDP standard bearer.

In 1988, I could see what was about to happen to Rufus, but when pretty much the same thing began happening to me in late 1972, I did not understand nor could I believe what was taking place.

The money that sustained the Opposition NIP throughout the 1960?s was raised by the British Honduras Freedom Committee from Belizeans in New York City and Chicago. When the NIP was subsumed by the UDP in 1973, new money entered the Opposition which, combined with the Freedom Committee money, made the UDP a more muscular party than the NIP. That new money was merchant, anti-communist money, and the leading UDP financiers became Santiago Castillo, Sr., and Ismael Gomez.

There were several reasons why Evan X Hyde was non grata to the new UDP. Firstly, black power could not be on the main stage of the new UDP. Secondly, yours truly?s previous mingling with Assad Shoman and Said Musa, considered in 1973 as young PUP communists, made me an ideological suspect. Thirdly, the heroics of the UBAD Party between 1969 and 1972 had made me too independent, therefore ?troublesome.?

I always felt that I was treated unfairly, unjustly by the new UDP, but you have to understand the party system. It was growing more and more dominated by the big money people. In the 1960?s, party faithful were still raising money for the PUP and the NIP with food sales and social functions. That began to change quickly in the 1970?s, and today it?s all about the millionaires and multimillionaires.

There have been generations of the brown bourgeoisie who have been blinded to political reality by the intensity of their hostility to the PUP. People like myself and Rufus X were sacrificed by the UDP leadership, while the UDP supporters religiously accepted party propaganda condemning people who had been honest warriors.

It is the same way the PUP faithful behave, of course, and over the years the UDP faithful have come to believe that they have to be as blindly loyal to their party as the PUP supporters appear to be to theirs.

At this 2005 point in history, the UDP can afford to set the history straight, but there are high ranking leaders inside the UDP who have made reputations by distorting the history. So the lies have to remain in place.

Listen here, brown people. When Evan X Hyde and Rufus X were fighting the PUP, the PUP were being fought. We?re victims of a two-party system in this place. The history of Belize between 1969 and 2005 is not only about the blue and the red. There was some red, black and green about the place. For real.