I have said this to you on more than one occasion before, that my feeling was that this oligarchical Belizean society decided, more than two decades ago, that it would deal with its socio-economic problems, which is to say, Belizean poor people, with the stick instead of the carrot. This week’s decisions by Cabinet to impose preventive detention and trial without jury are the present and logical extensions of how the Belizean establishment decided in the late 1980s to follow the Guatemalan model, instead of the Cuban one, say.
This is not a column I wanted to write, for several reasons. One of these reasons is that I believe that Mose Hyde is doing an outstanding job of speaking for his generation of Belizeans, and his generation is now more relevant than mine. (Respect likewise, Jackie Willoughby-Sanchez.) My generation is largely in the United States. Historically and emotionally, they are Belizeans, but in the sense of practical functionality, they are not.
A second reason I didn’t want to write this column is that my personal experiences are too germane where this week’s Cabinet decisions are concerned. My younger siblings have said to me that there was a PUP area representative from Cayo who once declared in the Belmopan House of Representative that the UBAD leaders should be “flogged.” I said to them that in Belize City, where all the action was taking place in 1972, that I don’t remember hearing of this silly statement. I refer to it as “silly” because the PUP government was in no position to flog anybody in 1972. I have assumed that it was 1972 when the “flogging” statement was made, because it was in 1972 that the confrontation between the ruling PUP and the UBAD became most violent. And, I am willing to grant that my opinion that the PUP was not in a position to flog anybody, is a macho opinion. Technically, the PUP was in a position to do anything. The problem would have lain in the repercussions.
The evidence suggests that Belizean juries were not willing to convict UBAD leaders accused of various crimes between 1970 and 1972. The people of Belize believed, and they have been vindicated by history, that UBAD was a righteous and relevant organization. The one UBAD officer who went to jail for an extended period, Charles X Eagan (later Ibrahim Abdullah), was an exception.
Today, it appears that Belizean juries are afraid and/or compromised with respect to gang defendants. More importantly the witnesses from the community are too scared to testify in gang trials. So that, the Barrow Cabinet decision to go trial without jury is an attempt to get around these issues affecting juries and witnesses. The thing is, we have a proven record of corrupt judges in Belize, and we have a proven record of incompetent judges in Belize. Trial without jury, therefore, is not a perfect solution to the power of the gangs. But, the government is desperate.
I respect the parliamentary democracy of Belize and the legitimate authority accruing to the UDP area representatives and their Cabinet. I do not believe my respect for the authorities to be the case with the gang leaders. Gang leaders are products of the hypocrisy, bigotry, and injustice of Belizean society, and they are absolutely cynical. There are two major differences between today’s gangs and yesterday’s UBAD. One is that the gangs now have awesome firepower, and the second is that, whereas UBAD was a movement of cultural and political education, the gangs are absolutely materialistic. In a sense, they are Belize’s television generation from the base of the socio-economic pyramid.
There is a third reason I did not want to write this column. I don’t want to make any personal criticisms of the Prime Minister. Mr. Barrow is the ideal which Belizean society desired, and he will likely receive the necessary support for his desperate measures. I come out of different experiences, I have lived differently, and I think differently. The stakes have now been ratcheted up where the game of “chicken” between the Barrow government and the gangs is concerned. Even as it appears that there were innocent victims of this game on Saturday, April 2, so there will be more innocent victims in the days ahead.
The problem from the standpoint of Belizean nationalists like myself is that we know in our hearts that there are major foreign players in this game. Dr. Herbert Gayle established last year in his research that the casualty statistics of Belize City’s Southside prove that there is something akin to a civil war taking place here. It’s a case of Belizeans against Belizeans. But, there are foreign players who are investing in the war and who stand to benefit. For them, this is a stock market game. As we asked a few weeks ago in an editorial, then, whose country is this anyway?
Power to the people.