In the absence of the working papers, all I can rely on is the evidence of my senses, specifically sight and hearing the length of my experience, and the logic of my mind. I am saying to you that there was a conspiracy to change the population of Belize from a black majority to a black minority. That conspiracy was probably hatched in London and Washington. It was financed and executed through the United Nations and their High Commission for Refugees, using the “humanitarian’ Scandinavian countries as a front. The Price PUP government collaborated in the conspiracy, which took place, for all intents and purposes, between 1974 and 1984.
If it was otherwise from what I am saying, then there would have been a serious effort to balance the ethnicity of the 1974-1984 immigration by allowing Jamaican and Haitian farming families to work in the Cayo, Stann Creek, and Toledo areas. There was no such effort. It was still possible for this to be done when the UDP finally came to power in 1984, but remember, it wasn’t Goldson who led the UDP in 1984. Plus, Mr. Philip was practically blind already.
In fact, and this is the kicker, it is still possible for the immigration imbalance to be corrected. Today, as we speak, it is still possible. But, you and I know it will not happen. It was orchestrated at an international level, and the black people of Belize were innocent and unwilling participants in the process, because we wanted to go to the United States and we had no idea what we were giving up in Belize.
Again, I will say this. Belize was always a country which was prejudiced in the matter of skin color. Even when we were black majority, as a people we always preferred the lighter skin over the darker one. We had been programmed that way for three hundred years, to the extent where the preference for lighter skin had been encapsulated in the widespread and accepted saying/slogan – “raise yu color!”
If any politician in Belize ever said anything about using Jamaican and Haitian families to balance our ethnicity, such a politician would be committing suicide. The people of Belize would be horrified at such an immigration proposal. So, what has happened in Belize since 1974, where our immigration is concerned, is not something that the Belizean people oppose. Yes, our people were not properly informed; yes, there was a conspiracy. But those Belizean people who are opposed to what happened, have no one to blame but themselves. Call it “ourselves,” if you like.
As the 40th anniversary of UBAD approaches, I am, naturally, doing some thinking about this organization which had such an impact on my life. When UBAD was swallowed up by the UDP in 1973, I opposed that process, and I paid a price for it. The move made by some powerful UBAD leaders to participate in the foundation of the UDP in September of 1973, was a sensible one, a popular one. There was a fight between that UBAD faction, and the faction which I led. In retrospect, that fighting was most regrettable, but none of those who went the UDP way were seeing what I was seeing. They had not been educated at Landivar, and they therefore discounted the Liberal Party factor. They never seriously examined the implications of a party which was created out of thin air, created just in time to sit at the UDP table with strength equal to, and then greater than, the UBAD Party.
In 1973, I kept praying for Mr. Goldson to come home. But Mr. Philip’s situation in 1973 was not strong. His wife was in Brooklyn trying to raise and educate their six children on a legal clerk’s salary, which Mr. Philip himself was struggling to do law in London when he was already in his fifth decade. Things would have gone down differently in 1973 had Mr. Goldson been here, but it doesn’t make any difference any more. What’s done, is done.
I am writing what I am writing because after us, there will come Belizeans who will research what happened in Belize between 1974 and 1984. The relevant London, Washington and United Nations papers will have been declassified, and the truth will be revealed.
We live in a time when a people must arm themselves with as much information and knowledge as they can. Had the Palestinian people known in 1948 what they know today, then they would probably not be in the terrible situation in which they now find themselves. The real world is a rough proposition, and prayers won’t get the job done. You have to be prepared to fight, or you will lose what you believe is rightfully yours. As it is said in the streets – if you sleep, you weep.
There are people who say to me sometimes, UBAD was before its time. I’m not sure exactly what they mean by this. Perhaps they mean that we should have come “hereafter,” to use Macbeth’s word. I will say this, nevertheless. The educated ones in Belize let us down. But that was precisely why the brilliant Landivar people targeted education so long ago – for control purposes. Education in Belize paralyzes a lot of our talent: it was designed that way. The people of Belize have been betrayed many times, but we have never surrendered.
All power to the people.