31.1 C
Belize City
Thursday, March 28, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

From The Publisher

PublisherFrom The Publisher
My first experience with politics came with the 1963 graduating class of St. John’s College. I’ve never written about this before, because I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.
 
The president of our class of 1963 was Roger Brian Anthony Silva, now deceased. He used to sign his name “Roger B.A. Silva.” I don’t know how he became the president. It seemed to me that it was just a case of his wanting the post, and nobody else paying any attention. I don’t know if there was an election, or if anybody else ran. Nobody cared that much. “Mousie,” as he was called, was our class president.
 
Well, the one major decision the class had to make was with respect to our graduation prom. And Mousie really did frig that up. He held and chaired several class meetings, after school let out at 3:10 p.m., and we’d want to go play basketball or go home. There were decisions to be made about the prom, such as location, music, food, and so on.
 
I remember there was one meeting where about 33 out of the 36 students voted one way. Mousie refused to move forward. I don’t know if he wanted absolute unanimity or what, but he ended up fiddling and diddling until the class of 1963 had no prom at all.
 
We ended up with a “graduation party” at the Lizama home on Vernon Street, where “dungas” were served, “dungas” being panades between Creole bread.
 
Mousie’s indecisiveness and excessive consultation were the opposite of what constituted leadership on the sea, where I had been a captain for two years by 1963.
 
A little over five years later, I became a part of an organization called UBAD. Our very first leader was a man called Lionel Clarke, but he went into exile in the United States, under legal duress, just about six weeks after the organization was formed. As first vice president, I was appointed the new president by the remainder of the executive. Leadership of UBAD, in effect, was thrust upon me, at the age of 21.
 
There was no privilege involved with being president of UBAD in 1969, only burden, challenge and stress. The organization had no money, no financing and no assets.
 
In late 1970, I resigned as UBAD president because I was facing a Supreme Court trial on a charge of housebreaking and stealing. Were I to have been convicted on such a charge, it would have embarrassed the whole organization, hence the resignation. Galento X Neal, the first vice president, became president.
 
After my acquittal in the January 1971 session of the Supreme Court, I was returned to the presidency. By this time, UBAD’s only asset was a piece of leased swamp land on Partridge Street.
 
Holding a poor and diverse organization like UBAD together for four years, from 1969 to 1973, was quite a challenge. It cost me my marriage. In 1973, UBAD split into two factions, and was formally dissolved in November of 1974.
 
Since that time, there have been several organizations and leaders in the so-called black community. These organizations include the Nation of Islam, Isaiah Morter Harambee, the National Kriol Council, a short-lived Rastafarian organization in 1996, and lately a renewed Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
 
In 1996, some of us formed the UBAD Educational Foundation (UEF), because we demanded the right to represent the so-called Creole people of Belize in the Central American Black Organization (CABO).
 
Between 1969 and 1973, UBAD had been the dominant organization amongst black conscious Belizeans, especially the younger people. But remember, powerful leaders in both the ruling People’s United Party and the Opposition National Independence Party were black in color, if not in thinking. Older Belizeans were not sure what so-called black power was all about.
 
Today, from a military standpoint, the most powerful black organizations in our community are the neighbourhood gangs. This is a development which began in the latter part of the 1980’s.
 
The implications for a non-military business organization like Kremandala were huge. Remember now, while the pen may be mightier than the sword, the gun is something else again. By the middle 1990’s, the gang which controlled our neighbourhood was the Ghost Town Crips.But the leaders of the Crips, such as George “Junie Balls” McKenzie, Ainsworth “Pie” Wagner and Anthony “Trigger” Adderly, had all grown up with Kremandala as a positive community presence and as a job provider. In fact, Trigger Adderly was my godson, and Pie Wagner was his first cousin.
 
Sometimes the relationship between Kremandala and the Crips became a bit touchy. The Crips were giving us a respect they did not have to give, from the purely military standpoint. But then Pie got killed, Junie Balls was locked up, and Trigger got killed.
 
By early 2003, the ruling faction of the PUP had bought out four people who had been portrayed as Kremandala people. These were a lawyer, a journalist, a basketball coach, and a basketball player. Almost immediately after the March 2003 general election victory by the PUP, the new ruling faction of the neighbourhood Crips stepped on me. It reached the point where three Crips “shatters” went to my home. I am convinced that that was orchestrated by people in the PUP who were supposed, strictly speaking, to be my friends.
 
I see where G. Michael Reid, the police public relations officer under the PUP, is now using a website to launch attacks on me (and Mose). I know that G. Mike dislikes me personally, but my feeling is that the recent web venom is a business decision on G. Michael’s part. In other words, he is being paid to do this. If this is so, then we should, of course, ask the question – who?
 
Who pays the piper, calls the tune. That’s all for today. See you Friday, if God is willing.

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International